44 court of appeals of maryland

Johnson observed at bar is certainly true, that ever
since the case of Scott v. Dobson,²⁷ the law has
been in this point looked upon to be settled;" and
he argued the principle of stare decisis. A glance
at some of the reasons which controlled decisions
of the court, such for instance as those in Scott v.
Dobson, as stated by Dulany on page 353, and
arguments presented by counsel, such as those in
Maxwell v. Lloyd, 1 Harris & McHenry, 213,
will confirm the conclusion that this court in
which the law was so expounded and adjudicated
was nothing less than a court of justice as we now
conceive it.

And as for the lack of special professional train-
ing in the judges, a fact which has often been dwelt
upon in references to the old court, it has already
been pointed out that this did not signify that they
were entirely without equipment for their work;
and it did not mark the, court as one of unusual
make-up in that time. Lay members took part in
the decisions of the House of Lords on appeals
as late as in 1834; and in the state of New York,
under constitutions of 1777 and 1821, the president
and members of the upper legislative chamber sat
on the court of final appeal until the adoption of
another constitution in 1846.²⁸ To be accurate,
there were some few lawyers on the Maryland
Court of Appeals prior to 1776, and some strong
ones. Daniel Dulany, the younger, said in his ob-
servations furnished to one of the counsel in the
case of West v. Stigar, reported in 1 Harris &

27. 1 Harris & McHenry, 160, 161.

28. N. Y. Const. 1777, Art. XXXII; Const. 1821, Art. V, sec. 1;
Const. 1846, Art. VI, sec. 2. See note to Chancellor's Case, 1
Bland, 678.