Spalding v. Manasse

Full caption · 4 consolidated cases

SPALDING, Collector of Customsv.MANASSE, (two cases.) SAME
VANACKER, (two cases.) SAMEv.YANADA
SAMEv.FARWELL et al
SAMEv.COHN et al

Supreme Court of the United States

May 13, 1889.

Supreme Court of the United States · decided 1889-05-13

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.

2 counsel of record

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““There is in the record what purports to be a special finding of the facts by the court. But the record does not show that tho parties, or their attorneys of record, filed with the clerk a stipulation in writing waiving a jury, as required by section 649 of the Revised Statutes of the United States. The recital in the record that ‘both parties, in open court, having waived a jury, and agreed to trial before the court,’ does nor show a compliance with section 649. The following recitals in the record have been held insufficient for this purpose: “The issue joined hy consent is tried by the court, a jury being waived,’ and ‘the above cause coming on for trial, by agreement of parties, by the court, without the intervention of a jury,’ and ‘the parties having stipulated to submit üie case for trial by the court without the intervention of a jury,’ and ‘said cause being tried by the court without a jury, by agreement of parties,’ and ‘upon the trial of this cause before the Hon. S. H. Treat, sitting as circuit judge, a jury being waived by both parties.’ * * .* The sufficiency of the facts found by the lower court to support the judgment can only be considered by this court when a jury has been waived in writing, as provided in section 619. When a jury has not been thus waived, tho facts found by the lower court cannot be noticed by the appellate court for any purpose, and the case stands as though the judgment of the lower court had been rendered on the general verdict of a jury”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Duncan v. Atchison, T. & S. F. R.

Relies on Bond v. Dustin · Dundee Mortgage & Trust Investment Co. v. Hughes

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Affirmed · 8–0 · Decided 1889-05-13

How this case has been cited

Cited by 49 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 1991 · most notably Four Hundred and Forty-Three Cans of Frozen Egg Product v. United States of America (1912), White v. United States (1931)

44 federal appellate · 1 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Sol. Gen. Jenks and Asst. Atty. Gen. Maury, for plaintiff in error.

Percy L. Shuman, for defendants in error.

FULLER, C. J.

¶1

All of these cases were tried by the court without a jury, by agreement of the parties, as alleged in the record; but there is no allegation that the stipulation was in writing, as required by the statute; and, under the ruling in Bond v. Dustin, 112 U. S. 604, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 296, and Mortgage Co. v. Hughes, 124 U. S. 157, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 377, no error can be examined in the rulings of the court at the trial. We can only inquire whether the declarations were respectively sufficient to sustain the judgments. As there appears to be no error in this regard, the judgments are all, severally, affirmed.