appropriate court of higher instance in England for the type of cause before it. 
Limitations upon powers of review were most rigid in common law error 
proceedings, and it is desirable to take some account of the situation which the 
English courts had created. 
GENERAL AND SPECIAL VERDICTS 
It has been indicated in the preceding chapters that in common law causes the 
scope of the appellate review was in part governed by the nature of the proceedings 
below. In the lower court the jury might either bring in a general 
verdict or a special verdict. In the former case the jury pronounced in favor 
of either plaintiff or defendant, taking the law as given by the trial judge, 
applying that law to the facts as it found them to be, and expressing its conclusion 
in the verdict. The general verdict, therefore, is compounded of both 
law and fact. But under the authority of the Statute of Westminster 11, c. 30, 
it was possible for the jury, when they had doubts as to the matter of law, to 
bring in a special verdict. Such verdicts stated the facts as found and referred 
the law arising thereon to the decision of the court by a conditional conclusion 
—if upon the whole matter, the court should be of opinion that the plaintiff 
had cause of action, then for the plaintiff, if otherwise, then for the defendant. 4 
The significance for our purposes of the two types of verdicts is found in the 
dependence of the scope of the appellate judgment upon the verdict below. It 
is broadly stated in a leading English case that 
where judgment is given for the plaintiff, and the defendant brings error, there 
shall only be judgment to reverse the former judgment, for the suit is only to be 
eased and discharged of that judgment: but where the plaintiff brings error, the 
judgment shall not only be a reversal, but the Court shall also give such judgment as 
the Court below should have given; for his writ of error is to revive the first cause 
of action, and to recover what he ought to have recovered by the first suit, wherein 
erroneous judgment was given. 5 
But other cases more cautiously limited the case where the appellate body upon 
reversal should give such judgment as should have been given below to special 
verdicts and demurrers. 6 A review of the decisions discloses that virtually all 
the cases cited for the proposition in question are cases of writ of error upon 
demurrers 7 or special verdicts. 8 The sole case of a general verdict in which 
4 2 Tidd, Practice King's Bench, 896-97. 
5 Parker v. Harris (1 Sal\. 262). See also the 
statements in Anonymous Case (1 Sal\. 401); 
Kent v. Kent {Cases temp. Hardwieke 21, 28). 
6 Philips v. Bury (1 Ld. Raym. 5; Skinner 447, 
514-15; Holt K.B. 403; Carthew 180, 319; 4 
Mod. 106, 126). Cf. Shower 35, 57. 
7 See Faldo v. Ridge {Cro. Jae. 206; Yelverton 
74); Ceely v. Hoskins {Cro. Car. 509); 
Witherley v. Sarsfeild (1 Show. K.B. 125); 
Baker v. Lade {Carthew 253); Parker v. Harris 
{supra n. 5; see 2 Vent. 270). 
8 Mulcarry v. Eyres {Cro. Car. 511); Philips v. 
Bury {Skjnner 447); Kent v. Kent {supra n. 5; 
see 2 Barnard. K.B. 357, 441).