Oregon Reports is the official court reporter for the publication of all Supreme Court decisions. The first reported opinion is dated 165 years ago on December 1853.
The case before the Supreme Court of Oregon Territory was Robert Thompson v. Jacob Backenstos, 1 Or 17 (1853). The appellate case emerged from a Multnomah County suit for civil trespassing damages. The court affirmed the judgment made in Multnomah District Court and determined:
1. A motion is no part of the record.
2. A bill of exceptions, signed and sealed by the judge, is the proper mode of placing upon the record instructions given and refused by the court to the jury.
The court affirmed the judgment of the Multnomah District Court. The Supreme Court held that mere motions of a party in the case were not automatically part of the record. The proper procedure for preserving refused instructions in the record was for the judge to file a signed bill of exceptions including the refused instructions. As this procedure was not followed the appellate court had no proper record to consider with regard to the refused instructions.
Read the opinion from Chief Justice Williams
Learn more about Backenstos, Thompson and other Oregon pioneers by using the Secretary of State's Early Oregonians Database. It includes information from census, death, probate and other records of the early pioneers who lived in Oregon before statehood. The database coverage is from 1800 to 1860 and has over 103,000 entries!