Volume 252 — United States Reports

The case is stated in the opinion. argued, inter alia, that the point that the tax was void and without authority because assessed in violation of due process of law after the whiskey had ceased to be the property of the Distilling Company, was sufficiently raised and was necessarily decided by the state court, because,' while on this point the Constitution was not invoked ed nomine in the complaint, the facts from which the deduction of unconstitutionality must follow were’…

Held: by the former cases reported in 33 Colorado, and by our decision based upon that construction in Londoner v. Denver, 210 U. S., supra. As the plaintiffs in error had an opportunity to be heard before the board duly constituted by § 300, they cannot be heard to complain now. It follows that the judgment of the Supreme Court of Colorado must be Affirmed.

Held: that it could not be regarded as so arbitrary and unequal in operation and effect as to render assessments on other property invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment. P. 17. Refusal to transfer a cause from a division of the Supreme Court of Missouri to the court in banc does not violate any constitutional right. P. 18. 273 Missouri, 184, affirmed. The case is stated in the opinion.

,ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW TORE. The case is stated in the opinion. The State has no power to regulate the rates in question, for such action necessarily imposes a direct burden and restraint upon interstate commerce. The State in effect proposes to meet the plaintiff in error at the state line and to deny it freedom to import for sale a legitimate commodity of commerce except at a price to be fixed by the State.

Held: that the order of the District Court denying the application was a final decision; within the meaning of Jud. Code, § 128, appealable to the Circuit Court of Appeals. P. 36. The words “final decision” in that section mean the same thing as “final judgments and decrees,” used in former acts regulating appellate jurisdiction.

Held: that in this case the State was justified in treating the various properties and business of a producer of oil and natural gas, who went on with their operation after the income tax law was enacted, as an entity, producing the income and ■ subject to the lien. Id. No. 531, appeal dismissed. No. 580, decree affirmed. The case is stated in the opinion.

<p>Judgment sustained as in accord with a stipulation to abide the final result of Chesb'ough v. Woodworth, 244 U. S. 72. P. 83.</p> <p>In an action in tort the amount involved is the damages claimed if the declaration discloses nothing rendering such a recovery impossible and no bad faith appears. P. 84.</p> <p>After a case of that character has been removed by defendant from a state court and judgment rendered against him in the District Court and Circuit Court of Appeals, it would require very clear error to justify this court in denying the jurisdiction upon the ground that the requisite amount was not involved. Id.</p>

<p>A manufacturer of patented articles sold them to its customers, who were other manufacturers and jobbers in several States, under their agreements to observe certain resale prices fixed by the vendor. Held that there was a combination restraining trade in violation of § 1 of the Anti-Trust Act. P. 98. Dr. Miles Medical Co. v. Park & Sons Co., 220 U. S. 373,-followed; United States v. Colgate & Co., 250 U. S. 300, distinguished. •</p>

<p>The rights under the Fourteenth Amendement of a layman engaged in the business of collecting and adjusting claims are not infringed by a state law prohibiting the solicitation of such employment. P. 108.</p>

<p>A rule of state pleading and practice, applied without discrimination to cases of personal injury arising under the federal and state employers’ liability laws, which prevents an injured employee from suing jointly, in a single count, the railroad company ■ under the federal statute and a co-employee at common law, does not in fringe any right of such plaintiff derived from the federal statute. P. 111).</p>

<p>An inventor whose application disclosed but did not claim an invention which is later patented to another, is allowed by the patent law two years after such patent issues within which to file a second or divis- ' ional application claiming the invention; and this period may not be restricted by the courts upon the ground that so much delay may be prejudicial to public or private interests. P. 134. Rev. Stats, §4886.</p> <p>Such a second application is not to be regarded as an amendment to the orginal application and so subject to the one year limitation of Rev.- Stats., § 4894. P. 138.</p> <p>Nor can the right to make it be deemed lost by laches or abandonment merely because of a delay not exceeding the two years allowed by the statute. P. 139.</p>

Held: that the drawback on the oil-cake, which alone was exported, should be computed on the basis of the respective values of the two products and not according to their respective weights. P. 142. Much weight is given to a contemporaneous and long-continued construction of an indefinite or ambiguous statute by the executive department charged with its administration. P. 145.

