Volume 131 — United States Reports

These cases were suits in equity brought against the United States under the recent act of March 3d, 1887, 24 Stat. 505, c. 359, extending the jurisdiction of claims against the government to the District and Circuit Courts of the United States.

<p>United States v. Jones, ante, 1, affirmed and applied to this case.</p>

<p>ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE TERRITORY OF MONTANA.</p> <p>The case is stated in the opinion.</p>

The appellant, George Allman, on the .31st of January, 1885, filed a petition in the Court of Claims against the United States 'asking judgment for the sum of $3607.13, which he alleged was the balance due for services rendered by him under two contracts for carrying the United States mail from July 1, 1878, to July 1, 1882.

<p>APPEALS FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE DISTRICT OF MARYLAND.</p> <p>Motion, to dismiss for want of jurisdiction. The case is stated in the opinion.</p>

<p>APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA.</p> <p>This was a motion to dismiss for want of' jurisdiction, because the order or decree from which the appeal was taken was not a final decree.</p> <p>To this motion was also added, under rule 6, (108 U. S. 515,) a motion to affirm, on the ground that, although the record in the said cause might show that this court had jurisdiction in the premises, yet "it was manifest that said appeal was taken for delay only, and that the question on which such jurisdiction depends was so frivolous as not to need further argument. The case was stated by the court as follows :</p> <p>This is an appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for. the Northern District of California, and is now before us upon a motion on the part of the appellee to dismiss the appeal or to affirm the decree below.</p> <p>The appeal, which was the subject of this dual motion, is from an order of the Circuit Court, reviving a suit in equity, after a final decree in the case had been made and after the death of William Sharon, the plaintiff- in that suit. Sharon died after the case had been submitted to the court but before its decision, and the court, finding in his favor, ordered the decree to be entered nunc pro tunc, as of the date of submission. The object of the original suit Avas to have a decree, declaring the nullity and invalidity of a certain instrument in Avriting purporting to be a declaration of marriage between the complainant, "William Sharon, and Sarah Althea Hill, the defendant. The decree which was rendered in that case declared that said instrument Avas false, fabricated, forged, fraudulent, and utterly null and void, and directed that it be can-celled and set aside. It further decreed, that upon twenty days’ notice of the decree to the respondent, or to her solicitors, the instrument be delivered by the respondent to and deposited Avith the clerk of the court'to be indorsed “Cancelledand the defendant Avas perpetually enjoined from alleging its genuineness or validity, or making any use of the same in evidence or otherwise to support any right or claim under it. The decree itself was rendered on November 23, 1885, and was entered as of September 29 of that year, the date of submission.</p> <p>On March 12, 1888, Frederick W. Sharon, as executor of William Sharon, deceased, filed his bill of revivor in the cause, setting forth the fact of the death of William Sharon, and that he left a will, which was duly probated, and on which letters testamentary had issued to him as executor; that the so-called declaration of marriage had not been delivered for cancellation, as ordered by the decree.; and that the plaintiff feared the defendant Avould claim and seek to enforce property rights as the Avife of William Sharon, by virtue of said written declaration of marriage. The bill of revivor further stated that on January 7,1885, the defendant, Sarah Althea Hill, had intermarried with David S. Terry,- and he was accordingly made a defendant with her to the bill of revivor. It prayed, therefore, that the suit might be revived in his name as executor, and that the defendants be required to show cause why the original suit and proceedings should not stand revived' against them.</p> <p>To this bill of reviAror the defendants interposed a demurrer which stated, among other things, that the court had no jurisdiction of the subject matter of the suit, and no jurisdiction to grant the relief prayed for in the bill, or any part thereof, and that the bill did not contain any matter of equity whereon the cpurt. could ground any decree or give to the plaintiff any relief against the defendants, or either of them.</p> <p>The Circuit Court entered an order overruling the demurrer, and reviving the suit in the name of Frederick W. Sharon, as executor of William Sharon, and against Sarah Althea. Terry and David S. Terry, her husband, and ordering that the ■ executor have the fuff benefit,' rights and protection of the decree, and full power to enforce the same against the defendants, and each of them, in all particulars.. It is from this order that the present appeal is taken.</p> <p>I. When a court renders a judgment in a proceeding where it is absolutely without jurisdiction, the whole proceeding being a nullity, is open to attack collaterally. Mansfield &c. Railway v. Swann, 111 U. S. 379 ; In re Sawyer, 124 U. S. 220; Elliott v. Piersol, 1 Pet. 328; Wilcox v. Jackson, 13 Pet. 498; Hickey v. Stewart, 3 How. 750; Thompson v. Whitman, 18 Wall. 467 ; Rose v. Himely, 4 Cranch, 241; Griffith v. Frazier, 8 Cranch, 9; Thompson v. Tolmie, 2 Pet. 157 ; Voorhies v. Bank of United States, 10 Pet. 449; Wilcox v. McConnell, 13 Pet. 498; Shriver v. Lynn, 2 How. 43; Williamson v. Berry, 8 How. 495.