The Better Chancery Practice Blog

Note:  Since neither of the law schools in Mississippi require their students to study chancery courts and equity jurisdiction as a discrete subject, I thought it would be useful and informative to set out a brief history of how we came to have separate chancery courts in our state, as a starting point for understanding how our courts have developed separate practices and procedure.

When the Mississippi Territory was created in 1798, there was influx of settlers into the region around Natchez, where significant wealth began to be accumulated. As land was developed and plantations were established, there was a growing need for legal professionals to research and litigate land claims, and to advise the growing business community.

Lawyers came to the new territory from Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas. They brought with them the knowledge of their own legal systems based on English jurisprudence and judicial organization. The first chancery courts in the colonies had been established in Maryland, and that state’s equity system was regarded as being one of the most advanced. The courts in the Atlantic states administered equity as had the chancery courts of England.

The immigrant attorneys influenced the territorial legislature, and the first territorial courts established were the Superior Courts, which had both legal and equitable jurisdiction. Interestingly, the legislation establishing those courts provided that they “may ordain and establish all necessary rules for the orderly conducting of business in equity,” meaning that the courts and not the lawmakers made the rules of procedure.

Mississippi achieved statehood in 1817, and the first state constitution authorized the legislature to establish a separate court of chancery. From the inception of the State of Mississippi, then, chancery court has been a constitutional court. Nonetheless, it was several years before the legislature acted on its authority. In 1821, at the urging of Virginia native George Poindexter, the legislature did establish the separate superior court of chancery.

Supreme Court Justice Joshua G. Clarke (for whom Clarke County is named) was selected as the state’s first chancellor. At the time, the position of chancellor was appointed, and was regarded as preferable to a seat on the Supreme Court.

Practice in chancery then was vastly different from what it is now. There was one chancellor, who sat at the seat of government and one or two additional places, and to whom the cases were brought. Trials were the exception. Instead, testimony was presented by deposition. The “Learned Chancellor” examined the facts presented in the light of any applicable precedent (the case law of New York and England were the primary authorities until Mississippi developed its own substantial body of law), and rendered a scholarly and, hopefully, wise decision, which could then be appealed to the supreme court.

The constitution adopted in 1832 made the position of chancellor an elected one, and it is believed that Mississippi’s were the first elected chancery judges. That constitution provided for separate courts of equity, but also authorized the legislature to give circuit courts concurrent equity jurisdiction “in all cases where the amount or thing in controversy does not exceed $500; also all cases of divorce and for foreclosure of mortgages.” The provision for concurrent jurisdiction was made because it was burdensome for poorer litigants to have to travel to the locale of the chancery court.

To help alleviate the caseload, the position of Vice-Chancellor was created in 1842, and another was created in 1846. At that point, the three chancellors began riding what amounted to a circuit, holding court in different sections of the state, similar to our federal courts now.

By 1856, the business in chancery court had grown to such an extent that the constitution was amended in that year so that the circuit judges held chancery court in each county.

Up to 1868, probate matters had been entrusted to local “probate courts,” inferior to the chancery courts, which were staffed by lay persons who had no legal training or experience, and no judicial background. As a result, business was frequently mishandled, and the chancery courts were swamped with suits stemming from the inferior court actions. It was often said that the only issue when reviewing the action of a probate court was whether its actions were void or merely voidable.

As for practice and procedure, the principle established in territorial days that the chancellors would establish their own procedures continued in effect, but there was no central authority for the rules, and there was a confusing proliferation of  procedural rules and practices that varied greatly from one chancellor to another. The resulting confusion gave rise to a call for uniformity among the courts.

Another source of dissatisfaction with the chancery system was that as the population grew there was an increasing demand for court time, but too few judges to meet the demand. Some called for more chancery judges, and others wanted to abolish the chancery courts and vest equity jurisdiction in the circuit courts, which were already in place serving every county.

In 1868, there was another constitutional convention formed due to Reconstruction. Its constitution once and for all established chancery court as a separate court, with chancellors sitting in districts across the state, comparable to already-established circuit court system. The concurrent jurisdiction arrangement with circuit court was terminated, as were the probate courts; the chancery courts with jurisdiction over the matters they fomerly handled.

In the wake of the 1868 constitution, the legislature began to address dissatisfaction with the patchwork of court procedures and rules by passing laws dictating procedures to the courts.

The provisions of the 1868 constitution for chancery carried over into the 1890 constitution, for the most part.

Over the years there were few changes in court legislation. In 1916, the legislature passed a bill requiring that the former method of taking testimony by deposition in chancery be abolished in favor of oral testimony.

In 1924, the legislature adopted the Chancery Practice Act, which settled once and for all, until 1981, that the legislature, and not the courts, would control the procedural and evidentiary rules of the courts.

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This information is distilled from Judge Griffith’s Mississippi Chancery Practice, 2nd Ed., 1950.