List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 15

In 1874, the U.S. government created the United States Reports, and retroactively numbered older privately-published case reports as part of the new series. As a result, cases appearing in volumes 1–90 of U.S. Reports have dual citation forms; one for the volume number of U.S. Reports, and one for the volume number of the reports named for the relevant reporter of decisions (these are called "nominative reports").

Henry Wheaton

Starting with the 14th volume of U.S. Reports, the Reporter of Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States was Henry Wheaton. Wheaton was Reporter of Decisions from 1816 to 1827, covering volumes 14 through 25 of United States Reports which correspond to volumes 1 through 12 of his Wheaton's Reports. As such, the dual form of citation to, for example, Beverly v. Brooke is 15 U.S. (2 Wheat.) 100 (1817).

The Supreme Court is established by Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution of the United States, which says: "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court . . .". The size of the Court is not specified; the Constitution leaves it to Congress to set the number of justices. Under the Judiciary Act of 1789 Congress originally fixed the number of justices at six (one chief justice and five associate justices).^[2] Since 1789 Congress has varied the size of the Court from six to seven, nine, ten, and back to nine justices (always including one chief justice).

When the cases in 15 U.S. (2 Wheat.) were decided, the Court comprised these seven justices:

Portrait	Justice	Office	Home State	Succeeded	Date confirmed by the Senate (Vote)	Tenure on Supreme Court
	John Marshall	Chief Justice	Virginia	Oliver Ellsworth	January 27, 1801 (Acclamation)	February 4, 1801 – July 6, 1835 (Died)
	Bushrod Washington	Associate Justice	Virginia	James Wilson	December 20, 1798 (Acclamation)	November 9, 1798 (Recess Appointment) – November 26, 1829 (Died)
	William Johnson	Associate Justice	South Carolina	Alfred Moore	March 24, 1804 (Acclamation)	May 7, 1804 – August 4, 1834 (Died)
	Henry Brockholst Livingston	Associate Justice	New York	William Paterson	December 17, 1806 (Acclamation)	January 20, 1807 – March 18, 1823 (Died)
	Thomas Todd	Associate Justice	Kentucky	new seat	March 2, 1807 (Acclamation)	March 3, 1807 – February 7, 1826 (Died)
	Gabriel Duvall	Associate Justice	Maryland	Samuel Chase	November 18, 1811 (Acclamation)	November 23, 1811 – January 12, 1835 (Resigned)
	Joseph Story	Associate Justice	Massachusetts	William Cushing	November 18, 1811 (Acclamation)	February 3, 1812 – September 10, 1845 (Died)

Laidlaw v. Organ

Laidlaw v. Organ, 15 U.S. (2 Wheat.) 178 (1817), established the rule of caveat emptor in the United States. The Supreme Court's opinion can be interpreted to mean that withholding information calculated to deceive the other party can cause a contract to be void on equitable grounds. Laidlaw has been recognized by US legal scholars as a central case in the history of US contract law. It was the first case in which the Supreme Court adopted the rule of caveat emptor and "was one of the first cases to come before the [Supreme] Court involving a contract for future delivery of a commodity."^[3] It is also the first case to start to articulate a doctrine of forbidding active concealment.

Under the Judiciary Act of 1789 the federal court structure at the time comprised District Courts, which had general trial jurisdiction; Circuit Courts, which had mixed trial and appellate (from the US District Courts) jurisdiction; and the United States Supreme Court, which had appellate jurisdiction over the federal District and Circuit courts—and for certain issues over state courts. The Supreme Court also had limited original jurisdiction (i.e., in which cases could be filed directly with the Supreme Court without first having been heard by a lower federal or state court). There were one or more federal District Courts and/or Circuit Courts in each state, territory, or other geographical region.

Bluebook citation style is used for case names, citations, and jurisdictions.

• "C.C.D." = United States Circuit Court for the District of . . .
  • e.g.,"C.C.D.N.J." = United States Circuit Court for the District of New Jersey
• "D." = United States District Court for the District of . . .
  • e.g.,"D. Mass." = United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts
• "E." = Eastern; "M." = Middle; "N." = Northern; "S." = Southern; "W." = Western
  • e.g.,"C.C.S.D.N.Y." = United States Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York
  • e.g.,"M.D. Ala." = United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama
• "Ct. Cl." = United States Court of Claims
• The abbreviation of a state's name alone indicates the highest appellate court in that state's judiciary at the time.
  • e.g.,"Pa." = Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
  • e.g.,"Me." = Supreme Judicial Court of Maine

• certificate of division

• [1] Case reports in volume 15 (2 Wheat.) from Court Listener
• [2] Case reports in volume 15 (2 Wheat.) from the Caselaw Access Project of Harvard Law School
• [3] Case reports in volume 15 (2 Wheat.) from Google Scholar
• [4] Case reports in volume 15 (2 Wheat.) from Justia
• [5] Case reports in volume 15 (2 Wheat.) from Open Jurist
• Website of the United States Supreme Court
• United States Courts website about the Supreme Court
• National Archives, Records of the Supreme Court of the United States
• American Bar Association, How Does the Supreme Court Work?
• The Supreme Court Historical Society

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

United States Reports/Volume 15