Majority
p. 103Samuel Stryker against Thomas Turnbull, Robert Denton and Bernardus Voorhees. NEW-YORK, May, 1805.
Headnote
A town contributing to the expense of a suit is a ground for moving for a foreign jury, and the court will easily be induced to grant it in Long-Island causes, which involve a right of fishing.HARISON,
on behalf of the defendants, moved for a foreign and struck jury, to be taken from the city and county of New-York, on an affidavit, stating that the suit was prosecuted at the joint expense of the inhabitants of the town of Gravesend in King's county, who had combined for the maintenance of a supposed right, claimed by them as inhabitants of the said town, of erecting huts for the purpose of fishing, upon the lands of the defendants; of taking and heaping up sea. weed, and carrying it away at their pleasure, and that other claims and disputes, in some respects, of a similar nature, exist in the neighbouring county °f Richmond.
Baldwin, contra.
The same principle would warrant the application in most insurance causes. Those, interested in a point, contribute their quotas towards the defence. No more is done here. But why not take the jury from Queen's, or any other county in Long-Island?
This is a cause in which the right of fishery will come in question. Where the counties are so small as those mentioned, an impartial trial cannot be had, on a claim of a general nature. New-York is as near as any other, and where a right of fishery, or any similar claim is to be litigated, it is in my opinion, sufficient to take the matter from a Long-Island jury.
The expense is at the door of the party who applies, and the contribution to support the suit, shews strongly the disposition of the county.