West v. Randall (original) (raw)

West v. Randall (29 F. Cas. 718 (R.I. 1820)) is one of the earliest class action lawsuits cases in the early United States under federal case law in which one individual was allowed to sue on behalf of a larger group. The decision was written by Justice Joseph Story, who was serving on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. The case involved a dispute over the estate of William West, a Revolutionary War general from Rhode Island and a party in the first US Supreme Court decision, West v. Barnes (1791).