Held: that his travel, at time of injury, was intrastate, so that the validity of the release depended on the laws of Ohio. P. 155. A stipulation on a free pass purporting to release the carrier from all liability for negligence is ineffective where injury to the passenger results from the wilful and wanton negligence of the carrier’s servants. P. 157. Affirmed. • The case is stated in the opinion.

The cases are stated in the opinion. When the Act of 1904 was passed, the title to the lánd was in the United States, and the only right of the Indians was a possessory right, Johnson v. McIntosh, 8 Wheat. 543; Spaulding v. Chandler, 160 U. S. 394; which could be terminated by act of Congress as well as by treaty or agreement with the Indians, Beecher v. Wetherby, 95 U. S. 517; Buttz v. Northern Pacific Ry. Co., 119 U. S. 73; Lone Wolf v. Huchcock, 187 U. S. 553.

<p>APPEAL FROM AND ERROR TO THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK.</p> <p>The case is stated in the opinion.</p>

Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U.S. 189 (1920), was a tax case before the United States Supreme Court that is notable for the following holdings: A pro rata stock dividend where a shareholder received no actual cash or other property and retained the same proportionate share of ownership of the corporation as was held prior to the dividend by the shareholder was not income to the shareholder under the Sixteenth Amendment. An income tax that was imposed by the Revenue Act of 1916 on such a dividend was unconstitutional even if the dividend indirectly represented accrued earnings of the corporation.

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

Held: upon historical and other facts and circumstances, that the mouth of the river, as intended by the Wisconsin Enabling Act, is this “entry” or opening and not where the river, in a stricter sense of the term, debouches into Upper St. Louis Bay.

Held: that this court, although it might confine itself to the matters considered by the Circuit Court of Appeals, would proceed to a complete decision, sincé the parties united in presenting all the questions and the. litigation had been protracted. P. 290. Assertion, of defendant’s possession, in the answer, cures omission to aver it in the complaint, in ejectment.

<p>By the laws of Panama, a railroad company is liable for personal injuries resulting from the criminal negligence of its servant in running an engine at a rate prohibited by the Panama Police Codo. P. 310.</p> <p>The rule of respondeat superior applies in Panama, in such cases, and due care in selecting the servant is not a defense for the railroad company. P. 311.</p> <p>In Panama, under Civil Code, Art. 2341, as well as in the Canal Zone, damages for physical pain are allowable in a personal injury case. P. 313. Panama R. R. Co. v. Bosse, 249 U. S. 41.</p>

Manners v. Morosco, 252 U.S. 317 (1920), was a United States Supreme Court case with two principal holdings. First, the copyright transfer contract in question was not limited to five years because the agreement dealt in minimum requirements. Secondly, the transfer of the copyright for the production of a play on stage did not grant the ability to make a motion picture based on the play. However, a grant of exclusivity implies a negative guarantee that the original creator will not do anything that may adversely affect that exclusivity, meaning the author forfeited their own ability to authorize a motion picture production. The Court enjoined both parties from making a film version. The case concerned Peg o' My Heart by J. Hartley Manners.

Held: applying Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 , 147, and other cases, that the provisions'relating to the enforcement of the rates by penalties were violative of the Fourteenth Amendment, without regard .to the question of the insufficiency of the rates. P. 336.

<p>The provision of the Oklahoma law concerning penalties for disobedience of an order of the Corporation Commission fixing rates, held void, following Oklahoma Operating Co. v. Love, ante, 331, as depriving a cotton ginning company of opportunity for judicial review. P. 340.</p>

<p>INTERLOCUTORY DECREE. IN EQUITY.</p>

Held: The proviso makes it clear that the benefits of the-section are for foreign seamen on foreign vessels as well as American seamen on such vessels, since, otherwise, the grant of access to federal courts —a right already enjoyed by American seamen — would have been superfluous. P. 353. Sandberg v. McDonald; 248 U. S. 185 , distinguished. (2) The title of the act does not justify a different construction. P. 354.

The case is stated in the opinion. This section is ambiguous and is not expressly applicable to foreign seamen on a foreign vessel. Considering ihe purpose as disclosed by the act and its title, it is quite evident it was not the intention of Congress to legislate for the welfare of foreign seamen, but for the welfare of American seamen alone.

