6 N.E.
have full access to the opinions, or to confer upon Little, Brown & Co. the right to restrain any persons from procuring copies of them, whether for their own use, or for publication in the newspapers or in law magazines or papers. The policy of the state always has been that the opinions of the justices, after they are delivered, belong to the public.
The office of reporter of decisions was first established by St. 1803, c. 133. His duties were to obtain true and authentic reports of the decisions of the supreme judicial court, and to publish them annually. He was paid a salary by the commonwealth, “which, together with the profits arising from the publication of his said Reports, shall be full compensation for his services.” These provisions, with a change in the amount of the salary, were continued through the two revisions of the law, until 1871. At first the practice of the justices was to deliver their opinions orally, and the reporter took minutes for his Reports. But these opinions were public, and any person present might take minutes and publish them. The statutes did not provide, and no claim was ever made, that the reporter had an exclusive right to the first publication. In later times the practice has been for the justices to write out their opinions, and file them with the reporter, though it occasionally happens that opinions are delivered orally from the bench, and minutes taken by the reporter for his Reports. But it has always been customary for the reporter to allow the public free access to the opinions, and to furnish copies upon receiving a reasonable compensation.
Up to 1874 no public office was provided for the reporter, but he was obliged to keep his papers at his private office, or at his house. In that year, owing undoubtedly to the difficulty felt by the public in the exercise of the right to examine the opinions of the justices, the legislature passed a statute entitled “An act to provide for the custody and examination of the opinions of the supreme judicial court before their publication in the reports.” St. 1874, c. 43. It provided that the reporter shall keep in some safe and convenient place, to be provided by the county of Suffolk, in the city of Boston, the written opinions of the court in all law cases argued in the several counties until their publication in the Reports, and also his dockets, and copies of papers in such cases, and shall afford due facilities for their examination; for which purpose he shall be allowed a sum not exceeding $1,500 per year, to be expended in clerk hire and incidental expenses. This statute is a clear recognition of the common right to the knowledge of the opinions of the justices; the object of its enactment being to furnish additional facilities for the exercise of this right. This statute was in substance re-enacted in the Revision of 1882, and is now in force. Pub. St. c. 159, § 61.
It is in view of this course of legislation, and of this established policy of the commonwealth, that we must construe St. 1879, c. 280, upon which the respondent relies. It provides that the secretary of the commonwealth shall make a contract with Little, Brown & Co. for the publication of the Reports on the terms therein contained. By the first section that firm is to publish the Reports promptly, according to a standard therein fixed, to sell them for a fixed price, and to pay the reporter a
