The inventory contains detailed information on the content and arrangement of each series, mentions any indexes, discusses the relation of the records to other series, and cites relevant statutes or court rules. However the records of the Supreme Court of Judicature are complex, and suggestions for locating cases may be useful.
The Supreme Court of Judicature was a court of statewide jurisdiction. A judgment filed and docketed in any one of the clerk's offices could be enforced anywhere in the state. Usually judgment rolls were filed in the clerk's office nearest the filing attorney's place of business. However, judgments could be, and sometimes were, filed in a Supreme Court clerk's office in a different part of the state. Certain other major types of documents were required to be filed in a specific clerk's office. Starting in 1820 statute law required sheriffs to return all process (writs of summons, arrest, and execution) to a designated clerk's office.[1] (See map, p. 22) After 1832 Supreme Court rule 80 directed attorneys to file motions argued before a circuit judge in designated clerk's offices.[1] Motion papers from the first and second circuits were to be filed at New York City; third and fourth circuits, at Albany; fifth and sixth circuits, at Utica; seventh and eighth circuits, at Geneva.[2]
The larger series of Supreme Court documents are usually arranged chronologically by year and then alphabetically by name of judgment debtor or by name of filing attorney. Judgment rolls and records of pleadings furnished to circuit courts (except the pleadings filed at Geneva) follow the first arrangement (judgment debtor). Declarations, motions, and writs of arrest and execution generally follow the second arrangement (filing attorney). Either arrangement poses access problems because of the lack of overall indexes. The dockets of judgments give names of judgment debtors, but the arrangement of the dockets is complex. The Albany dockets were compiled for each court term or for several years together. Transcripts of dockets in the New York, Utica, and Geneva offices were compiled each court term or (after 1829)
semimonthly. Thus for the fifty-year period from 1797 to 1847, there are nearly two thousand separate alphabetical indexes to judgments filed in the four offices of the court. The only cumulative index to judgment debtors (usually defendants) for the three upstate offices is J0142 Index to Dockets of Judgments, 1829-35. There is no index to judgment creditors (usually plaintiffs) at all.
There were four practicable ways of locating a judgment when one has some information about a case but not the exact date and place of filing and docketing. The first is to scan the dockets or transcripts of dockets for the Supreme Court office where the judgment roll is believed to have been filed. In this case one must know the name of the losing party and the approximate date of judgment. The second
is to look through the judgment rolls themselves. Again one must know the name of the losing party and the probable date and office of filing. One should remember that many types of actions were transitory, not local, and therefore
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the plaintiff could lay the venue in any county he chose. The third way of locating judgments is to search circuit court minutes, which should be in custody of the clerk of the county where the trial was held If one finds the trial minutes, the filing and docketing of final judgment normally would have occurred a few days or weeks afterward. However, most cases will not appear in the minutes because they never went to trial. Instead, judgment was awarded after a defendant's confession or default, after a nonsuit by the plaintiff, or after the court ruled on a point of law raised on demurrer or a special case. A fourth method of locating cases handled by a particular attorney is to search the common rule books of the Supreme Court office serving the county where a plaintiff resided. (The rules are entered under name of filing attorney.)
If one wishes to identify the attorneys practicing in a particular county, city, or village, one may consult the published directories listed in the Bibliography. Names of lawyers can also be found in city directories and county histories. If one is looking for a case in which the State of New York was the plaintiff, one must search under the name of the attorney general, since the case was brought in his name. A list of attorneys general is found in Appendix F.
The records of the Supreme Court of Judicature document many cases that were included in published reports and digests of court decisions. Official law reporting in New York State commenced in 1804, although some unofficial reports exist back to 1794. Between 1803 and 1847 the official reports of the Supreme Court and the Court for the Correction of Errors occupy seventy volumes. The reports contain information on attorneys' arguments and judges' opinions in many calendar cases (enumerated motions) and in some nonenumerated cases decided by the Supreme Court. The preface to the first volume of Cowen's Reports (1824) states that "in deciding calendar causes, and those of the Court of Errors, the Judges usually make copious notes," which they made available to the reporter. However, the judges' opinions in nonenumerated cases were usually delivered orally, and the reporter had to depend on his own notes of what was said. Cowen also remarked that he had to reduce greatly in length the attorneys' arguments, though he tried to include enough information so that it would not appear that a case had "passed without discussion."
Besides the official reports, there were also several published volumes of "unofficial" reports of cases in Supreme Court, the Court of Errors, and the circuit courts (the latter are called nisi prius reports). Several digests of reports also appeared in the early nineteenth century. These digests summarized the reported cases by legal topic. Abbott New York Digest (1929-43 ed.) summarizes all reported cases from the New York State courts back to 1794, and is the most accessible source for locating reported Supreme Court cases bearing on particular legal topics. For a listing of published court reports and digests, see the Bibliography.
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