Legal+Firsts+in+Wyoming

= Legal Firsts in Wyoming History = **First civil case brought before the Wyoming Supreme Court** //Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Monseau// (1870) was the first civil case heard by the three-member court. Monseau claimed the telegraph company breached a contract with him in which he had agreed to supply 754 telegraph poles at $2.50 per pole. The company claimed the man who had entered into the contract with Monseau in the company’s name was not its authorized agent. E. P. Johnson, the man for whom Johnson County was later named, represented Monseau. The court affirmed the lower court judgment in Monseau’s favor.

**First criminal case heard by the Wyoming Supreme Court** //Territory of Wyoming v. Anderson// (1869) was the first criminal case appealed to the Supreme Court. Anderson was indicted in September 1869 for “keeping a disorderly house.” He was found guilty and fined $300. His appeal was based on a technicality—absence of witnesses’ names on the in­dictment. The court, however, affirmed his conviction without issuing a formal opinion.

**First personal injury case brought in a Wyoming court** //Union Pacific Railroad v. Silas Hause// (1870) was the first personal injury case brought in any Wyoming court. Hause was sitting on top of the caboose of a Union Pacific train when the car went off the track at Sherman, midway be­tween Cheyenne and Laramie on the summit. As Hause jumped off the ca­boose, “a barrel of molasses burst through the side of the car and struck Hause, fracturing his leg.” The trial court returned a judgment award of $10,000 for Hause, but the Supreme Court remanded the case back to district court because “damages granted were in excess of actual damages.”

**First appeal from a death sentence** //Kinsler v. Territory of Wyoming// (1873) was the first appeal from a death sentence handed down by a Wyoming court. Toussaint Kinsler had been found guilty of killing a Cheyenne man. His death sentence was affirmed by the court and he was hanged for the crime.

**First libel case** //Territory v. Wilson// (1873) was the first libel case filed in a Wyoming court. Posey S. Wilson wrote a letter to the //Omaha Herald// commenting on the unfitness of a local judge. The judge had him fined for contempt of court and criminal libel. Various aspects of the case continued to occupy the Supreme Court’s time during 1873 and 1874. A 47-page brief by Jason B. Brown, Wilson’s attorney in the case, is held in the collections of the National Archives.

**First case brought in Esther Hobart Morris’ court** //Morris v. James W. Stilman// (1870) was the first case filed in the court in which the first woman justice of the peace in the world presided. Morris her­self brought the suit to force Stilman, her predecessor, to turn over the court’s official records to her. The case was dismissed when Morris discovered she lacked jurisdiction to hear her own case.

**First woman charged with murder** Mrs. Jennie Berry of Fort Laramie was charged with the murder of Robert Rice, her 35 year-old bachelor employer in June 1887.

**First divorce brought in a Wyoming court** The first divorce granted in what is now Wyoming was Nicholas Walke from Anna W. Walke on Nov. 14, 1866, at Fort Bridger, then a part of Utah Territory.