Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ Whether the attempt to grant a review of the motion in case of an appeal or writ of error was valid is not before us. But certainly it does not seem an extraordinary stretch of legislative power to say that if the right to have a motion considered is lost in the lower court by lapse of time, the motion may be considered on appeal. There is no judgment by the legislature, but simply a qualification of the time limit if the case goes up. ”

“ It is said that the right to grant new trials was a well recognized incident of common-law jurisdiction, and that it cannot be taken away or cut down by the territorial legislature. In view of the provision in § 1866, that the jurisdiction given by § 1908 'shall be limited by law,' and, indeed, apart from it, we should hesitate to say that the territorial legislature was prevented by the grant of common-law jurisdiction, in general words, from doing away with new trials altogether. ”

“ In form, because the legislature does not direct a judgment, but merely removes an obstacle to a judgment already entered. (We need not consider whether a different construction would be adopted if the statute dealt with the time for entering judgments.) In substance, because we no more can doubt the power of the legislature to enact a statute of limitations for motions for a new trial than we can doubt its power to enact such a statute for the bringing of an action. ”