in what case did the us supreme court hand down its first opinion on august the 3rd 1791
History of the Supreme Court of the United States The first Chief Justice of the United States was John Jay; the Court's first docketed case was Van Staphorst v. Maryland (1791), and its first recorded decision was West v. Barnes (1791).[2] Perhaps the most controversial of the Supreme Court's early decisions was Chisholm v. Georgia, in which it held that the federal judiciary could hear lawsuits against states. Soon thereafter, responding to the concerns of several states, Congress proposed the Eleventh Amendment, which granted states immunity from certain types of lawsuits in federal courts. The Amendment was ratified in 1795.