Writ of error
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 335 U.S. 252 - Taylor v. State of Alabama · 1948Most cited · 134 citing opinions
the traditional writ of error enabling a superior court to review an error of law committed by a trial court
How the Supreme Court has restated “Writ of error”
Each Supreme Court definition of “Writ of error,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “Writ of error”
Court decisions citing the 13 opinions that defined “Writ of error” — 756 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 13 definitions, chronological · 1812–1948
- ORIGINAL
A writ of error is a common law process, and removes for re-examination, nothing but the law.
It is a well settled maxim of the law, that 'no person can bring a writ of error to reverse a judgment who is not a party or privy to the record.' 'A writ of error lies when a man is grieved by an error in the foundation, proceeding, judgment, or execution' in a suit. The judgment or order of the court on a summary motion, or a collateral question arising like the present on the suggestion of a third party, is not re examinable on a writ of error issued on the judgment with which it may happen to be connected.
parties
The writ of error is not brought, in the legal meaning of the term, until it is filed in the court which rendered the judgment. It is the filing of the writ that removes the record from the inferior to the appellate court, and the period of limitation prescribed by the act of Congress must be calculated accordingly.
when brought
no one can bring up, as plaintiff in a writ of error, the judgment of an inferior court to a superior one, unless he was a party to the judgment in the court below; nor can any one be made a defendant in the writ of error, who was not a party to the judgment in the inferior court.
the writ of error, from its form, and the principles which govern it, is peculiarly appropriate to judgments at common law, and is inconvenient and embarrassing when used as process to remove decrees in chancery and admiralty to a superior court. The ordinary and uniform mode of removing such decrees to the appellate and revising court, wherever such jurisdictions have been established, has been by appeal
A writ of error is an original writ, and lies only when a party is aggrieved by some error in the foundation, proceedings, judgment, or execution, of a suit in a court of record, and is defined to be a commission, by which the judges of one court are authorized to examine a record upon which a judgment was given in another court, and, on such examination, to affirm or reverse.
It is the settled practice of this court, and the same in the King's Bench in England, that the writ will not lie until the whole of the matters in controversy in the suit below are disposed of. The writ itself is conditional, and does not authorize the court below to send up the case, unless all the matters between the parties to the record have been determined. The cause is not to be sent up in fragments.
a writ of error will not lie on any judgment, under the act of 1789, which is not final, in whatever form it shall be given.
that writ, from its nature and character, must be sued out by the party who alleges error in the judgment of the inferior court. This writ is not mere matter of form, but matter of substance, prescribed by law, and essential to the jurisdiction of this court.
A writ of error is said to be an original writ, because, at common law, it was issued out of the court of chancery; but its operation is rather upon the record, than the person... it does not in any manner act upon the parties; it acts only on the record, by removing the record into the supervising tribunal... it is rather a continuation of the original litigation than the commencement of a new action
a commission by which the judges of one court are authorized to examine a record upon which a judgment or decree was given in another court, and on such examination to reverse or affirm that judgment or decree
it is no sufficient cause to dismiss a writ of error that the record does not present any question of law for the revision of this court, as the writ of error when sued out under the twenty-second section of the Judiciary Act brings up the whole record, and it is the right of the plaintiff in error to be heard and have an opportunity to show, if he can, that there is error in any part of the record