The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Pub. L. 104-67, 109 Stat. 737 ("PSLRA") implemented several substantive changes in the United States, affecting certain cases brought under the federal securities laws, including changes related to pleading, discovery, liability, class representation, and awards fees and expenses.
Capitol Records, Inc. v. Thomas-Rasset was the first file-sharing copyright infringement lawsuit in the United States brought by major record labels to be tried before a jury. The defendant, Jammie Thomas-Rasset, was found liable to the plaintiff record company for making 24 songs available to the public for free on the Kazaa file sharing service and ordered to pay $220,000.
Liverpool, New York & Philadelphia S. S. Co. v. Commissioners of Emigration, 113 U.S. 33 (1885), was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court, in which the court held that the plaintiff was in error, being a corporation under the laws of Great Britain, and an alien, had brought this action in the circuit court of the United States for the Southern district of New York, the defendant being a corporation of that state.
Polleys v. Black River Improvement Co., 113 U.S. 81 (1885), was a writ of error in the circuit court of Wisconsin for La Crosse County, and a motion was made to dismiss it.
Findlay v. McAllister, 113 U.S. 104 (1885), was a suit brought against Thomas McAllister and 14 other defendants, to recover damages as follows:
Central Railroad & Banking Co. of Ga. v. Pettus, 113 U.S. 116 (1885), was an appeal from a decree of the Circuit Court of the United States for the Middle district of Alabama in favor of the appellees, Pettus & Dawson and Watts & Sons, adjudging them entitled to the sum of, 161.21, and interest thereon at eight percent per annum from March 7, 1881, with lien, to secure its payment, upon the roadbed, depots, side tracks, turnouts, trestles, and bridges owned and used by the appellants, corporations of the State of Georgia, in operating the railroad formerly belonging to the Montgomery and West Point Railroad Company, an Alabama corporation, and which extends from Montgomery to West Point, with a branch from Opelika to Columbus. This property was directed to be exposed to sale unless within a given time the said amount was paid. This suit is the outgrowth of certain litigation in the courts of Alabama relating to the before-mentioned and other railroad property in which the appellants are interested.
Ackley School District v. Hall, 113 U.S. 135 (1885), was a suit to recover principal and interest claimed to be due the defendant on negotiable bonds issued by the plaintiff.
Price v. Pennsylvania Railroad Co., 113 U.S. 218 (1885), was a case where the plaintiff sued the defendant for the loss of her husband by a death which the jury found, by a special verdict, to be caused by the negligence of the company's servant or servants.
Dakota County v. Glidden, 113 U.S. 222 (1885), was a motion to dismiss a suit issued in aid of a railroad. Judgment for the plaintiff. The defendant brought a writ of error to reverse it. Subsequently, to the judgment, Dakota County, Nebraska settled with the plaintiff and other bondholders, by giving them new bonds bearing a less rate of interest, and the old bonds, which were the cause of action in this suit, were surrendered and destroyed. These facts were brought before this Court by affidavits and transcripts from the county records, accompanied by a motion to dismiss the writ of error.
Hardin v. Boyd, 113 U.S. 756 (1885), was a motion to dismiss a lawsuit on county bonds issued in aid of a railroad. Judgment below for the plaintiff. The defendant brought a writ bf error to reverse it. Subsequently, to the judgment, the county settled with the plaintiff and other bondholders, by giving them new bonds bearing a less rate of interest, and the old bonds, which were the cause of action in this suit, were surrendered and destroyed. Fraud and collusion was alleged in the handling of a will which transferred ownership of property in Crittenden County, Arkansas. These facts were brought before this Court by affidavits and transcripts from the county records, accompanied by a motion to dismiss the writ of error.
Spaids v. Cooley, 113 U.S. 278 (1885), was regarding a lawsuit brought to the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia on December 13, 1876, by Chauncey D. Spaids against Dennis N. Cooley to recover 593.70, with interest from July 1, 1868. The declaration contained the common money counts and nothing more. There were two pleas, one denying indebtedness and the other averring that the alleged cause of action did not accrue within three years before the suit. The plaintiff's reply joins issue on the first plea and as to the second plea avers that the defendant promised to pay the debt named in the declaration within three years next before the commencement of the suit. At the trial, the jury found "the issue in favor of the defendant", and there was a judgment accordingly at special term. The plaintiff appealed to the general term, which affirmed the judgment, and he brought the case here by a writ of error.