</p> <p>II. The relief prayed for in the original bill is that it be decreed that the defendant “is not and never was the wife of” ■the complainant. Conjugal relations, the existence, the continuance or the dissolution of marital relations are not the subjects of Federal jurisdiction. Suits directed to the determination of the existence or non-existence of these relations áre not “ suits of a civil nature ” as that term is used in the acts conferring jurisdiction upon the Circuit Courts of the United States Barber v. Barber, 21 How. 582; Frasher v. State, 3 Texas App. 263; Ex rel. Hobbs, 1 Woods, 537; Green v. The State, 58 Alabama, 190; State v. Gibson, 36 Indiana, 389; Lonas v. The State, 3 Heiskell, 287; Johnson v. Johnson, 13 Fed. Rep. 193.</p> <p>The court will observe that this bill is not directed to the cancellation of any instrument which conveys or which directly affects any property rights cognizable either at law or equity; that it does not seek either directly or otherwise, any decree for any property, or securing any interest therein or title thereto, or demanding any right cognizable in any court of law or equity — unless the right to destroy said instrument be one within the jurisdiction of United States courts of equity; that, on the contrary, the real substance and effect of such pretended equity suit is nothing more than one seeking to put out of the way, and prohibit from being used in state courts or otherwise, a mere item of proof, bearing upon the existence of an alleged marriage relation, such proof being made competent under the laws of California for said purpose; that said item of proof, to wit, the written marriage contract, is not one which, in any way, nearly or remotely, affects any property right of the plaintiff, unless it remotely affects property rights through its tendency to prove complainant’s marriage.</p> <p>These things being carefully observed, and being palpably undeniable, it results from them: (1) That said written contract of marriage is not such an instrument as courts of chancery ever have undertaken to cancel; and to so undertake is no less absurd than for the court to undertake to abolish the knowledge and recollection of such marriage possessed by living witnesses; and (2) that this being the character of the said suit in equity, it is clearly not “ a suit of a civil nature at law or in equity” within the sense of these words defining the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court as found in § 629 of the Revised Statutes.</p> <p>III. Since the courts of the United States have no jurisdiction either over divorce, or over alimony, or over any rights springing out of the relation of marriage, and since such courts cannot intermeddle with this relation or its rights, can the courts of the United States indirectly decide upon, control, or abolish the existence, the enjoyment, or the dissolution of such marriage relation by a judgment which determines that the relation does not exist, and that the alleged wife shall not be permitted,to use, in any court or anywhere else, the evidence of.the lawfulness of her alleged marriage?</p> <p>In other words, the law being that the courts of the United States have no jurisdiction over the marriage relation and rights, can such courts take jurisdiction of, abolish and cancel the evidence of marriage which is provided by, and made legal under, the laws of the States, and do this in such way and sense as that the decree of the court shall, in legal effect, operate as a divorce of the wife, by prohibiting her from using or asserting in any court, or anywhere, the evidence provided by such laws for establishing her marriage ?</p> <p>"With very great and unfeigned respect for the learning of the judges who made the decision in question, it seems to us that the answer to this question plainly must be in the negative.</p> <p>This attempt to deprive.the alleged wife, by decree of a United States Court, of the evidence of her marriage, and to deprive her of the right to use such evidence in the state courts which alone have jurisdiction of the question of marriage or no marriage, divorce or no divorce, is in' substance, and almost without disguise, an attempt to accomplish in such court the divorce of the wife, and her deprivation of all rights of alimony, and other marital rights. It is plainly and palpably an attempt to accomplish, by indirection, what the court below, by means of the limitations above named, which it gave to its decree, confessed it had no jurisdiction over, to wit, prohibiting her from having, claiming, or asserting that she was a lawful wife.</p> <p>It is an attempt, by slightly disguised indirection, to accomplish a divorce which the court recognized it had no power to accomplish directly. If the court had power to cancel this written evidence of marriage and prohibit its being used anywhere, then so, also, and equally, and for the same reason, could the court abolish all other evidences of the marriage.</p> <p>IY. The decree was final and appéalable. The following changes in the status of the parties took place after the original decree against Mrs. Hill. (1) Sharon died and thereby-devolved on Mrs. Sharon whatever property, if any, came through his death. (2) The Superior Court rendered the decree establishing the validity of the marriage and Mrs. Terry’s rights of alimony. (8) The defendant Hill had married Judge Terry, and his rights and interests in his wife’s estates, whatever they were, attached after the original decree, and after the death of Sharon. These changes rendered it indispensably necessary that the bill of revivor, so called, should be something else, or more than a technical bill of revivor, such as is resorted to where no change has occurred except an abatement by death. On the contrary, it presents a case where, owing to the death of Sharon and the marriage of his alleged Avife to Terry, neAV property rights had attached in favor of a neAV and indispensable party -to the suit, Judge Terry, whose interest in his wife’s estate, as affirmed by the Supreme Court of California, or otherwise established, could not be cut off or affected except by the means of being made party, as was here done. That a decree such as is prayed for in this bill of reAUvor, so called, is a decree on an original bill, as distinguished from a decree under a technical bill of revivor, is confidently submitted.</p>

