Who can explain this case to me: Calder v. Bull (1798)?

Question

Or can give me a link to a helpful page.

Answer 1

So far as I REMEMBER, the case goes like this.

The Calder family was given certain property in a probate court in Connecticut. But shortly after the ruling, the state legislature passed a new law revising probate rules and the effect of this new law was to force the court to change ownership of the property in question to the Bull family instead.

The Calder family challenged this law in a case that went all of the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. The challenge argued that the new Conn. law was in violation of the Ex Post Facto Clause of Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution. Basically, the Calder family's argument was that once they were awarded the property, no new law can be made to merely take that property away and give it to some one else. The Ex Post Facto Clause prohibits states from changing the rules "after the fact," i.e., the Ex Post Facto Clause.

But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the Calders. There were 6 Justices at the time and only 4 of them participated in considering the case, but all 4 arrived at the same conclusion: the Ex Post Facto Clause only applies to criminal issues, not to civil issues such as probate law.

Answer 2

Calder V Bull

Answer 3

Calder v. Bull is a seminal case concerning both the source of individual rights, and the ability of the Supreme Court to ascertain the content and protections afforded by these rights. This case was decided before Chief Justice John Marshall was appointed to the Court in 1801. Thus, the Court followed the English practice of seriatim (individual, serial) opinions. Marshall would change that practice by initiating the "opinion of the Court." The holding of Calder remains good law: the ex post facto provision of the Constitution (Art. I, § 10, cl.1) applies solely to criminal cases, not civil cases. For Samuel Chase, later impeached by the House (but acquitted by the Senate), the government has no authority to interfere with an individual's rights, and "the general principles of law and reason" forbid the legislature from doing so. For James Iredell, "[t]he ideas of natural justice are regulated by no fixed standard: the ablest and the purest men have differed upon the subject; and all that the Court could properly say, in such an event, would be, that the Legislature (possessed of an equal right of opinion) had passed an act which, in the opinion of the judges, was inconsistent with the abstract principles of natural justice." Iredell is skeptical about both the existence of natural rights, and the ability of the judiciary to assess accurately the content of those rights. Throughout American constitutional history, there has been skepticism about natural rights. For example, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes was a complete natural rights skeptic. By the time of the constitutional crisis of 1937, a majority of the Court was convinced that natural rights talk was part of what came to be called "Lochnerizing," after the Lochner case. Thus, natural rights arguments were largely dismissed after 1937. But the Court has never abandoned claims to find unenumerated or implicit rights, as the "right to privacy" as developed in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) and Roe v. Wade (1973) make clear. The controversy over Roe re-kindled a long existing skepticism about courts, and their ability to ascertain rights correctly. In the late 18th century, of course, more people were comfortable with the notion of natural rights than are people in the early 21st century.

Answer 4

Just google Calder v Bull -- there's 305,000 entries.