Salt Water Taffy

Baker, John JMB at STRADLEY.COM
Wed Aug 28 14:08:18 UTC 2002


        I suppose that I should clarify just what searches I ran.  I searched in Westlaw for "salt water taffy" or "saltwater taffy" in reported cases in the United States before 1945.  No relevant cases were found.  I also searched Supreme Court cases for "Edmiston," "James Brothers," and "James Bros," finding nothing.

        So what's the explanation?  All U.S. Supreme Court cases are reported, but not all lower court cases are reported.  So it is possible that there was an unreported lower court case that was subsequently appealed to the Supreme Court.  If the Supreme Court decided not to hear the case, and none of the named parties were "Edmiston" or "James Brothers (Bros)," then my search would not have found the case.  People often call it "going to the Supreme Court" when the Supreme Court decided not to hear the appeal (technically known as a denial of certiorari), even though what really happened was that the Supreme Court wouldn't let them in the door.  Denials of certiorari are reported, but there is little more than the parties' names, and not necessarily even all of the parties.

        A second possible explanation is that the "Supreme Court" was a state supreme court, not the U.S. Supreme Court.  This seems unlikely, though, because at the time in question the New Jersey supreme court was known as the Court of Errors and Appeals.

John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: James A. Landau [mailto:JJJRLandau at AOL.COM]
Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2002 9:35 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Salt Water Taffy


I still can't explain why two different sources (the Fralinger Web site and
the Edmiston obituary) mention a Supreme Court that John Baker says does not
exist.  Nor can I explain why Fralingers', which according to both the Web
site and Volume III of _The Jersey Shore_ has been selling "salt water taffy"
since 1885, should have claimed (per Barry Popik) a first use of 1894.


      Jim Landau
       baffled in Atlantic City



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