<p>The statutes of the United States confer upon notaries public no general authority to administer oaths.</p> <p>No statute of the United States authorizes notaries public to administer an oath to a deputy surveyor of the United States in regard to the manner in which he fulfilled a contract for surveying public land.</p> <p>■Certificates of division in opinion which present no clear and distinct propositions of law, but which, on the contrary, split up the case into fragments for the purpose of obtaining the opinion of this court before a trial or decision in the court below, are insufficient to invoke its jurisdiction.</p>

The case is stated in the opinion. This cause coming on to be heard next after United States v. Hall, ante, 50, the court declined to hear argument upon it.

The case is stated in the opinion. This cause coming on to' be heard next after United States v. Hall, ante, 50, and United States v. Perrin, ante, 55, the court declined to hear argument upon it.

<p>ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE DISTRICT OF KENTUCKY.</p> <p>The case is stated in the opinion.</p>

These were suits against a collector of customs to recover back duties paid under protest. Judgment in each case for plaintiff, to which defendant sued out a writ of error. The case is stated in the opinion.

<p>ERROR TO THE CITY COURT OF NEW YORK.</p> <p>The case is stated in the opinion.</p>

The case, as stated by the court in its opinion, was as follows: Douglass brought his action in the District Court of the Second Judicial District of the Territory of. New Mexico, September 11, 1883, for the breach of an alleged covenant of seisin in a deed made by Lewis and his wife to him, purporting to-.convey the title to one hundred and sixty acres of land.

Held: that the defendants sold the balsam within the prohibited territory, or to those by whom to their knowledge it was to bo there sold, and that, as the record disclosed violations of the contracts in these respects, the cause should have gone to a master to state an account. ' The case was stated by the court as follows : Seth A. Fowle and Horace S. Fowle, citizens of Massachusetts, filed their bill of complaint…

Thompson v. Hubbard, 131 U.S. 123 (1889), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a later owner of a copyright is entitled to sue a previous owner for copyright infringement. However, the later owner's failure to observe formalities voids copyright and a nonexistent copyright cannot be infringed.

<p>APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE. UNITED STATES FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS.</p> <p>In equity. Decree dismissing the bill. The case is stated in the opinion of the court.</p>

Held: that evidence of payments made for infringements was incompetent to establish a price as for a fixed royalty; that, as to loss by the plaintiff from the diversion of sales, he had failed to give any evidence showing the cost of his machines, or what his profits would have been; that, as there was no basis for a computation of the loss of profits, the determination of the master was correct ; and that his conclusion…

Held: No one could lawfully sign the bonds but the person who was mayor of the city when they were signed; (2) The city council had no authority to provide for their signature by any other person; (3) The city was not estopped as against the plaintiff, from showing the facts as to the signature of the bonds; (4) The bonds were invalid.

