Gasperini v. Center for Humanities, Inc., 518 U.S. 415, 38 (1996)

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452

GASPERINI v. CENTER FOR HUMANITIES, INC.

Scalia, J., dissenting

content of that law was familiar and fixed. See, e. g., ibid. ("[T]he common law here alluded to is not the common law of any individual state, (for it probably differs in all), but it is the common law of England, the grand reservoir of all our jurisprudence"); Dimick v. Schiedt, 293 U. S. 474, 487 (1935) (Seventh Amendment "in effect adopted the rules of the common law, in respect of trial by jury, as these rules existed in 1791"). It quite plainly barred reviewing courts from entertaining claims that the jury's verdict was contrary to the evidence.

At common law, review of judgments was had only on writ of error, limited to questions of law. See, e. g., Wonson, supra, at 748; 3 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 405 (1768) ("The writ of error only lies upon matter of law arising upon the face of the proceedings; so that no evidence is required to substantiate or support it"); 1 W. Holdsworth, History of English Law 213-214 (7th ed. 1956); cf. Ross v. Rittenhouse, 2 Dall. 160, 163 (Pa. 1792) (McKean, C. J.). That principle was expressly acknowledged by this Court as governing federal practice in Parsons v. Bedford, 3 Pet. 433 (1830) (Story, J.). There, the Court held that no error could be assigned to a district court's refusal to allow transcription of witness testimony "to serve as a statement of facts in case of appeal," notwithstanding the right to such transcription under state practices made applicable to federal courts by Congress. Id., at 443 (emphasis deleted). This was so, the Court explained, because "[t]he whole object" of the transcription was "to present the evidence here in order to establish the error of the verdict in matters of fact," id., at 445—a mode of review simply unavailable on writ of error, see id., at 446, 448. The Court concluded that Congress had not directed federal courts to follow state practices that would change "the effect or conclusiveness of the verdict of the jury upon the facts litigated at the trial," id., at 449, because it had "the most serious doubts whether

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