# Inglee v. Coolidge

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United States Supreme Court
15 U.S. 363
Inglee v. Coolidge
THIS was a writ of error upon a judgment of the supreme judicial court of Massachusetts, rendered in an action of assumpsit. The declaration contained three counts, to which the general issue was pleaded, and upon two of these counts the jury found a general verdict for the defendant, (the plaintiff in error,) and upon the third count a general verdict, with damages for the original plaintiff. The cause was then continued, as the record states, 'for the opinion of the whole court upon the law of the case, as reported by the judge who tried the same.' At a subsequent term, judgment was rendered by the whole court for the plaintiff, upon the verdict found in his favour. The report of the judge who tried the cause came up in the record annexed to the writ of error, with other proceedings and exhibits in the cause.
Mr. G. Sullivan, for the plaintiff in error, argued, that, by the report of the judge, in the court below, it appeared that the chief question in this cause involved a constructive application of the act of congress of the 18th of June, 1812, declaring war against Great Britain, to the question whether the purchase of a British license to protect the property of a citizen, was a lawful consideration for the promissory note on which the action was brought. It is contended, by the defendant in error, that however this may be, this court cannot sustain the writ of error in the present case; because the report of the judge is no part of the record. To determine the question suggested by this objection, it becomes necessary to inquire of what a record consists. 'A record,' says Britton,a 'is a memorial or remembrance, an authentic testimony in writing, contained in rolls of parchment, and preserved in a court of record.' But a more particular definition is given by Lord Coke,b who defines it to be 'a memorial of the proceedings or acts of a court of record.' In modern times, to avoid the delay incident to the preparation of a special verdict at the trial, a practice has grown up of reserving the cause for the whole court, upon a special case, which is prepared by the counsel, or, as a substitute therefor, is made by the judge, and thrown into the form of a report, under a special agreement of the parties, that a nonsuit, a default, or even a different verdict may be entered, according to the decision of the court; such is the
Mr. Webster, for the defendant in error, contended, that the points on which the plaintiff relied could not be raised in this case. Nothing appears on the record of the judgment in Massachusetts by which the court can pronounce that judgment to be erroneous. The general rule of law confines writs of error to matters arising on the record, and the statute expressly provides, that in cases where writs of error are brought in this court to reverse judgments rendered in state courts, on the ground that such judgments were rendered against the validity, or on an erroneous construction of a statute of the United States, 'no other error shall be assigned or regarded, as a ground of reversal in any such case, than
Mr. Justice STORY delivered the opinion of the court, and after stating the case, proceeded as follows:
The writ of error must, therefore, be dismissed.
Mr. Wheaton, for the defendant in error, moved for costs.
[Mr. Chief Justice MARSHALL.

## Notes

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States federal government (see 17 U.S.C. 105).
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