March 1888: Vice-Chancellor John Bird held, in Emerson v. Pierce, that complainants in a chancery suit, having won a decree that the defendants had no interest in a parcel of land, could not then get a decree partitioning the land among themselves. He said the defendants were out of the suit, just as if they had died, so the court was without jurisdiction. "Can two persons unite in asking the court to aid them in settling an account or making a division of goods? I think not," he concluded.
100 Years Ago
March 1913: Gov. Woodrow Wilson resigned on March 1, three days before his inauguration as the nation’s 28th president, and took with him Vice-Chancellor Lindley Garrison as his secretary of war. Wilson’s successor, James Fielder, signed a law creating a new vice-chancellorship, to be filled by John Backes, who would take over the Trenton docket of Vice-Chancellor Vivian Lewis, who in turn would assume Garrison’s Jersey City docket. Garrison’s seat would be moved to southern New Jersey.
