West v. Barnes (2 U.S. (2 Dall.) 401 (1791)) was the Supreme Court’s first decision and the earliest case to call for oral argument. Although Van Staphorst v. Maryland was docketed earlier in 1791, it was settled before being heard. West v. Barnes was argued on August 2 and decided on August 3, 1791. Another case, Collet v. Collet, was the first appellate case docketed in 1792 but was dropped before the hearing.
Supreme Court Reporter Alexander Dallas published an abbreviated summary of the decision, with the full opinions appearing in various newspapers. The Court ruled on procedural grounds that a writ of error (an appeal) had to be issued within ten days by the clerk of the Supreme Court, as mandated by federal statute, rather than by a lower court closer to the plaintiff in Rhode Island. This ruling led Congress to change the procedure in the ninth section of the Process and Compensation Act of 1792, allowing circuit courts to issue these writs, thereby aiding citizens far from the capital
Background of the case:
This was the first instance of judicial review in the U.S., where the Court could have overturned a Rhode Island statute about lodging debt payments in paper currency. However, the Court deferred to the legislature and ruled against William West, the petitioner, on procedural grounds.
William West, a farmer, anti-federalist leader, Revolutionary War general, and judge from Scituate, Rhode Island, owed a mortgage on his farm from a failed molasses deal in 1763 to the Jenckes family from Providence. After twenty years of payments, in 1785, he asked the state for permission to conduct a lottery to pay off the remainder, which the state granted due to his service during the Revolution. Much of the proceeds were in paper currency instead of gold or silver, as permitted by state statute. West lodged the funds with a state judge to be collected within ten days.
David L. Barnes, a Jenckes heir and attorney who later became a federal judge, sued in federal court, claiming gold or silver payment was required and refusing the paper currency. Despite lacking formal training, West represented himself in the circuit court in June 1791 before Chief Justice John Jay, Associate Justice William Cushing, and Henry Marchant, who rejected his arguments. West then appealed to the Supreme Court on a writ of error, following all statutory directions. Unable to travel to Philadelphia, he hired William Bradford, Jr., Pennsylvania’s attorney general, to represent him. On appeal, Barnes focused on procedural irregularities, claiming the writ had to be signed and sealed by the Supreme Court clerk, not the circuit court clerk in Rhode Island. This would have required West to undertake an arduous journey to Philadelphia within ten days. West lost on this procedural issue and eventually had to give up his farm.
Judgement:
The full opinion of the court was widely covered by newspapers at the time since there was no official court reporter in 1791. These seriatim opinions were republished and are now available in James R. Perry’s The Documentary History of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1789-1800, Volume 6, “West v. Barnes,” pp. 3–27. Each of the five justices issued a seriatim opinion on the writ of error, but they couldn’t find common law precedent from state courts or pre-Revolution English case law, including those from Coke and Blackstone’s treatises, to support their decision.
Several justices expressed reservations about the federal statute and suggested alternatives for filing within the ten-day statutory period. However, they believed that only Congress had the power to change the statute’s meaning. In summarizing the case, the Dallas reporter quoted John Jay and noted the court’s unanimous decision:
Bradford presented a writ, claiming it was a writ of error, issued from the clerk of the circuit court for Rhode Island and directed to that court, asking for a return of the judgment and proceedings. Barnes, one of the defendants, argued the writ was invalid because it came from the wrong office. After arguments, the court unanimously decided that writs of error to remove cases to this court could only come from the Supreme Court clerk’s office.
The motion was denied.
Aftermath of the case:
Justice James Iredell was discontented with the governing statute and wrote to President Washington, urging a change in the law that only allowed the clerk of the Supreme Court to issue writs of error. The Process and Compensation Act of 1792 was subsequently enacted to prevent such hardships for future litigants.
Several months later, on November 9, 1791, Barnes filed another ejectment suit against West to remove him from the mortgaged farm, in the Circuit Court for the District of Rhode Island. Justices Jay, Cushing, and Judge Henry Marchant ruled the plea invalid again. They determined that West lodged payment of his debt with a Rhode Island judge on September 16, giving Barnes ten days to collect it per the state statute. However, the Rhode Island “lodging” Act was suspended on September 19, preventing the full ten-day period from occurring, as only three days had passed. Consequently, it did not conform to the statute. Barnes eventually won the ejectment case but faced difficulties removing West’s family from the farm since West had sold it to his son-in-law. West’s estate remained disputed after his death, resulting in the First Circuit decision West v. Randall in 1820.
According to Cotter v. Alabama, “Prior to 1791, the practice was that a writ of error could only be issued from the office of the clerk of the Supreme Court. In Mussina v. Cavazos, ([73, US 355], 6 Wall. 355), it is stated that the decision in West v. Barnes led to the enactment of the ninth section of the act of 1792, being section 1004 of the Revised Statutes” (Cotter v. Alabama G. S. R. Co., 61 F. 747, 748 (6th Cir. 1894)).
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