Talk:United States Reports, volume 1

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I added discussion of why Vols. 1 and 2 are mostly state and colonial cases. It's liftsimoned from the explanation I include in each case discussion. Also, I changed "Colonial Supreme Court" to "Colonial Courts" because some of the cases aren't labeled as to what court they come from. Also, some of the reports sound like trial court reports -- an evidentiary ruling followed by a verdict. These courts did not issue written opinions; what survives to today is Dallas's report of the case, which he gleamed either from review of the court records, from notes taken by participants or court-watchers, etc. Remember also that the quality of Dallas's reports, even after he became Supreme Court Reporter, has been seriously criticized. See the references listed in the article for more information. Jim Simmons (talk) 16:02, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I contributed the earlier anonymous edit. I was going off of the fact that in the actual reporter volume (as digitized at HeinOnline), all the colonial cases are on pages with a "Supreme Court of Pennsylvania" header, whereas the state case pages are labeled with the individual courts.

I'm not entirely sure what the value is in writing articles for all these early Pennsylvania cases, since most are of limited precedential value and they're only included in the U.S. Reports by an accident of history. (Dallas was apparently focused principally on the local Philadelphia market: he published his first volume of Pennsylvania reports in 1790, while the federal government was still in New York, and the delays in the second and fourth volumes seem to stem from his desire to include more state court cases. See Craig Joyce, The Rise of the Supreme Court Reporter: An Institutional Perspective on Marshall Court Ascendancy, 83 Mich. L. Rev. 1291, 1301-1302 (1985).) Beinsane (talk) 22:17, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Neither the printed report of decisions in the bound book version of 1 United States Reports, nor the Westlaw versions that subscribers can access set forth the identity of the courts in these earliest decisions. Dallas's biographer notes that Dallas reported decisions of "high Pennsylvania courts", (plural) and that most (meaning not all) of the reported decisions were rendered in Philadephia. Both of these facts suggest that Dallas was reporting decisions of multiple courts, not one supreme court. Raymond J. Walters, Jr. Alexander James Dallas: Lawyer - Politician -- Financier (New York: Da Capo Press 1969) p. 102. And, as I mentioned, reports of evidentiary rulings followed by verdicts sound like trial court proceedings. I believe these decisions warrant discussion just because of their historical value. They are among the earliest colonial decisions that survive to today. Moreover, some of them have continued to be cited as authority, even into the 20th century. Take a look at Fothergill's Lessee v. Stover for example. This 1763 decision was cited by a court of military appeal as late as 1959 -- nearly two hundred years later. Not every decision has such current precedential value, but I suggest they have historical significance. Jim Simmons (talk) 16:14, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

The trial court reports probably did come from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which initially had both trial and appellate jurisdiction. Erwin C. Surrency, The Development of the Appellate Function: The Pennsylvania Experience, 20 Am. J. Legal Hist. 173 (1976), is illuminating on the workings of the court at the time. Here's a JSTOR link if you have access.

I'm not going to stop you from writing up the other colonial and early state cases, I just don't think there's anything more significant in the cases themselves (except for Fothergill's Lessee and other precedents) than the particular volume they were published in. But that's just the opinion of a dumb little law student, so go right ahead. ;) Beinsane (talk) 04:58, 31 March 2008 (UTC) pen

Multiple cases using the same US Reports/Dallas numbers

All the online accessible archives of the volume 1 Reports have different cases numbered as some of the ones listed here. For example, on Justia.com 1 U.S. 2 is a case named Bethel v. Lloyd, 1 U.S. 2 (1759) not Weston v. Stammers as it is in the article (and in some older Google books which have citations the Weston case in them is listed as 1 U.S. 2). They both are listed a 1 U.S. 2 (1 Dallas 2), so what gives? There are several cases like this where two different cases are listed in different sources having the same U.S./Dallas report numbers. Is there any clarity on reconciling this and or explaining it? — Lestatdelc (talk) 18:33, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Updating this article

I am a lawyer and legal historian, and am updating this list in a table format with case name, Bluebook citation, link to the opinion at https://openjurist.org when found there; otherwise to google scholar; also opinions, lower court, and disposition of the case. I am also adding portraits and information about the justices who were members of the Supreme Court at the time. Ballinacurra Weston (talk) 02:44, 19 April 2021 (UTC)