Rutgers v. Waddington
Rutgers v. Waddington was a case held in the
The Rutgers decision was controversial for having seemingly circumscribed the authority of the New York Legislature, which subsequently passed a vote of censure on the court.[4][5][6]
Background
After the
Arguments
Rutgers v. Waddington was presented on June 29, 1784 before Chief Justice James Duane and four additional aldermen. The plaintiff, Elizabeth Rutgers, owned a large brewery and alehouse that she was forced to abandon during the British occupation of New York City. Under the recently enacted Trespass Act, Rutgers demanded rent by the sum of £8,000 from Joshua Waddington, who was running the brewery ever since it had been abandoned.[7]
The defense's case was litigated by
Decision and legacy
Duane handed down a split verdict, which quickly resulted in censure by the New York legislature. The ruling entitled Rutgers to rent only from the time before the British occupation,[7] and both parties agreed to the amount of £800.[7] Pecuniary issues aside, the case more importantly set a precedent for Congress' legal authority over the states and the limitations of judicial review. Duane wrote in his ruling that "no state in this union can alter or abridge, in a single point, the federal articles or the treaty."[1] Additionally, according to William Treanor of Georgetown University Law Center the Rutgers case concluded, "Judges cannot 'reject' a clearly expressed statute simply because it is 'unreasonable'".[8] Duane wrote:
The supremacy of the legislature need not be called into question; if they think fit positively to enact a law, there is no power which can control them. When the main object of such a law is clearly expressed, and the intention manifest, the judges are not at liberty, although it appears to them to be unreasonable, to reject it; for this were to set the judicial above the legislative, which would be subversive of all government.[8]
According to historian Shannon C. Stimson, the reason for the censure was "not legislative intent, but legislative power and whether any legitimate authority existed which might challenge the majority will."[9][10]
Several scholars believe that Rutgers "was a template for the interpretive approach he [Hamilton] adopted in Federalist No. 78."[11][12][13]
Treaties and international law
In addition to articulating a concept of judicial review, the Rutgers decision is widely remembered for foreshadowing debates in the
References
- ^ a b NovelGuide.com, RUTGERS v. WADDINGTON (New York Mayor's Court, 1784)
- ^ Rutgers v. Waddington (1784)
- ^ "Rutgers v. Waddington, 1784". Historical Society of the New York Courts. Retrieved 2023-04-21.
- ^ The American Law Review
- ^ Alexander Hamilton and the Growth of the New Nation
- ^ Gentlemen Revolutionaries - Power and Justice in the New American Republic, pp. 83-84
- ^ ISBN 0143034758
- ^ a b JUDICIAL REVIEW BEFORE MARBURY, Stanford Law Review, 12/1/2005, p. 486
- ^ The American Revolution In the Law: Anglo-American Jurisprudence before John Marshall
- ^ To George Washington from James Duane, 16 December 1784
- ^ The Genius of Hamilton and the Birth of the Modern Theory of the Judiciary, by William M. Treanor, p. 30
- ^ The Forging of the Union, 1781-1789, Richard B. Morris, p. 128
- ^ Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, p. 21
- ^ a b Julian G. Ku, Treaties as Laws: A Defense of the Last-in-Time Rule for Treaties and Federal Statutes, 80 Ind. L.J. 319, 363 (2005)
External links
- Works related to Rutgers v. Waddington at Wikisource
- Internet Archive - The case of Elizabeth Rutgers versus Joshua Waddington