Thomas Addis Emmet. his experience seems to have won this con tention against odds. But his greatest coup as a counsellor of only a few years' standing came in the star case of a suit by Morgan Lewis, governor of the State, against Editor Few of the A merican Citizen newspaper for libel. Emmet's brief is published at full length (5 Johnson,), and it bristles with logic, distinguishment of principles, and with apt citations. The libel is set forth at length, and is a curiosity in its mildness of political comment on a public official as compared with the editorial strictures that newspaper readers of to-day are familiar with. He was ingenious, but was beaten by the Court. In Dubois v. Phillips, same volume, p. 104, there cropped up common law practice in respect to procedures on which rules were silent. Here Emmet's knowledge of King's Bench practice proved valuable, and in succeeding through his learning the argument must have enhanced his reputation. Another star case gave him renewed advertisement — Yates v. Lansing, 6 Johnson, 335 — Emmet for the plaintiff, who was an Albany lawyer of high stand ing, and a master in Chancery. He by mis apprehension of due authority had sub scribed to a chancery bill the name of an other solicitor who disavowed the act. Chancellor Livingston committed Yates for malpractice, but Judge Ambrose Spencer discharged him on habeas corpus. This the chancellor declared invalid, and had Yates rearrested and recommitted. The poor sheriff found himself between two masters, and this conflict of the Courts at tracted attention both among lawyers and laymen. At this stage of the conflict Yates re tained Emmet, who took his client before Chief-Justice Kent on another habeas; but the latter, as if by prescience that shortly he would be rowing a chancellor's boat, stood by Lansing, and Emmet failed in his action, yet stuck to his procedure, like a disciple of the famous Brougham doctrine
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in the Queen Caroline case about the fealty of lawyer to client, and so carried his con tention into the Court for Correction of Er rors, where he succeeded. Then Emmet, for Yates, sued the Chancellor to recover the penalty affixed to the statute forbidding a re-imprisonment of any one once dis charged on any habeas corpus for the old offence. But Emmet failed, the Court de ciding — and the decision has become for the doctrine a leading case — that superior tribunals of general jurisdiction were not liable to personally answer for acts done in a judicial capacity, nor for errors of judg ment. The case is, as finally decided by the Court for the Correction of Errors, to be found in 9 Johnson, 395, and as a matter of legal curiosity is worth reading in cpnnection with their first decision just mentioned, reported in 6 Johnson, because virtually, in deciding for the Chancellor, the Court overruled its first determination against his power. Thomas Addis Emmet's appearance in court was rather that of a rollicking middleaged Irish squire, fond of the hunt and the bottle — although he was a model of sobri ety. He had roguish Hibernian eyes, a very florid complexion, was of sound phys ical make, displayed an expansive head, and one that an enthusiastic phrenologist would have revelled to manipulate in a search for bumps; and he used a musical, expres sive and variable voice, pleasantly tinctured with a winning Corkonian brogue. He was persuasive and convincing, rather than strictly eloquent, but eminently graceful in gesture and pose. He had but one odd foible, which was in taking a goose-quill pen — his was not the era of the steel, the gold, or the capricious fountain pen — between his fingers, then putting his hands behind him, would reduce the quill and feather to shreds with nervous clutchings, while to the observer in front of him he appeared cool, collected, and talking to point and purpose. He was gifted with great nervous
