(1802). Stephen Jacob, one of the judges of the court, was accused of failing to re- lieve the sufferings of Dinah, a slave he had purchased years before, after she became aged and disabled, rather than having her care thrust upon the town. The Court, sit- ting without Jacob, refused to accept the bill of sale as evidence, explaining that be- cause Article 1 of the Constitution forbade slavery, there was no liability for Jacob, and the town must bear the expense. As the de- cision was based on the 1777 Constitution having been in effect at the time Dinah was brought into the state, this justified the con- clusion that the Court regarded it as bind- ing on every Vermonter.34
From this deci-
sion, Watson explained the words “ought to” had binding force, presaging the hold- ing of the Supreme Court in its 1997 deci- sion in Brigham v. State (1997) on the same point.35 The Chief Justice ended his talk with an invocation: “We love Vermont. We are proud of her history. Though small in area, her efforts have been great, her deeds, mighty. May histories yet to be published give her credit where credit is due, accu- rately, and with full measure!”36 The man’s voice shines through in the ad-
dress. Considering how rarely his personal- ity comes through in his decisions on the Court, the address is the one part of Wat- son’s written legacy where you can hear him speak, free of the robe, and yet, even here, in the House chamber, he was a judge, and his words carried great weight.
His Decisions
The Chief Justice delivered this address in the House of Representatives. Most of his work was done in a smaller space, the chambers of the Vermont Supreme Court and in the courtroom. From his appoint- ment in 1899 until 1915, the Court was lo- cated in the State House, in the area now occupied by the legislative lounge and committee rooms adjacent to that large room. In 1914, the legislature decided bet- ter space was needed. Concerned that the projected cost of $300,000 to construct a State Library and Supreme Court building was too much money for the legislature to spend without consulting the voters, the General Assembly provided for a referen- dum of the people. At 1914 annual town meetings, the voters were asked, “Shall an act of the general assembly of 1912, enti- tled, ‘An Act to provide for erection of a building for the use of the state library and supreme court, and for other state purpos- es,’ become a law July 1, 1914?”37
A major-
ity of voters opposed the referendum by a vote of 16,820 to 19,284, which meant the law would take effect on July 1, 1915, in- stead of July 1, 1914. The building was con- structed, and has since that time served as
www.vtbar.org
the Court’s home. John H. Watson’s time on the Court took up the first three decades of the twentieth century. You can watch history unfold by seeing the range and changing nature of the cases the Court heard and decided over that period. Motor vehicle accident cases, for example, increased over that time, as accidents involving wagons and horses de- clined. Prohibition came and went, as did the First World War, the 1927 flood, and the 1929 crash, although only the first manifest- ed itself in appeals before the Vermont Su- preme Court during his tenure. Watson was on the Court during the pres- idencies of McKinley, Roosevelt, Taft, Wil- son, Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. Dur- ing that time, Vermont’s governors changed every two years, and there were fifteen dif- ferent administrations, beginning with Ed- ward C. Smith, who appointed Watson to the bench, and ending with John Weeks, who appointed Watson’s successor, George M. Powers, elevating him from first associ- ate to chief, and moving Frank D. Thomp- son from the superior court to the fourth associate chair. During those thirty years, the Progressive Era came and went, with the enactment of workmen’s compensation laws, the direct primary, and other socially liberal policies. Over his nearly thirty years on the bench, Watson served with sixteen different judges and justices. Russell Taft was chief when Watson was first elected. Three years later, John H. Rowell was elect- ed chief judge. In 1913, George M. Powers held the position for two years, then Love- land Munson for three, before Watson took the office himself. During Watson’s years, Taft, Start, and Taylor died while serving. The work largely did not involve grand, political questions or matters of great eco- nomic consequence, but the problems of real people, fighting for their share of a legacy, a marriage, or real property—small things, things you won’t necessarily think of fighting over today, because of the expense and the hassle of a lawsuit. Watson’s judicial writing was mild, clear,
and precise. He did his work and wasted no time getting it done, even if it took only one or two paragraphs, his usual length. He wrote no treatises on law or sermons on moral values. He rarely raised his judi- cial voice. He may not have attended law school, but he became a scholar of the law. His work frequently quoted Coke, Hale, Granville, Blackstone, and Kent on the com- mon law, and he was familiar enough with English common law precedent to write of it with confidence.38
Justice Watson was a
conservative, who was not afraid to exer- cise the full authority of the Court over leg- islation and bad behavior, but he was more than likely to favor the established order of practice and precedent. In upholding the nisi period following divorce and declaring
THE VERMONT BAR JOURNAL • WINTER 2012 11
Ruminations: A Hero Once, a Judge for Life
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