Background:

This is the first case that the Supreme Court ever decided. The Judiciary Act of 1789 set the number of Supreme Court justices at 6. The first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was John Jay. The associate members of the court were John Rutledge, William Cushing, John Blair, James Wilson, and James Iredell.

The oral arguments in the case were heard on August 2, 1791 and the opinion was issued August 3, 1791.

William West owed a debt and he asked the state if he could run a lottery to raise the funds to pay off the debt. Rhode Island agreed and West secured the necessary funding. A portion of the money he raised was in paper currency. Barnes argued that the payment needed to be made in gold or silver. The case was decided on a procedural issue at the Supreme Court.

Opinion:

“On the first day of the term, Bradford presented to the court, a writ, purporting to be a writ of error, issued out of the office of the clerk of the circuit court for Rhode Island district, directed to that court, and commanding a return of the judgment and proceedings rendered by them in this cause: And thereupon he moved for a rule, that the defendant rejoin to the errors assigned in this cause.
“Barnes, one of the defendants, ( a counsellor of the court) objected to the validity of the writ, that it had issued out of the wrong office: and, after argument,

“The Court were unanimously of opinion, That writs of error to remove causes to this court from inferior courts, can regularly issue only from the clerk’s office of this court.

“Motion refused.”