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Legal scholarship: First Statute of Westminster [1275] is cited in attorney?s brief

Legal scholarship: First Statute of Westminster [1275] is cited in attorney?s brief
Amalfitano v Rosenberg, 2009 NY Slip Op 01069, Decided on February 12, 2009, Court of Appeals

Precedents and legislative history are frequently referred to in briefs and court decisions. In the Amalfitano case, the Amalfitano?s attorneys reference legislation promulgated in 1275.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit certified two questions to the Court of Appeals concerning the application of Section 487 of the Judiciary Law insofar as it provides that:

"[a]n attorney or counselor who: . . . is guilty of any deceit or collusion, or consents to any deceit or collusion, with intent to deceive the court or any party . . . [i]s guilty of a misdemeanor, and in addition to the punishment prescribed therefor by the penal law, he forfeits to the party injured treble damages, to be recovered in a civil action."

In formulating its response, the Court said ?[a]s the District Court correctly observed, ? Judiciary Law § 487 does not derive from common law fraud. Instead, as the Amalfitanos point out, section 487 descends from the first Statute of Westminster, which was adopted by the Parliament summoned by King Edward I of England in 1275.

The relevant provision of that statute specified that "if any Serjeant, Pleader, or other, do any manner of Deceit or Collusion in the King's Court, or consent [unto it,] in deceit of the Court [or] to beguile the Court, or the Party, and thereof be attainted, he shall be imprisoned for a Year and a Day, and from thenceforth shall not be heard to plead in [that] Court for any Man; and if he be no Pleader, he shall be imprisoned in like manner by the Space of a Year and a Day at least; and if the Trespass require greater Punishment, it shall be at the King's Pleasure" (3 Edw, c 29; see generally Thomas Pitt Taswell-Langmead, English Constitutional History 153-154 [Theodore F.T. Plucknett ed, Sweet & Maxwell, 10th ed 1946]).

The full text of the Court?s answers to the Second Circuit's questions are posted on the Internet at:
http://www.courts.state.ny.us/reporter/3dseries/2009/2009_01069.htm

Full post as published by New York Public Personnel Law on February 19, 2009 (boomark / email).