Case ID: va_2/html/0693-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "The Court", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Lee v. Turberville.
    October Term, 1795.
    .Supersedeas — Errors Apparent on Record. — If a super-sedeas be granted to an order of an Inferior Court, giving leave to bnild a mill, the Superior Court is not confined to errors apparent on the face of the record.
    Eeave was granted the appellant by the •County Court of Westmoreland to build a mill. The appellee conceiving himself interested, prayed an appeal which was refused, because it appeared to the court that he was no party. • He then applied to, and •obtained from a judge of the General Court a supersedeas which removed the record before the District Court of Northumberland, where the order of the County Court was reversed, from which an appeal was prayed to this court.
    Lee for the appellant.
    Before the court goes into the testimony which is about to be offered in support of the judgment of the District Court, I must object to the mode in which the cause was carried from the County Court. I believe it will, not be contended on the other side, that there is error in the proceedings of the County Court apparent upon the face of the record, and therefore the appellee must expect to sustain the judgment of the District Court, upon evidence dehors the record. If the appellee had appealed from the judgment of the County Court, I admit that he might have been let in, to controvert the propriety of the order, in the District Court, upon the merits of the case, and for this purpose he might have gone into testimony, because in such a case, the court might have taken cognizance of the fact, as well as of the law. The County Court having refused the appeal, the party ought to have applied for a mandamus, or for a writ of error. But a supersedeas could carry only the law of the case before the District Court, and consequently if there be not error upon the face of the record, this court must reverse the judgment.
    Marshall on the same side.
    The District Court may grant a supersedeas, or writ of error, and may receive appeals when allowed by an Inferior Court. A writ of error will give jurisdiction to the court to examine into fact in the same manner as *an appeal would, and so it was determined in the old General Court. The reason given by the court was, that as a writ of error would lie in fact as well as in law, and the power given by the act of Assembly to grant writs of error being general, the judgment of an Inferior Court in matters of fact, might properly be examined before a Superior Court upon a writ of error. But a supersedeas only brings up a transcript of the record, and the court is confined to such errors in law as are apparent upon the face of it.
    Washington for the appellee.
    The reason upon which the decision in the General Court is said to have been founded, does not appear to be a sound one, in support of the distinction taken between a super-sedeas, and a writ of error. In England, a writ of error which issues from a Superior to an Inferior Court, can authorise only an examination of errors in law. If the errors be in fact, they are examinable in the same, not before another court. A supersedeas in England is an auxiliary process, and in certain cases it is the companion of a writ of error, and does not remove the record at all. It is considered by the laws of this state, as well as by the practice of the courts, as being similar in every respect to a writ of error; Either of them have the effect of removing the record before a Superior Court. A writ of error from a Superior to an Inferior Court to correct errors in fact, (except in some particular cases,) is as great a novelty in this country, as in England, and therefore it cannot be preferable to a supersedeas in cases tike the present, where the facts are to be re-examined before the Superior Court. They are precisely alike, when the process issues from a Superior to an Inferior Court. In no case (except such as respects mills, wills, roads, and the like), can errors be examined into and corrected, which do not appear upon the face of the record. In those cases, the Superior Court takes up the cause ab initio, and enquires into the errors both in law and in fact. It is therefore of no consequence, whether the record is removed by appeal, writ of error, or supersedeas.
    
      
      Supersedeas — Substitute for Writ of Error. — The principal case is cited in Wingfield v. Crenshaw, 3 Hen. & M. 253, 254; Hite v. Wilson, 2 Hen. & M. 285.
    
   The Court

having suspended an opinion upon this point until the testimony was gone through, reversed the judgment of the District Court, and affirmed that of the County Court upon the evidence.