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HISTORY OF LAW REPORTING


KENT'S CRITICISM OF CAINES
   Whether Kent’s admiration for Johnson colored his disdain for Johnson’s predecessor, George Caines, is unknown. What is known is that Kent lobbied to have Johnson replace Caines, was highly critical of Caines as a Reporter and as a person, and expressed his disgust over Caines’ efforts to regain the reportership upon Johnson’s retirement. Others are more favorable to Caines, one noting that his "reports were distinguished by brevity and accuracy, and for long enjoyed a high reputation with both bench and bar."

   The politics of the day may at least partially explain Kent’s attitude toward Caines. Both Kent and Johnson were Federalists, while Caines appears to have been a Jeffersonian. Thomas Jefferson Caines dedicated his Lex Mercatoria Americana to Jefferson and wrote admiringly to Jefferson requesting permission for the dedication (to which Jefferson replied graciously). Also, on the eve of his appointment as Reporter, Caines argued for the prosecution in a New York Supreme Court case in which a printer was accused of libeling Jefferson. Federalist icon Alexander Hamilton argued for the defense, and Kent wrote an opinion favoring the defense (People v Croswell, 3 Johns Cas 337 [1804]). Furthermore, one of Kent’s sharpest criticisms of Caines was for giving short shrift to the argument by Hamilton in Vandervoort v Smith (2 Caines 155 [1804]).
Caines' mistakes
Left:
Notation by Chancellor Kent regarding George Caines, then Reporter, reads as follows:

"Mem.: I have penned this November & corrected some Mistakes. I think the Reporter does not take Notes very correctly & that the work is too full of Mistakes. The decisions of the Court when in writing, as most of them are, appear correct and this source of accuracy stamps the whole value on the book, for without that aid, I should have no reliance on the Reporter. His own annotations in the Margin might well be spared. However, as the first essay, the work deserves great indulgence."

Kent's copy of 1 Cains' Reports 107. (New York State Library, Albany, N.Y., Manuscripts and Special Collections, Janes Kent Law Book Collection)

Right: Caines' dedication of Lex Mercatoria Americana to Thomas Jefferson, pictured above. 		Caines' dedication to Jefferson

Right:
Decision reported in Johnson's Reports with margin annotation, which would now be a headnote. (Sands v Codwise, 2 Johns 485 [1807].) 		Annotation Index Left:
The Index in 2 Caines' Reports, an early form of the present Digest-Index.


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