Coit v. Robinson/Dissent Bradley

Mr. Justice BRADLEY, with whom concurred Mr. Justice MILLER, dissenting:

I dissent from the judgment of the court in this case. The Judiciary Act gives a writ of error to this court from all final judgments and decrees in civil actions and suits in equity in the Circuit Courts, where the matter in dispute exceeds the sum or value of two thousand dollars. The act of March 3d, 1803, converts this writ of error into an appeal in cases of equity, and admiralty and maritime jurisdiction and prize cases. The cases in which appeals in bankruptcy have heretofore been disallowed, were cased of interlocutory orders or decrees; and, therefore, not within the terms of the law. The decree appealed from in this case has all the elements of a final decree, and belongs to a system of proceeding which has always been regarded in England as of equitable cognizance. The fact that it depends upon statutory regulation does not divest it of that character. A bankruptcy proceeding, by which the estate of a debtor is administered, is essentially an equitable one. In a case of such importance as that which involves a man's liability or non-liability for his debts after he has given up all his property, he ought not to be deprived of the right of appeal if the law, fairly considered, gives it to him. I think it does give it to him in this case.