Legal form

“ Wherever, by either the common law or the statute law of a State, a right of action has become fixed and a legal liability incurred, that liability may be enforced and the right of action pursued in any court which has jurisdiction of such matters and can obtain jurisdiction of the parties. ”

“ Personal statutes are of universal validity; real statutes have no extra-territorial authority. The determination of the class under which a particular law ought to fall is one of great difficulty, and one in which there is often a conflict of legal opinion. ”

“ Whenever the law provides a remedy enforceable in the courts according to the regular course of legal procedure, and that remedy is pursued, there arises a case within the meaning of the Constitution, whether the subject of the litigation be property or status. ”

“ To that legal or artificial person, once created, the common law of every State, of itself, annexes all those incidents and attributes which are represented as a prostration of the main pillars of their jurisprudence. ”

“ Relevancy of certain judgments in probate etc., jurisdiction A final judgment, order or decree of a Competent Court, in exercise of probate, matrimonial, admiralty or insolvency jurisdiction, which confers upon or to take away from any person any legal character, or which declares any person to be entitled to any such character, or to be entitled to any specific thing not as against any specified person but absolutely, is relevant when the existence of any legal character, or the title of any such person to any such thing, is relevant. ”

“ It is my deliberate opinion that these causes, in the form in which they are presented to our consideration, fall within no one of the categories, either in the constitution or the laws of the United States, by which the jurisdiction of this court or that of the circuit courts, have been conferred or prescribed. ”

“ Our common law system consists in applying to new combinations of circumstances those rules of law which we derive from legal principles and judicial precedents, and for the sake of attaining uniformity, consistency and certainty, we must apply those rules when they are not plainly unreasonable and inconvenient to all cases which arise ”

“ The act itself, with all the circumstances of the inhabitants before and at the time of its passage, have formed the subject of legal judgments and professional opinions upon which mighty interests have grown up and now repose. ”

“ Rights to do certain acts, such, for instance, as the visitation and superintendence of a college and the appointment of its officers, may surely be vested rights, to all legal intents, as completely as the right to possess property. ”

“ This sketch would, of course, have to be modified in many ways if we attempted to treat the unofficial fragments of customary law in the same way as the paragraphs of royal codes, and even more so if we were able to tabulate the indirect evidence as to legal rules. ”

“ Legal tribunals have also powerfully assisted to shape and modify conceptions of proprietary right by means of the distinction between Law and Equity, which always makes its first appearance as a distinction between jurisdictions. ”

“ Where the language of a statute is plain, unambiguous, and well understood according to its natural and ordinary sense and meaning, the statute itself furnishes a rule of construction beyond which the court cannot go. ”

“ Legal or equitable rights, acquired under either system of laws, may be enforced in any court of either sovereignty competent to hear and determine such kind of rights and not restrained by its constitution in the exercise of such jurisdiction. ”

“ Any person, who, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage of any State, shall subject, or cause to be subjected, any person within the jurisdiction of the United States, to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities, secured by the Constitution of [Pg 126] the United States, shall, any such law, statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage of the State to the contrary, notwithstanding, be liable to the party injured in any action at law, suit in equity, or other proceeding for redress ”

“ Proclamation at four court terms of a levy of a fine shall be a final end to an issue of land, tenements, or other hereditaments and the decision shall bind persons and their heirs, whether they have knowledge or not of the decision, except for women in covert [under the protection of a husband] who were not parties, persons under the age of twenty-one, in prison, out of the nation, or not of whole mind, who are not parties. ”

“ The adjudications of their courts; the settled and uniform practice and usage of the state, in the practical operation of its provisions, evidencing the judicial construction of its terms; are to be considered as a part of the statute: and as such furnishing a rule for the decisions of the federal courts. The statute and its interpretation form together a rule of title and property, which must be the same in all courts. ”

“ A statement of facts agreed by the parties, or, technically speaking, a case stated, in an action at law, doubtless waives all questions of pleading, or of form of action, which might have been cured by amendment, but it cannot enable a court of law to assume the jurisdiction of a court of equity. ”

“ A real statute is that part of the law which deals directly with property, whether movable or immovable. A personal statute has for its object a person, and deals with questions of status, such as marriage, legitimacy or infancy. A mixed statute affects both property and person, or, according to some authorities, it deals with acts and obligations. ”

“ There is no such difference except in the case of what is properly called “judicial legislation”—wherein an absolutely new rule is added for the first time to the law. The recognition of a custom or law is not necessarily the beginning of the custom or law. Where a custom possesses the marks by which its legality is determined according to well understood principles, the courts pronounce it to have been law at the time of the happening of the facts as to which their jurisdiction is invoked. ”

“ Each society has its own system of laws, and all the systems, so far as they are known, constitute the appropriate subject matter of jurisprudence. The jurist may deal with it in the following ways. He may first of all examine the leading conceptions common to all the systems, or in other words define the leading terms common to them all. Such are the terms law itself, right, duty, property, crime, and so forth, which, or their equivalents, may, notwithstanding delicate differences of connotation, be regarded as common terms in all systems. ”

