Case Name: The State against James Shinn
Court: New Jersey Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: New Jersey
Decision Date: 1819-05
Citations: 5 N.J.L. 553
Docket Number: 
Parties: The State against James Shinn.
Judges: 
Reporter: New Jersey Law Reports
Volume: 5
Pages: 637–637

Head Matter:
The State against James Shinn.
on certiorari.
After insolyent applies for discharge, the law is re-^e^lfter01 wards dis-void,
THIS writ was prosecuf ed by Joshua G. Harkcr, and was directed to the Common Pleas of Monmouth, to remove . . . the judgment, order, petition, and proceedings given and made, upon the-application of the defendant for the benefit of the insolvent laws of the state. By the return, it appears that he presented his petition to the court on the 27th of January 1818 ; that the proceedings were had in the usual manner, and that the final hearing upon the application took place on the 12th of March 1818, on which day he was discharged by the court. In the month of February, after the application and before the discharge, the legislature passed a law, repealing the one then in force, for the benefit of insolvent debtors, and containing no clause, saving the benefit of such applications as had been previously made.
The reason assigned and relied on, for setting aside the order and discharge, was in the following words. “ Because the acts of the legislature, under which the application of the said James Shinn, was made to the said court in the term of January 1818, were afterwards and before the 12th day of March 1818, when the said order of discharge was made, repealed and not in force on the day last aforesaid, by reason whereof the said order was and is wholly unauthorised, illegal, and void.”
Ewing for the prosecution.
See Den. James vs. Dubois, 1 Har. 286. Hunt vs. Gulick, 4 Hal. 208.

Opinion:
The court,
after argument, did order and adjudge, that the order of the said Court of Common Pleas of the county of Monmouth, for the discharge of said Shinn from confinement as an insolvent debtor, and the discharge of said Shinn, to be set aside.