BACON ET AL.
v.
HART
AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.
In an ejectment action to recover possession of land, the defendant below attempted to bring a second writ of error to the Supreme Court after the first writ had failed to return properly, but served the citation on the widow and executrix of the original counsel rather than on the party himself or his current counsel. The Court dismissed the writ for lack of jurisdiction, holding that service of a citation must be made on the party or his actual counsel of record, not on the personal representative of a deceased attorney or on a former law partner, as the duties and character of counsel do not devolve upon such persons.
© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.
Mr. Chiéf Juatice TANEY.
We have looked into'this re- '. cord, arid find that the writ of error must be dismissed. The . action was in the nature of. an ejectment, arid brought to re"eov-er possession of land. The plaintiff, below, was William .Hart, junior, a citizen of New York, residing at Manilla. His counsel in the cause was William Hart, senior. In March, 1858,-judgment was rendered by the coui’t for the plaintiff. In October of.the same year a writ of error was sued out, returnable on the first Monday in December next thereafter, and service of the citation .was on the 9th of October admitted by William Hart, Senior. - But this writ of errcr was not returned during the term to which it was made returnable, and failed, therefore, to bring up the ease. A second writ of error was taken by the defendant below in August, 1859, returnable to the ensuing December term of this court., The citation under this latter writ was directed to William Hart, junior, and served according to the marshal’s certificate, on Mary Hart, widow.' and executrix of William Hart, senior, who died after the judgment, and on J.
D. Stevenson, his former law partner. A. service of the citation on the attorney or counsel of the proper party is sufficient; but the executrix of the counsel on-record ivas not the counsel of her testator’s client. His char acter and duties as counsel did not devolve on his own person al representative after his death. Nor is Mr. Stevenson to be. regarded as the counsel of William Hart, junior, merely because he had been the partner of William Hart, senior. We cannot notice law partnerships or other private relations between members of the bar. This may have been a partnership, solely because it provided for a division of profits, without putting either partner under any responsibility for the suits conducted by the other. The courts can know no counsel in a cause except those who regularly appear as such on the record. '
The citation not being served on the party as his counsel, the cause is not brought into this court, agreeably to-the act of 1789; and the writ must therefore be dismissed for want of jurisdiction. .
Writ of error dismissed.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
-
Williams v. Hutchinson, 26 Fla. 513 (Fla. 1890)…legal service at all has been made of the writ before the term to which the appeal is returnable, the appeal fails and should be dismissed. This is the rule as it was originally understood in the Supreme Court of the United States, (Bacon vs. Hart, 1 Black. 38, and other cases cited in Knight vs. Weiskopf,) and we deem it more consistent with the provisions of our statute and the practice of this court, and particularly so as to a case in which the writ has not even been placed in the hands of the proper…
-
Spencer v. Gen. Hosp. OF the Dist. OF Columbia, 425 F.2d 479 (D.C. Cir. 1969)…82 U.S.App.D.C. 64, 160 F. 2d 386 (1947). As long ago as 1861, the United States Supreme Court held the District Government answerable in tort for the negligent construction of a bridge, Weightman v. Corporation of Washington, 66 U.S. (1 Black) 39, 17 L.Ed. 52 (1861); and, as recently as Urow v. District of Columbia, Note 1 supra, this court echoed the Weightman distinction between a “discretionary” or “legislative” function, on the one hand, and a “ministerial” act, on the other. For other expressions of…1 / 2
-
Tripp v. Santa Rosa St. R.R. Co., 144 U.S. 126 (U.S. 1892)
Previewing 3 of 10 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence