Case Name: PEARL against EXECUTORS OF HARRINGTON
Court: Vermont Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Vermont
Decision Date: 1820
Citations: 1 Brayt. 47
Docket Number: 
Parties: PEARL against EXECUTORS OF HARRINGTON.
Judges: 
Reporter: Brayton
Volume: 1
Pages: 47–48

Head Matter:
COSTS.
PEARL against EXECUTORS OF HARRINGTON.
Chittenden,
1820.
ACT of 1807, allowing $ 2 term fee relates back to terms in which a suit, then iá Court, was pending before the act was passed.
THIS was a writ of error, brought to reverse a judgment of Chittenden County Court, the error assigned was the taxation, in the bill of the costs, of two dollars term fee during the yeaf 1806. Before the act of 1806, the party recovering was entitled to one dollar term fee, seventy-five cents per day for attendance, and travel within this state. 2 Stat. p. 387.
The Statute of 1806, increased the term fee to two dollars* and continued the travel fee for actual travel within this State t The act of 1807, 2 Stat. 394, enacts, “That the party recovering, in any civil action, in any County or Supreme Court, shall be entitled to tax in his bill of costs, tné sum of two dollars for each term of the Court in which his action shall have been pen ding, in lieu of bis attendance, and the term fee heretofore allowed,” and restricts the travel to two dollars.

Opinion:
By the Court.
The act of 1807, must be construed to provide an uniform rule, for the taxation of costs, in áll actions iti Court at the titnc the act was passed, and to relate to the time of the commencement of such actions ; a party has no vested right in the bill of costs until áfter recovery in the suit, so that this circumstance does hot give the act a retrospective operation, so as to affect a vested right, the cost was legally taxed.
Judgment, there is no error. — See Audita Querela 5. Assump-sit, 3. Bastardy. Condemnation, No. 2. Set-Off, 3.