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10 Watts 333

Patterson v. Schoyer

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

Decided September 15, 1840

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · decided 1840-09-15

THE complainant Thomas H. Patterson on the 25th of October 1839, filed a bill in the district court of Mlegheny county, representing that the said Solomon Schoyer had commenced an action at law, in said district court against said Patterson on an article of agreement, executed by said Patterson in substance and effect following: — “Articles of agreement, dated the 4th of April 1839, which witnesseth, that the said Dr Patterson, for and in consideration of the sum of 5000…

Decided 1840-09-15

Per Curiam.

¶1The legislature, it is said in the constitution, may vest chancery powers in whatever courts, and to what extent, it pleases; and this regards both original and appellate jurisdiction, for no court can assume either without a grant of it, because it follows not that a superior court may take jurisdiction, as of course, of every thing determined by the court below it. The supreme court is declared by the constitution to have the powers of the king’s bench, and common pleas at Westminster, and hence its power to issue remedial and prerogative writs; but it is not declared to have, except in a few specific cases, the powers of the - court of chancery including its appellate jurisdiction of causes determined by the vice chancellor or the master of the rolls. Had the legislature, as it might have done, vested chancery powers in the justices *335of the peace, a concomitant grant of appellate jurisdiction to the common pleas or supreme court, could not have been implied as a necessary consequence; for the grant of a new jurisdiction, the proceedings in which are not removable hy the process of the common law, is necessarily exclusive. We have no grant of such jurisdiction, and we may not assume it.

¶2Appeal dismissed for want of jurisdiction.

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