Van Rensselaer v. Watts's Executors

Mr. Blunt, of counsel for the appellant in this cause, moved he court to direct the clerk to docket the case as of the time when the transcript of the record was received by him, and in support of his motion said, that this record was forwarded to the clerk early in 1848. That it was only recently he learned that the clerk had declined filing or docketing it, until the bond prescribed by the thirty-seventh rule of court was given. That his client supposed, when he gave bond in the Circuit Court, that he had done all that the law required him to do. That the record had been lying in the clerk's office about a year, during which some sixty cases had been docketed. That the bond was now filed, as prescribed by the rule, and that the case ought to be docketed as of the day the record was deposited in the office.

Mr. Seward, for appellees, united in the application.

This motion was made on the 9th of March, when the court took time to consider.

On the 12th, Mr. Chief Justice TANEY announced the decision of the court as follows:--