Gibson, John Bannister (1780–1853)

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GIBSON, JOHN BANNISTER (1780–1853)

John Bannister Gibson was a Pennsylvania judge for forty years, thirty-seven of which were spent on the state supreme court. Born in 1780, he studied at Dickinson College and was admitted to the bar in 1803. After a brief legislative experience, the governor appointed him to the Court of Common Pleas in 1813 and three years later elevated him to the state's highest court. In 1827, Gibson became chief justice, a position he retained until 1851 when a constitutional change inaugurated a rotation system. He spent the remaining two years of his life as an associate justice.

Gibson's views on judicial power form the bedrock of his reputation. In particular, his dissent in eakin v. raub (1825) presented the most important response to john marshall's opinion in marbury v. madison (1803). Gibson insisted that without specific constitutional authorization, the judiciary had no power to nullify legislative acts. His permissive view of legislative power complemented the "commonwealth idea." For example, he held that state-created monopolies were not constitutionally prohibited and, furthermore, that they were "useful institutions" (Case of "The Philadelphia and Trenton Railroad Company," 1840).

Legislative interference with the judicial process resulted in the only exception to Gibson's temporizing course. The Pennsylvania legislature traditionally had exercised equity powers through private acts. But after the courts were granted substantially complete equity jurisdiction in 1836, Gibson and his colleagues struck down attempts by the legislature to maintain their own practice. When the legislature ordered a new trial in a simple trespass action, Gibson ruled that "the power to order new trials is judicial; but the power of the legislature is not judicial" (De Chastellux v. Fairchild, 1850).

Gibson's views of judicial power were eclipsed by the judicial activism of the post-civil war era. But subsequent demands for judicial restraint in the twentieth century resulted in renewed interest in Gibson and respect for his ideas. roscoe pound ranked him among the ten leading American jurists, and morris r. cohen praised him as one of the "great creative minds" in American law.

Stanley I. Kutler
(1986)