Sully v. Drennan, 113 U.S. 287 (1885), was an appeal from an order of the Circuit Court for the Southern District of Iowa remanding to the state court a case which had been removed from the state into the circuit court. The suit was brought originally in the district court of the state by James N. Drennan and others, taxpayers of Prairie Township, in the County of Mahaska.
Baylis v. Travelers' Insurance Company, 113 U.S. 316 (1885), was a case where after close of testimony in a trial, the defendant moved to dismiss on the ground of the insufficiency of the evidence to sustain a verdict. This motion was denied and the plaintiff asked that the case be submitted to the jury to determine the facts on the evidence. The court refused this, and plaintiff excepted. The court then ordered a verdict for plaintiff, subject to its opinion, whether the facts proved were sufficient to render defendant liable to plaintiff on the cause of action stated. Plaintiff moved for judgment on the verdict, and defendant moved for judgment on the pleadings and minutes of trial. Judgment was rendered for defendant upon an opinion of the court as to the effect of the evidence and as to the law on the facts as deduced from it by the court. Held that the plaintiff was thereby deprived of his constitutional right to a trial by jury, which he had not waived, and to which he was entitled.
Santa Anna v. Frank, 113 U.S. 339 (1885), was a case with no special finding of facts, the general finding of the issues for the plaintiff was not open to review by this court. Town of Martinton, Illinois v. Fairbanks, 112 U.S. 670; S. C. ante, 321. Questions were discussed by counsel for the defendant as to the legal authority of the town to issue the bonds referred to, fairly arose upon the first count of the declaration. But their determination could not affect the judgment, for the common counts were sufficient under the statutes of Illinois to support the judgment without reference to any question of the legal authority to issue the bonds described in the first count. Rev. St. Ill. 1870, c. 110, 58; Bond v. Dustin, 112 U.S. 604; S. C. ante, 296.
Union Pacific Railway Co. v. Cheyenne, 113 U.S. 516 (1885), was an appeal from the Supreme Court of the Territory of Wyoming regarding a bill charging that the collection of an illegal tax would involve the plaintiff in a multiplicity of suits as to the title of lots being laid out and sold, which would prevent their sale, and which would cloud the title to all his real estate, states a case for relief in equity.
Ayers v. Watson, 113 U.S. 594 (1885), was an action of trespass to try title of certain land in Bell County, Texas, originally brought in the district court of that county by Watson, the defendant in error, against the plaintiffs in error and one Anderson.
Kansas Pacific R. Co. v. Dunmeyer, 113 U.S. 629 (1885), was a writ of error to the Supreme Court of Kansas. The action was brought in that court on a covenant of warranty of title to two pieces of land in a deed of conveyance made by the Kansas Pacific Railroad Company to Dunmeyer. The Pacific Railroad Acts generally allowed railroads to sell public land adjacent to their routes as part of a land grant to raise funds but made an exception for land that already had a homestead filed. G. B. Dunmeyer claimed he purchased land that already had an existing claim.
Boyer v. Boyer, 113 U.S. 689 (1885), was a suit in error brought in a state court of Pennsylvania for an injunction restraining the commissioners of Schuylkill County from levying a county tax for the year 1883 upon certain shares in the Pennsylvania National Bank, an association organized under the National Banking Act. The suit proceeds upon the ground that such levy violates the act of Congress prescribing conditions upon state taxation of national bank shares in this, that "other moneyed capital in the hands of individual citizens" of that county is exempted by the laws of Pennsylvania from such taxation. A demurrer to the bill was sustained and the suit was dismissed. Upon appeal to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, that judgment was affirmed on the ground that the laws of the state under which the defendants sought to justify the taxation were not repugnant to the act of Congress.
United States v. Indianapolis & St. Louis Railroad Co., 113 U.S. 711 (1885), regarded a suit that was brought to foreclose mortgages given to secure bonds issued by the Indianapolis and St. Louis Railroad Company. A final decree of foreclosure having been passed, the mortgaged property was sold, and the sale was confirmed by the court. The United States intervened by petition, and asked that certain sums, alleged to be due to the government on account of taxes, be first paid out of the proceeds.
James Craig Taylor was a Virginia lawyer, newspaper publisher and politician who became the Attorney General of Virginia as Congressional Reconstruction ended. After serving in the Confederate States Army and the Virginia Senate (1863–1865), James C. Taylor won the first statewide postwar election on July 6, 1869, defeating Thomas R. Bowden who had won election four years earlier when many former Confederates were precluded from voting, or chose not to vote. Taylor later won election to the Virginia House of Delegates and served part-time for one term before losing to the man he had defeated.
