President George Washington nominated James Iredell to the United States Supreme Court in 1790. Iredell’s descendents recently won a battle against North Carolina over ownership of their ancestor’s historic papers. Iredell’s heirs offered to let the state keep the documents for $3 million dollars, but the state refused and tried to argue that the family’s claim to the papers expired long ago. On Tuesday, the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled that heirs of James Iredell own the documents loaned to the state archives over 100 years ago.
See Heirs of 1790 Jurist Win Court Fight Over Papers, newsobserver.com, Oct. 2, 2012.
Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse (Professional Legal Marketing (PLM, Inc.)) for bringing this article to my attention.
