The United States Tillotson
| Citation | 12 Wheat. 180,25 U.S. 180,6 L.Ed. 594 |
| Parties | THE UNITED STATES against TILLOTSON and another |
| Decision Date | 02 March 1827 |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
This cause comes before us from the Circuit Court for the Southern District of New-York, as upon a bill of exceptions taken to the opinion of the Court, upon a trial before a jury upon the matters in issue. In reality no such trial was had; but the case assumed this shape by the agreement of the parties, in order to have the opinion of the Court upon certain questions of law. We must, however, consider the case exclusively upon principles applicable to it as a bill of exceptions taken at a real trial.a
Upon the argument in this Court, various important questions have been elaborately discussed by counsel, upon which we forbear to express any opinion, as our judgment of reversal proceeds upon a ground, which renders any decision on them unnecessary.
The bill of exceptions admits the due execution of the bond in controversy, and the breaches stated in the declaration are answered by special notices of defence set up as bars to the suit. The burthen of proof of these defences, in point of fact, rested on the defendants. The Court is supposed to have charged the jury, that the matters produced and read in evidence on the part of the defendants were sufficient in law to maintain the issue on their part, and that the jury ought to render their verdict in favour of the defendants. This charge can be maintained in point of law only upon the supposition, that the evidence presented no contested facts; for otherwise it would withdraw from the jury their proper functions, to determine the facts upon the evidence in the cause.
Upon examining the record, we think that there is contradictory evidence, or rather evidence conducing to opposite results, in respect to a point material to many of the specifications of defence, and particularly as to the matters in the third, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth. It is this: whether the contract of the 7th of June, 1820, between Col. Gadsden, as agent of the War Department, and Samuel Hawkins, was ever a consummated agreement, binding on the United States, in virtue of an original authority given to him or was a preliminary agreement dependent for its validity upon the ratification of the War Department; and if that was withheld, (which there was direct evidence to prove,) the agreement was a...
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Henning v. Western Union Telegraph Co.
...may be inferred. Parks v. Ross, 11 How. 373. The verdict of the jury is set aside, and a new trial is granted. NOTE OF CASES CITED. U.S. v. Tillotson, 12 Wheat. 180; Ewing v. Burnet, 11 Pet. 41; Hickman v. Jones, Wall. 197; Klein v. Russell, 19 Wall. 463; Insurance Co. v. Snyder, 93 U.S. 39......
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Weller v. Hilderbrandt
... ... or question of fact involved in the case. United States ... v. Tillotson, 12 Wheat. 181, 6 L.Ed. 594. The learned ... circuit court, in granting a ... ...
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Weller v. Hilderbrandt
...to any material issue presented by the pleadings or question of fact involved in the case. United States v. Tillotson, 12 Wheat. 181, 6 L. Ed. 594. The learned circuit court, in granting a new trial, might reasonably have taken the view, upon re-examination of the evidence, that it had comm......
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Robinson v. Schly
...321. Dallam vs. Handley, 2 A. K. Marsh. 418. Sullivan vs. Endurs, 3 Dana, 66. Bowman vs. Bartlett, 3 A. K. Marsh, 86. United States vs. Tillotson, 12 Wheat. 180. Whether the circumstances to which the Court alludes, did or did not exist, were questions of fact, proper for the Jury alone to ......