This was an appeal from a final order of the District Court for the First Judicial District of the Territory of Utah, refusing to issue a habeas corpus applied for by the petitióner, who prayed to be discharged from custody and imprisonment on a judgment rendered by said court on the 12th of March, 1889.

<p>ORIGINAL.</p> <p>Petition for a writ of mandamus. The case is stated in the opinion.</p>

The court, in its opinion, stated tbe case as follows : This suit was brought by the complainant below, appellee here, Jeannie K. Stickney, widow of William Stickney, who died in October, 1881, against certain of his heirs, to establish her claim as creditor for the sum of about seventy-nine thousand dollars against the estate, real and personal, held in the name of her husband at the time of his death,1 and to obtain a decree that said estate be applied to its payment,…

This was an action of assumpsit, brought in the court below by J. Pierpont Morgan, a citizen of .the State of New York, against Thomas Struthers and one Thomas S. Blair, citizens of Pennsylvania, to recover the sum of $26,282.19, with interest, on a certain contract in writing, more particularly described hereafter. The defendant Blair not having been served with process the case proceeded against Struthers alone.

Held: that, so far as the notice of sale and the sale itself was concerned, there were no defects sufficient to defeat the title acquired at that sale.

Held: which, on account of its disorderly character, would actually interrupt the court, being in session, in the conduct of its business, and consequently obstruct the administration of justice. Flores, we have seen, was in attendance. upon the court in obedience to a subpoena commanding him to appear as a witness in behalf of one of the parties to a case, then being tried.

Petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The writ was refused, and the petitioner appealed. The case is stated in the opinion. United States attorney for the Southern District of California, opposing.

Trover. Plea, the general issue. Yerdict for plaintiff and judgment on the verdict. Defendants sued out this writ of error. The case is stated in the opinion.

Held: will not constitute a defence as to those who executed the bond without being misled or having relied upon the others .being bound.

Held: “ that when stock is subscribed to be paid *334 upon call of the company, and the company refuses or neglects to make the call, a court of -equity may itself make the call, if the interests of the creditors' require it. The court will do what it is the duty of the company to do. . . .

Held: that this was inapplicable when the defendant, although once a resident of that State, removed therefrom before any right of action accrued against him, and before the transactions occurred out of which the plaintiff’s cause of action arose. *337 This was an action of debt to recover from the plaintiff in error, who was the defendant below, the amount of four negotiable notes executed by him,'January 21, 1878, and…

This was an appeal from a final decree sustaining a plea in bar to a suit brought by the appellants, and dismissing their bill of complaint for want of equitjk On the 23d of June, 1883, the Moline Malleable Iron Works, an Illinois corporation doing business at Moline, in that State, executed a deed, which was duly acknowledged and recorded, conveying to Charles F. Hemenway several lots or parcels of land in that city.

This was a petition to correct a clerical mistake in the opinion of this court, delivered April 2, 1888, Williams v. Conger, 125 U. S. 397, citing in support of the power to make the amendment Bank of Kentucky v. Wistar, 3 Pet. 431. To this petition was appended a petition for a rehearing which had been presented and overruled at October Term, 1887,. accompanied by a “ demand upon the court ” to give it a hearing.

This case was heard at October Term 1887, and the judgment below was affirmed. 124 U. S. 391. A petition for rehearing was granted April 30, 1888, 127 U. S. 786, and the cause was reargued at this term.

Held: that for the purpose of an appeal the date of the decree was October 10, 1885. This was a motion made by the administratrix of Jeremiah Folsom, deceased, to dismiss an appeal.

<p>The death of the accused in a criminal case brought here by writ of error abates the suit.</p>

This was a motion, entitled in No. 269, “to suspend section 2, rule 10, and so much of the rules, as requires 25 copies to be filed, and allowing 15 copies to be filed instead.” The motion and supporting papers were as follows: ' To the Honorable the Chief Justice and Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Held: that S. was entitled to recover of M. the amount so paid. After the entry of the decrees in Marsh v. Nichols and Nichols v. Marsh, 128 U. S. 605 , the following motion was made, entitled in the two causes.

Held: that the decree be made absolute against the heirs and representatives of the deceased appellee.

<p>ERROR' TO THE SUPREME COURT OP THE STATE OP GEORGIA.</p> <p>The case is stated in the opinion.</p>

Held: however, that that judgment was not a contract, and was not evidence of a contract within the meaning of the constitutional .provision.