Case Name: Jonathan Coddington and Joseph Coddington against Patrick Stanton
Court: New Jersey Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: New Jersey
Decision Date: 1823-09
Citations: 7 N.J.L. 84
Docket Number: 
Parties: Jonathan Coddington and Joseph Coddington against Patrick Stanton.
Judges: Rossell and Ford, Js. concurred.
Reporter: New Jersey Law Reports
Volume: 7
Pages: 101–103

Head Matter:
Jonathan Coddington and Joseph Coddington against Patrick Stanton.
ON CERTIORARI
If the name of the person suing out a writ of certiorari is not stated, either on the back of the writ, or in tiie rule for granting the certiorari, it will be quashed.
Chetwood moved to quash this certiorari,
because the name of the prosecutor was not endorsed on the writ.
The endorsement was as follows : “ Certiorari to remove the judgment and proceedings in a certain attachment, sued out of the court of Middlesex, by Jonathan Coddington and Joseph Coddington against Patrick Stanton, Patrick Stanton having died since the said attachment was. sued out, this-writ is prosecuted for the benefit of the heir of the saidi. Patrick Stanton.”
Scudder, contra,
contended that the endorsement was no-part of the writ, and that it was not necessary or customary to state, in the body of the certiorari, the name of the party by whom it was sued out; that there was a radical difference, in this respect, between writs of error and certioraris; that the former always concluded to the damage of someone, that the latter did not; that a certiorari being a writ merely to bring up the record for inspection, the only question, when a certiorari is sued out, was whether the party suing it had authority to sue it. 2 Lil. Abr. 555-8, 560. Tidd’s Prac. title Forms 42u. 1 Bur. Rep. 410, 412. Cro, Jac. 160.
Southard, in reply.

Opinion:
Kib.kpatr.ick, C. J.
In all cases there must be actor reus et judex. There must always be a party to every proceeding, either in form or substance. If there is not a party, against whom *can the court give judgment? And though there is no person named as prosecutor on the face-of a writ of certiorari, yet there must be some party named upon the suing out of the writ, or upon the back of it; it must appear somewhere that there is somebody entitled to-prosecute the writ: the party prosecuting the certiorari must shew his right to prosecute. In a writ of error, there-is always a clause shewing to whose injury the error accrues, and this clause shews the party by whom the writ is brought. But this clause is peculiar to a writ of error. In a certiorari, the practice is, to state the name of the person applying for it, in the rule for the writ. Now the objection to this certiorari is, that it is prosecuted by a nameless person. It must bo quashed, as issuing improvidently.
Rossell and Ford, Js. concurred.
Writ quashed.