Vermont Bar Journal, Vol. 40, No. 2 Fall 2014, Vol. 40, No. 3 | Page 23

59
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4.

Id. at 5.
Id. at 14.
Id. at 5.
St. Johnsbury Caledonian, Nov. 26, 1885, at

Boston Daily Advertiser, Nov. 15, 1884, at 5.
New York Times, Oct. 21, 1886, at 1.
63
Royce v. Maloney, 58 Vt. 437 (1886).
64
Jerome v. Smith, 48 Vt. 230 (1876).
65
Langdon v. Vermont & C.R. Co., 53 Vt. 228
(1880).
66
Robert Jones, 1 Railroads of Vermont 186-187
(1993).
67
Laws of 1886, No. 55; V.S. § 1002; Mimms,
supra note 36, at 71-72. James Barrett, who
served on the Court from 1857, was denied
reelection in 1880, in part because of the hard
feelings that attended his severe and sharp
criticisms of lawyers and his lack of impartiality
in trying cases, which would not have been as
notable or as objectionable had rotation been
the rule in his time. He spent most of his judicial
career on the high court serving as presiding
judge in Windham and Windsor Counties,
where the imprint of his corrections of the bar
left a lasting and unwelcome imprint. Frank
Fish, James Barrett, in Walter Hill Crockett,
5 Vermont The Green Mountain State 123-125
(1926).
68
Mimms, supra note 36, at 63.
69
History, supra note 5, at 250; Walter Hill
Crockett, 5 Vermont The Green Mountain State
381 (1926).
70
Crockett, supra note 69, at 307.
71
Id. Judge Hall was senior superior judge at
the time of his death, and would have been
elevated to the high court, had he lived. Had
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Governor John A. Mead appointed H. Charles
to the Court, he would have broken the
tradition of succession between the superior
and Supreme Courts that was otherwise
respected for many years, with few exceptions.
72
Id.
73
Judge Timothy Redfield, in Merritt v.
Dearth (1875), ordered an arrest of judgment
in a slander suit based on Stephen’s decision
in Hazelton v. Weare (1836), described by
Redfield as “clear, simple, and satisfactory, and
characteristic of that eminent judge.” Merritt v.
Dearth, 48 Vt. 65, 68 (1875); Haselton v. Weare,
8 Vt. 480 (1836). Justice Seneca Haselton
quoted Stephen in his 1915 decision in Usher v.
Allen, on how to decide whether to authorize
a new trial, that, “It is not our duty to renew a
doubtful controversy.” Usher v. Allen, 89 Vt. 545
(1915).
74
Crockett, supra note 69, at 96.
75
Id. at 97.
76
Id. at 64.
77
Id. at 196.
78
Mimms, supra note 36, at 59.

THE VERMONT BAR JOURNAL • FALL 2014

Ruminations: Royce Dynasty

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