United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Keene v. Whittaker, 38 U.S. 13 Pet. 459 459 (1839)

Keene v. Whittaker

38 U.S. (13 Pet.) 459

Syllabus

A case cannot be brought by writ of error from a circuit court of the United States upon an agreed statement of facts.

The rules of the Supreme Court require that the clerk of the circuit court to which any writ of error shall be directed may make return of the same by annexing a true copy of the record and of all the proceedings in the cause, under his hand and the seal of the court. The Court will not, according to the thirty-first rule, hear any cause without a complete copy of the record having been brought up.

This case came up from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

In that court, a statement of the case had been made by the plaintiff, and the counsel for the defendants, upon which the court gave a judgment for the defendants. The plaintiff petitioned the circuit court for a writ of error to the Supreme Court, and the same was allowed. The record as sent up from the circuit court contained nothing but the agreed statement of facts, the judgment of the circuit court on these facts, and the petition of the defendant for a writ of error, together with an allowance of it by the circuit court in December, 1838.

The case was submitted to the Court without argument.