Little v. Gould

15 F. Cas. 604, 2 Blatchf. 165, 1851 U.S. App. LEXIS 361
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the District of Northern New York
DecidedFebruary 27, 1851
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 15 F. Cas. 604 (Little v. Gould) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Northern New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Little v. Gould, 15 F. Cas. 604, 2 Blatchf. 165, 1851 U.S. App. LEXIS 361 (circtndny 1851).

Opinion

CONEXING, District Judge.

To maintain the denial by the defendants of the plaintiffs’ title, their counsel rely mainly upon a provision contained in the constitution of the state of New-York.

By the constitution and laws of the United States, authors are invested with the exclusive right and liberty, for a limited period, of printing, re-printing, publishing and vending their books; and this right is extended to their executors, administrators and assigns. The right is held to belong to the reporters of judicial decisions in common with other authors, to the extent of their authorship in the composition of their works. It does not comprise the written opinions of the judges, because of these the reporter is not the author, and it has been said by the supreme court of the United States that the judges of that court cannot confer on the reporter of its decisions any copyright in the written opinions delivered by them.

Under this well-known state of the law of the land, as declared in the constitution and statutes of the United States, and by the authoritative interpretations they had received, the people of the state of New-York saw fit, in 1846, by the 22d section of the 6th article of the constitution adopted in that year, to ordain as follows: “The legis-islature shall provide for the speedy publication of all statute laws, and of such judicial decisions as it may deem expedient. And all laws and judicial decisions shall be free for publication by any person.” According to the interpretation given by the counsel for the defendants to the second member of this section, its direct and sole design was, so far as judicial decisions are concerned, to secure to all persons the right to do precisely what the court is now called upon to restrain the defendants from doing — the right to re-print and sell, ad libitum, any volume of reports published in pursuance of any law of the state enacted in obedience to the injunction contained in the first branch of this section. The counsel insist, therefore, that the act of April 9th, 1850, mentioned in the bill of complaint, purporting, to a limited extent, to invest the secretary of state, for the benefit of the people of the state, with the copyright of reports to be prepared by the state reporter, is unconstitutional and void.

One of the answers given to this objection is, that the expression “judicial decisions,” occurring in the last member of this section of the constitution, does not admit of being restricted to the sense thus ascribed to it; but that the provision embraces, by its very terms, “all” judicial decisions, whether required by law to be published or not, and would extend, therefore, to the reports which have been, and are likely to continue to be, published, of the decisions of other courts of the state of New York, as well as to the reports now in controversy. And it is rightly argued that, if this is the true construction, and if it'is true, also, that the absolute common right intended to be secured was that of re-printing reports prepared and published by others, it would follow that this provision of the constitution of the state of New York is repugnant to the constitution and laws of the United States, and, therefore, void; for, it is undeniable that a state cannot in any form interfere in this respect with the rights of private persons. For this reason, unless this interpretation of the language of the state constitution is unavoidable, it ought to be rejected; and, after carefully considering the ingenious argument of the counsel for the defendants, designed to show that the judicial decisions referred to in the last member of the section under consideration, are such only as shall be designated by the legislature for publication in obedience to the first part of the section, I am of opinion that this proposition cannot be maintained. It is inconsistent with the phraseology actually used, and with the omission of if such an interpretation had been intended, would naturally have been employed. The words “all judicial decisions” must be held to mean what they naturally import — not all such judicial decisions only as the legislature should direct to be published, which is what they do not import. It follows, then, that if the license designed to be secured to all persons, extends to the re-printing of all reports prepared and published by others, notwithstanding a copyright may be asserted therein by the author, this provision is obnoxious to the objection that it transcends the limits of state authority, and is, consequently, invalid. It is necessary, therefore, as already observed, to seek for it some other interpretation which, while consistent with the language of the provision, and with its spirit, so far as that can be discerned, shall be consistent also with the constitution and laws of the United States; and, in my judgment, there is no serious difficulty in finding such an interpretation, although it may be no easy task to discover the precise nature of the evil against which the provision was designed to guard.

On looking into the proceedings of the convention, I observe that this section was pro[607]*607posed by a member, after the adoption, on the same day, of a resolution to arrest all further debate on the article relating to the judiciary, and, haying been decided by the president to fall within the scope of this resolution, the vote upon it was taken immediately, without explanation or debate, and it was adopted by a majority of twenty-seven. Its language is mandatory, and it is addressed to the legislature. It directs: (1.) That provision shall be made by law for the speedy publication of all statute laws, and of such judicial decisions as the legislature may deem expedient; and (2.) that all laws and judicial decisions shall be free for publication by any person. This last direction is obviously intended to promote and extend the design of the first. This design was expressed in the section as originally proposed and adopted, by the addition, to what now stands as the first sentence, of the words, “so as to render the same easy of acquisition by the people;” and then followed, separated only by a semi-colon, the words which now stand as the second sentence. The words just quoted were expunged in the process of final revision, doubtless because they were seen to be wholly unnecessary, the object being too apparent to require elucidation, and a period was substituted for the semi-colon. I have narrated the history of this section, not because it appears to me to shed much light upon the question under .consideration, but because it is relied on by the counsel for the defendants to support the interpretation on which they insist. A deliberate review of their argument on this point has failed to convince me of its soundness. The just view of the subject appears to me to be this. The first part of the section having peremptorily enjoined the speedy publication of the more authoritative and important judicial decisions of which it most concerned the public to be speedily apprised, the rest was left to private enterprise; but, lest some impediment should be thrown in the way, (not by the claim on the part of the author to copyright, which was beyond the power of the convention,) but by the legislature or the courts, or in some other way not easily divined, it was, by the second part of the section, ordained that no such restriction should be imposed, and it was made the duty of the legislature, if necessary, to see that this should not be done.

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Bluebook (online)
15 F. Cas. 604, 2 Blatchf. 165, 1851 U.S. App. LEXIS 361, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/little-v-gould-circtndny-1851.