United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Payne v. Niles, 61 U.S. 20 How. 219 219 (1857)

Payne v. Niles

61 U.S. (20 How.) 219

Syllabus

No one can bring up, as plaintiff in a writ of error, the judgment of an inferior court to a superior one unless he was a party to the judgment in the court below; nor can anyone be made a defendant in the writ of error who was not a party to the judgment in the inferior court.

Therefore, where there was a judgment in the court below, and certain persons intervened, whose petition for intervention was dismissed, they have no right to sue out a writ of error from the judgment to which they were not parties; nor was any process, upon their intervention, served upon the original defendant.

As originally brought, the suit was Niles & Co. v. Knox, and the circumstances which led to the change of title are stated in the opinion of the Court.

On the 8th of February, 1856, the circuit court dismissed the intervention, with costs, when the intervenors sued out a writ of error, and brought the case up to this Court.