Talk:Pierson v. Post

Memories of law school

Ah, Pierson v. Post!. This was one of the first cases we began studying in my very first week of law school (probably was the same for half or more of the lawyers in the United States). My property law professor tortured me and my classmates forever (or so it seemed at the time) with the Socratic method, and this was probably a good case to get started with. After a few weeks of property law classes studying cases like this, I was half-convinced that you couldn't define possession and it was useless to try! But somewhere during that first year of law school (I was never consciously aware of when it happened), my thinking had changed.

Law school changed the way I think about things -- in subtle but important ways. I am so grateful to my law school professors and to the system that allowed me and my classmates to go through the process. Famspear 20:15, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

At least no nightmares of falling scales in Palsgraf. John wesley 14:48, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Only two judges, yet a reversal rather than affirmance on a tie?

There were apparently only two judges (justices) on this case, Tomkins and Livingston. That's not just from this article, that's what the Lexis copy of the opinion says.

If there were only two justices, and they split, generally under the ordinary parliamentary process of judicial review of a lower court, the the lower court's judgment stands; i.e. in this case, if there were only two judges, Livinston's opinion, for affirmance, would carry.

Can anyone explain this? Were there more than two judges, and perhaps only Justices Tomkins and Livingston were listed because only they filed opinions? TJRC (talk) 21:08, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

...And the answer is that there were three justices hearing the case, the unaccounted-for justice being Chief Justice James Kent. I've updated the article accordingly. [1]. TJRC (talk) 22:16, 5 September 2017 (UTC)