Case Name: Vine Grosvenor, Plaintiff in Error, versus Henry Danforth
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1819-09
Citations: 15 Tyng 74
Docket Number: 
Parties: * Vine Grosvenor, Plaintiff in Error, versus Henry Danforth.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 16
Pages: 63–64

Head Matter:
* Vine Grosvenor, Plaintiff in Error, versus Henry Danforth.
A writ of error need not be endorsed.
An attorney of record in an action, in which an erroneous judgment has been rendered against his client, may sue a writ of error for the reversal of such judgment, without special authority ; and it is his duty so to do.
This was a writ of error, brought to reverse a judgment of the Court of Common Pleas for this county, rendered in an action of assumpsit, wherein the said Danforth was original plaintiff, and the said Grosvenor was original defendant.
Jarvis, for the defendant in error,
moved the Court to dismiss the suit, because the writ of error was not endorsed. But the motion ivas overruled, the Court observing that the statute did not require judicial writs, of which this was one, to be endorsed .
Jarvis then called on Gold, counsel for the plaintiff in error,
to produce his authority for bringing this process. But it being agreed that Gold had been the attorney of record for Grosvenor in the original action, it was said by the Court that no special authority need be produced; it being the duty of counsel retained in any action, to institute process for the reversal of an erroneous judgment rendered against their client in such action , .
Stat. 1784, c. 28, § 31.
Vide 15 Mass. Rep. 316, Dearborn vs. Dearborn.
[Quare de hoc, et vide Burr vs. Atwood, 1 Salk. 80. —2 Salk. 603, 2d Ed. —Ray. 1262. —2 Show. 61. —Kceble, 593. —Dawson, 34. —Bacon, Ab. Vol. I. p. 409, 406. —2 Inst. 378. —2 B. & P. 357. —Parsons vs. Gilt, 2 Ld. Ray. 895. —Bachellor vs. Ellis, 7 D. & E. 337. Jackson vs. Bartlett, 8 Johns. 361. —Richardson vs. Talbot, 2 Bibb. 382. Herd vs. Burristowe, Cro. Eliz. 177. —2 Ld. Ray. 1048. —Brackett vs. Norton, 4 Conn. R. 517. -Ed.]

Opinion:
The error relied on was that judgment was rendered for 54 dollars, 19 cents, damage, although the ad damnum in the original writ was twenty dollars only; and for this the former judgment was reversed.