Generes v. Campbell

'Bills of exception in the Federal courts are required to be drawn as at the common law under the statute of Westminster II; and, of course, they must be sealed by the judge as therein required. Justiciarii apponant sigilla sua, is the express command of the statute; and so is the commentary of Lord Coke.' Independent of which the frame of the bill, they argued, was defective. There was no statement of facts nor proper presentation of the questions at issue. Mr. Louis Janin, contra, stated, as respected the matter of a seal, that in his very long professional practice in the State of Louisiana he had rarely if ever seen on a bill of exceptions the signature of the judge accompanied by one of those scratches of the pen that by courtesy are called 'seals;' a meaningless matter in the law of Louisiana, or of the other civil law countries. What was said in Pomeroy's Lessee v. Bank of Indiana was dictum.