Definition
"Of Errors" appears in legal usage in two distinct contexts:
1. COURT DESIGNATION. A formal title identifying a court exercising appellate review jurisdiction — typically through appeal or writ of error. The phrase appears most prominently in historical court names such as the "Court of Errors" or "Court for the Correction of Errors." This usage designated a tribunal whose specific function was the review of legal errors from lower courts. The name was formerly used in New York and South Carolina, among other jurisdictions.
2. ASSIGNMENT OF ERRORS. In the procedural practice surrounding writs of error, "assignment of errors" referred to a pleading — analogous to the plaintiff's declaration in an ordinary action — in which the party seeking review set forth specifically which errors of law were complained of in the court below. This document framed the scope of appellate review and corresponded functionally to what modern practice calls an appellant's brief or specification of issues on appeal.
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Common Confusion
The phrase "of errors" most often appears not as a freestanding term but as the operative component of two distinct legal phrases: "assignment of errors" and "court of errors." These are procedurally and institutionally separate concepts that historical sources sometimes treat adjacently, creating confusion. The assignment of errors was a pleading filed by a party; a court of errors was a tribunal. Researchers encountering "of errors" in older sources should immediately determine which usage the context supports.
Additionally, the historical requirement to file a formal assignment of errors should not be conflated with modern appellate practice. In many American jurisdictions, the formal assignment has been abolished or superseded — courts have noted that what was once meant by the term now corresponds loosely to the issues identified in an appellant's brief, not a discrete common-law pleading.
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in pre-twentieth-century American appellate records, procedural treatises, or court histories will encounter "of errors" in both senses with some frequency. Several navigational points apply:
First, court names. New York's highest court was for much of its early history called the "Court for the Correction of Errors." South Carolina had a similarly styled tribunal. Bouvier's directs readers to the South Carolina entry without elaboration, signaling that jurisdiction-specific context is essential. Researchers should not assume that a "Court of Errors" in one state was structurally or jurisdictionally equivalent to one in another.
Second, procedural transition. The formal assignment of errors as a common-law pleading was progressively abandoned across American jurisdictions during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as codes of civil procedure replaced common-law forms. Sources citing Tidd's Practice or Stephen's Commentaries — as Black's does — are drawing on English and early American common-law procedure that may not reflect the law in the jurisdiction under research. The practitioner treatises cited (2 Tidd, Pr. 1168; 3 Steph. Comm. 644) are standard English procedural authorities of that era and should be understood as baseline common-law reference points, not as American statutory authority.
Third, plain error and waiver. The historical assignment of errors had a jurisdictional significance that resonates in modern doctrine: failure to assign an error could result in waiver. This connects directly to the modern plain error doctrine, under which appellate courts review unpreserved errors only under a demanding standard. Researchers tracing the genealogy of plain error review will find the assignment of errors requirement an important ancestor concept.
Fourth, the Bouvier entry is notably sparse — a bare cross-reference to South Carolina — which signals that by Bouvier's time this was primarily a jurisdictional or historical curiosity rather than a live procedural issue requiring substantive treatment.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary addresses "of errors" in two separate entries covering, respectively, the procedural pleading and the court designation. The procedural entry is the more substantive of the two, grounding the assignment of errors in English common-law procedure via Tidd and Stephen, and acknowledging that modern American courts had already moved away from the strict common-law meaning: "There is not, in the strict common-law sense of the term, any assignment of errors required to be filed by the appellant." This is a significant admission, signaling that by the time Black's was compiled, the term was already in doctrinal transition.
Bouvier contributes only a cross-reference to South Carolina on the court-designation sense, providing no independent analysis. This divergence in depth between the two dictionaries is itself informative: Black's recognized both senses as worth substantive treatment; Bouvier treated the court-designation usage as essentially a local historical matter.
Neither dictionary addresses the modern successor doctrines — plain error, harmless error, or structural error — that grew in part from the procedural logic underlying the assignment of errors requirement. Researchers should treat both historical entries as floor-level context, not as sufficient guides to current doctrine.
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Jurisdictional Note
The court-designation usage was jurisdiction-specific: New York and South Carolina are the named examples, but other states had analogously titled appellate bodies in their early constitutional periods. The procedural requirement of a formal assignment of errors also varied by jurisdiction and was reformed at different times under different state codes. Federal practice under the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure does not require a formal assignment of errors in the historical sense.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Standards of Review on Appeal (De Novo, Abuse of Discretion, Plain Error) — The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia
Harmless Error and Structural Error — The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia
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