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Craftsman Builder's Supply Inc. v. Butler Manufacturing Co.3/5/1999
Magna Carta, Koch stated:
"The Discussion of Chapter 29 also provided Lord Coke with the opportunity to explain the significance of the common law and the importance of individual rights. He viewed the common law as the "surest sanctuary, that a man can take, and the strongest fortresse to protect the weakest of all." For Lord Coke, the common law was the right of everyone to have their goods, lands, families, body, life, and honor protected from injury and wrong. In his concluding observation of Chapter 29's importance, Lord Coke stated: `As the goldfiner will not out of the dust, threds, or shreds of gold, let passe the least crum, in respect of the excellency of the metall: so ought not the learned reader to let passe any syllable of this law, in respect of the excellency of the matter.'" Id. at 360 (emphasis added) (footnotes omitted).
Blackstone asserted that the rights of Englishmen had little value but for Magna Carta's guarantee of the right of access to the courts. With respect to that right and the right to a remedy for civil wrongs, Blackstone stated:
"A third subordinate right of every Englishman is that of applying to the courts of Justice for redress of injuries. Since the law is in England, the supreme arbiter of every man's life, liberty, and property, courts of Justice must at all times be open to the subject, and the law be duly administered therein. The emphatical words of magna carta spoken in the person of the King, who in judgment of law (says sir Edward Coke) is ever present and repeating them in all his courts, are these: nulli vendemus, nulli negabimus, aut differemus restum vel justitiam: `and therefore every subject,' continues the same learned author, `for injury done to him in bonis [i.e., goods] in terris [land] vel persona [person] by any other subject, be he ecclesiastical or temporal, without any exception, may take his remedy by the course of law, and have Justice and right for the injury done him, freely without sale, fully without any denial, and speedily without delay.'" Tennessee's Open Court's Clause at 363 (emphasis added) (quoting 1 William Blackstone, Commentaries *141).
Commencing with the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, the new states, which had been colonies of England, adopted constitutions. Beginning with the adoption of the Constitution of Virginia on June 29, 1776, eleven of the original thirteen states adopted new constitutions, and six of the eleven constitutions contained "open courts" or "right to remedy" provisions rooted in Chapter 40 of King John's Magna Carta and Chapter 29 of the 1225 Magna Carta. See id. at 367. Section XII of the Delaware Declaration of Rights of 1776 was typical. It stated:
"That every Freeman for every Injury done him in his Goods, Lands or Person, by any other Person, ought to have Remedy by the Course of the Law of the Land, and ought to have Justice and Right for the Injury done to him freely without Sale, fully without any Denial, and speedily without Delay, according to the Law of the Land." Id. at 367.
The rights protected by those provisions included more than just a right to enter the courthouse. The substantive rights to be protected by the "remedy clauses" was implicitly recognized in several of the early state constitutions, as evidenced by the fact that the law of sovereign immunity was stated to be an exception to the rights protected by the remedy clauses in open courts provisions. For example, the open courts provision in Article IX, section 11 of the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1790 included a sentence specifically providing the legislature with the power to determine when and how suits could be maintained against the commonwea
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