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Supreme Court Jurisdiction and Procedure [cont.]
Statutory and Summary Jurisdiction |
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| Common law actions comprised the great majority of the court's cases. However, statute law vested the Supreme Court of Judicature with certain other areas of original jurisdiction. Acts of 1786, 1788, and 1838 authorized the Supreme Court to appoint trustees or assignees for the property of insolvent debtors, including "absconding, concealed, or non-resident debtors," and to discharge the insolvent from his debts after sale of his property.[1]Pursuant to a New York act of 1801, the Supreme Court had the power to record wills and the proofs thereof in cases requiring immediate probate.[2] Acts of 1813, 1816, 1833, and 1834, authorized the court to appoint commissioners to assess and award damages for lands condemned for street openings or widening in New York City and Brooklyn.[3] | |
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Writ of Capias ad Satisfaciendum, 1812. Detail. See page 32 |
| As a court of record, the Supreme Court had the authority under federal statutes to file declarations of intention and petitions to become a United States citizen and to record the final naturalization orders. Also pursuant to federal law, the court filed affidavits of Revolutionary War service by pension applicants. (Most documents relating to Revolutionary War pensions and naturalizations are found in records of lower civil courts.)[4] Starting in 1815 the Supreme Court of Judicature had concurrent jurisdiction with the United States district court over suits by the United States relating to collection of two federal taxes: the excise tax on liquor and the direct tax on real property levied during the War of 1812.[5] | |
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Insolvent's Petition, 1812. Detail. See page 41 |
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The Supreme Court also possessed original jurisdiction, infrequently exercised, in certain types of cases relating to public officers, corporations, and real property.[6]
The Supreme Court possessed summary jurisdiction to regulate its own proceedings, to admit attorneys to practice in the court, and to proceed against persons in contempt of court. In order to regulate its proceedings, the Supreme Court adopted general rules concerning motions, rules, pleading, demurrers, defaults, contempt, trials, attorneys, notices, costs, and other subjects. These court rules were entered in the minute books and periodically published. The court established by rule the qualifications for admission of attorneys and counselors to practice at the bar, and the clerk entered in the minute books lists of persons admitted to practice.[7] The general and special terms of the Supreme Court of Judicature were established by statute, but after 1801 terms of the circuit courts were set by court rule, not by statute. Finally, the Supreme Court could rule that attachments issue against officers who had failed to obey a writ and who had thereby fallen into contempt. The most common example was a sheriff's failure to return a writ on time. Rules for attachment were numerous, but completed attachments were rare.[8] |
The Supreme Court possessed summary jurisdiction to regulate its own proceedings, to admit attorneys to practice, and to proceed against persons in contempt of court. |
| The Supreme Court of Judicature did not possess equity jurisdiction, which was vested in the Court of Chancery. Equity jurisdiction embraced a wide variety of proceedings for which there was no action or remedy available in a court of law. Following is a brief review of chancery jurisdiction in New York during the early nineteenth century. The most common types of equity proceedings involved mortgaged property, marital relations, and the property of corporations and classes of persons needing judicial protection. The Court of Chancery granted mortgage foreclosures; appointed, supervised, and discharged trustees for the property of married women, minors, lunatics, idiots, and habitual drunkards; granted legal separations, annulments, and divorces; and supervised the management and sale of property by religious corporations. The Court of Chancery had wide powers to safeguard the property of insolvent or mismanaged business corporations. The court also appointed receivers for insolvent banks. Some portions of chancery jurisdiction were carried over from the English court of the same name, while the rest were added by various New York statutes. | Equity jurisdiction was vested in the Court of Chancery. |
 | License to Practice Law, 1808. Detail. See page 48. |
| Another area of equity jurisdiction was the power to "assist" the Supreme Court and other courts of law in ensuring that justice was done and judgments were enforced. The Court of Chancery could compel the appearance of a witness or production of evidence by a writ of subpoena; grant an injunction ordering a party to refrain from committing wrongs before trial; and issue an order of specific performance to enforce a judgment that had an equitable component. Finally, equity jurisdiction embraced certain types of cases that would normally be brought in a court of law but could be initiated in the Court of Chancery because an equitable procedure or remedy was required. Such cases usually involved fraud, accident, accounting for profits or money received, women's dower rights, or partition of real property.[9] | |
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Note 1: Laws of 1786, Chap. 24; Laws of 1788, Chap. 92; Laws of 1801, Chap. 163; Laws of 1813, chap. 98; Revised Statutes (1829), Part II, Chap. 5, Title 1, Art. 3. Coleman, Debtors and Creditors in America, pp. lO-29. Note 2: Laws of 1801, Chap. 9. Note 3: Laws of 1813, Chap. 86; Laws of 1816, Chaps. 81, 160; Laws of 1833, Chap. 319; Laws of 1834, Chap. 92. See James W. Gerard, Jr., A Treatise on the Title of the Corporation and Others to the Streets, Wharves, Piers, Parks, Feries, and Other Lands and Franchises in the City of New York (New York: 1873), pp. 97, 132. Note 4: 1 Stat. 103 (1790), 414 (1795); 2 Stat. 153 (1802) (naturalization); 3 Stat. 410 (1818) (pensions). Note 5: 3 Stat. 244 (1815). Note 6: See Graham, Organization and Jurisdiction of the Courts of Law and Equity, pp. 198-231. The Supreme Court had jurisdiction over proceedings "in the nature of a quo warranto" (This was named for the English writ of quo warranto, but it did not employ the writ of that name.) This proceeding was brought by the attorney general, in cases where an individual had illegally usurped a privilege of government office (civil or military) or an office in a corporation created by the state, or a corporation had violated its charter, or persons were acting as a corporation without having received a charter. Other areas of original jurisdiction were annulment by writ of scire facias of letters patent or charters of incorporation obtained by mistake or fraud, or violated by the patentee, a proceeding brought by the attorney general; prosecution of sheriffs who were liable for escaped prisoners or who were guilty of official misconduct; proceedings to attach (seize) the property of out-of-state corporations against which an action for debt or damages had been brought; determining conflicting claims to real property that could not be settled by an action of ejectment (this particular proceeding replaced the action of fine and recovery to settle claims to land, abolished in 1829); and finally, awarding custody of children to one of their separated parents on a writ of habeas corpus. (Statute law also authorized a similar proceeding to award custody of children detained in a Shaker community to a parent outside the community.) Note 7: On admission of attorneys and counselors to practice in New York courts see Anton-Hermann Chroust, The Rise of the Legal Profession in America (Norman, Okl.: 1965), vol. 2, pp. 10, 36-37, 245-52. The Supreme Court counselor was an attorney who had practiced in the court for at least three years. Until 1835, a counselor's signature was required on any special pleadings filed with the court. In addition, only counselors were permitted to appear before the Supreme Court to argue cases. Note 8: Revised Statutes (1829), Part III, Chap. 8, Title 13. Note 9: See the unpublished administrative history of the Court of Chancery by Alan S. Kowlowitz. The Supreme Court did exercise equity jurisdiction when it sat as a court of exchequer. See Stanley N. Katz, Newcastle's New York: Anglo-American Politics, 1732-1753 (Cambridge, Mass.: 1968), pp. 64-68. The New York State Archives holds extensive records of the Court of Chancery, spanning the period 1701-1847. A list of record series is available. | |
 The Historical Society of the Courts of the State of New York | |
