Here’s a trivia question for lawyers and law students.
Question: What was the very first opinion issued in the U.S. Reports case reporter; that is, the opinion claiming that coveted number one slot of “1 U.S. 1” as a citation?
Answer: Well, it’s a bit of a letdown. You’d think they’d want to start with a bang, something Marbury-esque. But no, here’s the first case in the U.S. Reports:
The Lessee of Hyam and others
v.
Edwards
April Term, 1759.
1 U.S. 1, 1 Dall. 1, 1759 WL 20 (Pa.), 1 L.Ed. 11
Copy of a Deed inrolled in the King’s Bench in England, proved before the Lord Mayor of London to be a true one; allowed to be given in Evidence to a Jury to support a Title to Lands in this Province.*
*11 mod. 2 c. 2.
Well, at least it had a footnote.
It wasn’t decided by the Supreme Court, either! This decision is from the Provincial Court of Pennsylvania, but it had the good fortune to be the first case put into United States Reports.
Thanks for the clarification, Professor Barger.
In fact, nothing in 1 U.S. is from the Supreme Court. The first four volumes of the U.S. Reports are reprints of Dallas’s Reports, which covered Pennsylvania cases of a certain era and the earliest U.S. Supreme Court cases. Since the first two volumes of Dallas are mostly Pennsylvania cases, so are the first two volumes of U.S.
Great clarification! Thank you.
With all due respect, you appear to be mistaken. The first opinion issued in the U.S. Reports case reporter was not Lessee of Hyam v. Edwards. While it is true that it appears at 1 U.S. 1, it is the second of two cases to do so. The first is a short opinion from 1754 listed as Anonymous. The fact that there is no name listed for the first case could be the cause of the confusion, but these are indeed separate opinions. This is confirmed in the book’s Table of Cases, which includes a listing for Anonymous, says that one of the Anonymous cases can be found at page 1, and separately lists Lessee of Hyam v. Edwards (which the Table calls Hyam’s Lessee v. Edwards) as also being on page 1. Therefore, while both cases can be found at 1 U.S. 1, the very first case in the U.S. Reports case reporter is the Anonymous case from 1754.
Sincerely,
Justin Pearson and Anthony Sanders
Thanks for the correction!