“ Where the expression is in general terms, statutes are to receive such a construction as may be agreeable to the rules of the common law in cases of that nature, for statutes are not presumed to make any alteration in the common law, beyond what is expressed in the statute. ”

“ We will first examine the correctness of the general position, that an action at law cannot be maintained upon a decree in equity; and will, in the next place, inquire how far the jurisdiction of the court pronouncing this decree, and the efficiency of its proceedings with reference to the parties before it, may be inferred or rightfully taken notice of, from its style or character, or from proper judicial knowledge of the subject-matter of its cognizance, independently of a particular special averment. ”

“ General terms descriptive of a class of persons made subject to a criminal statute may and should be limited, where the literal application of the statute would lead to extreme or absurd results, and where the legislative purpose gathered from the whole act would be satisfied by a more limited interpretation. ”

“ Whether I have a right to recover certain property is a question of substantive law, for the determination and the protection of such rights are among the ends of the administration of justice; but in what courts and within what time I must institute proceedings are questions of procedural law, for they relate merely to the modes in which the courts fulfil their functions. What facts constitute a wrong is determined by the substantive law; what facts constitute proof of a wrong is a question of procedure. ”

“ Although it is my will that complete justice be observed in each case, I charge you that, in so far as may be possible, and can be rightly done, you settle the differences and suits which arise, without having recourse to the technicalities of the law or proceeding by the ordinary methods, or condemning to pecuniary fines; but observing throughout the provisions of the decrees that shall be given you. ”

“ It is elementary that the meaning of a statute must, in the first instance, be sought in the language in which the act is framed, and if that is plain, and if the law is within the constitutional authority of the lawmaking body which passed it, the sole function of the courts is to enforce it according to its terms. ”

“ This is the legislation, by the light of which we are to make up our judgment in this case.
It is a rule in the construction of statutes, that all relating to the same subject-matter shall be considered together. ”

“ Certain provisions of the Civil Code and the Code of Practice, as well as a number of decisions of the supreme court of the state, are relied upon to support this view all which we shall now consider. ”

“ Now, the question arises, What proceedings are meant by the phrase 'suits of a civil nature at common law or in equity,' in the latter section, conferring original jurisdiction, and the phrase 'a suit,' in the former section, giving the right of removal? ”

“ We are of the opinion, that the equity of the statute allowing a bill of exceptions in courts of common law of original jurisdiction, embraces all such judgments or opinions of the court that arise in the course of a cause, which are the subjects of revision by an appellate court, and which do not otherwise appear on the record. ”

“ In construing a statute, penal as well as others, we must look to the object in view, and never adopt an interpretation that will defeat its own purpose, if it will admit of any other reasonable construction. ”

“ Wherever an act undertakes to determine a question of right or obligation, or of property, as the foundation upon which it proceeds, such act is to that extent a judicial one, and not the proper exercise of legislative functions. ”

“ In 1 Comyns's Digest, Action upon Statute, F, it is said, 'In every case where a statute enacts or prohibits a thing for the benefit of a person, he shall have a remedy upon the same statute for the thing enacted for his advantage, or for the recompense of the wrong done to him contrary to said law,' confining the remedy to such things as are enacted for the benefit of the person suing.' See, also, Pheasant v. ”

“ Justice FIELD, 'it appears from the inspection of the record of a court of general jurisdiction that the defendant, against whom a personal judgment or decree is rendered, was at the time of the alleged service without the territorial limits of the court, and thus beyond the reach of its process, and that he never appeared in the action, the presumption of jurisdiction over his person ceases, and the burden of establishing the jurisdiction is cast upon the party who invokes the benefit or protection of the judgment or decree. ”

“ In interpreting a statute and attempting to construe legislative intent, we look to the language of the statute, the subject matter, the object to be accomplished, the purpose to be served, the remedy provided, legislative history, and other appropriate means that throw light on the subject. ”

“ Its interpretation is accepted as the true interpretation, whatever may be our opinion of its original soundness. It becomes a part of the statute, as much so as if incorporated into the body of it, and in following the statute as thus interpreted we only apply to a local question the law of the place. ”

“ For although courts sometimes have been slow to extend the effect of statutes modifying the common law beyond the direct operation of the words, it is obvious that a statute may indicate a change in the policy of the law, although it expresses that change only in the specific cases most likely to occur to the mind. ”

“ When a statute alters the common law the meaning shall not be strained beyond the meaning of the words, except in cases of public utility, as when the end in view appears to be more comprehensive than the enacting words. ”

“ In the widest of its applications the term jurisprudence means the science of law, using the word law in that vague and general sense in which it includes all species of obligatory rules of human action. Of jurisprudence in this sense, there are as many divisions as there are kinds of law which have been deemed sufficiently important and well developed to serve as the subject-matter of distinct branches of learning. ”

“ In the English courts, when it is made to appear that property of the government ought, in justice, to contribute to a general average, or to salvage, it seems to be the usual course of proceeding for the proper officer of the government to consent in court that it may take jurisdiction of the matter. ”

“ The protection, of which it is the business of jurisprudence to find out and to describe the means, is that which is required by one member of the community against the other members. The members of the community, each of whom endeavours to have as much as possible of the objects of desire, will be disposed to take those objects one from another ”