<p>A judgment of the District Court, in a habeas corpus proceeding wherein the construction of a treaty is drawn in question, is not appealable directly to this court (Jud. Code, § 238) unless it is final. •P. 365.</p> <p>It is the duty of this court in every case in which its jurisdiction depends on the finality of the judgment under review, to examine and determine that question whether raised by the parties .or not. Id.</p> <p>A judgment in habeas corpus dealing.with the detention of the relator for foreign extradition on three charges, and denying relief as to one but assuming to order a further hearing by the commissioner as to the others has not the finality and completeness requisite for an appeal to this court. Pp. 368, 370.</p> <p>The proper party to appeal from-a judgment in' habeas corpus directing the marshal to release a person held for foreign extradition is the marshal, not the foreign consul upon whose complaint the extradition proeeédings were begun. P. 371.</p>

<p> Order granting injunction and appointing receiver. </p>

Held: where no demand for the culprit had been made upon the State by the military authorities. P. 385. Affirmed. *377 The case is stated in the opinion.

Held: that the asserted federal questions were too plainly without merit to afford jurisdiction to the district Court. P. 395. Sears v. City of Akron, 246 U. S. 242 . Affirmed. The appeal is direct to this court, the laws and Constitution of the United States being asserted to be involved. Upon motion of defendants (appellees) the bill was dismissed for want of jurisdiction and equity.

<p>A state law requiring interurban railroad companies to supply separóte cars or compartments for white and «colored passengers, and punishing failure to do so, is not an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce as applied to such a railroad, owned by a local corporation and lying wholly within such State, while in control of an allied street car company and in practice operated as part of a streetcar system over which the cars are run to and from a city in another State (where such separation of races is illegal) and passengers are carried through to destination without change for a single fare, those traveling interstate greatly exceeding in number those traveling wholly within the State making the requirement. P. 403.</p>

<p>ERROR TO THE COURT OP APPEALS OP THE STATE . OP KENTUCKY.</p> <p>The case is stated in the opinion.</p>

Held: that, so applied, it contravened the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution. P.414. ' The law of Alabama, which gives a right of action in that State for death by wrongful act, cannot, by its declaration that such actions may not be maintained elséwhere, affect the right to enforce by' action in another State a judgment recovered on such a cause of action in Alabama. P.415.' ...

Missouri v. Holland, 252 U.S. 416 (1920) is a United States Supreme Court case concerning the extent to which international legal obligations are incorporated into federal law under the United States Constitution. The case centered on the constitutionality of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, which prohibited the killing, capturing, and selling of certain migratory birds pursuant to a treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom.

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

Held: that it is not an inspection act merely, but a privilege tax; and, as applied to parties who bring gasoline from without and sell it within the State, the act is void — a burden on interstate commerce — in so far as it relates to their business of selling in tank car lots and in barrels and packages, as originally imported from other States, but, if separable, it is valid in its application to sales made from such…

The case is stated in the opinion. Possessory title to a mining claim is acquired under the mining laws wholly independently of the Land Department. Such title has the quality of a grant and is property in the highest sense of the term. While, upon application for patent, the Land Department ex necessitate must pass upon the validity of the location, it does so administratively. and not judicially.

The case is stated in the opinion. This case is ruled by United States v. Hill, 248 U. S. 420. The judgment in the present case rests solely upon the idea that, in order to be transportation in interstate commerce, transportation must be by common carrier. But transportation, in order to constitute interstate commerce, need not be by common carrier, and may be. transportation by the owner of the goods.

<p>Where a fund has been appropriated by Congress for payment to a specified person in satisfaction of a finding of the Court of Claims, the duty of the Treasury officials to pay it over is ministerial; and a suit by one who has an equitable right in the fund, for attorney’s fees, to establish such right as against the owner, and to require the Treasury officials to pay the fund to a receiver, is not a suit against the United States, and may be maintained in the courts of the District of Columbia if the owner, as well as the officials, is made a party and bound by the decree so that it may afford due acquittance to the Government. P. 472.</p> <p>The situs of the debt in- such cases is not material, if its owner voluntarily appears and answers .without objecting to the jurisdiction. P. 474.</p> <p>.Section 3477 of the Revised Statutes does not prevent assignment by operation of law after a claim has been allowed. P.'473.</p>

<p>Section 4 of the Safety Appliance Act of 1893, in requiring grab irons or handholds “in the ends and sides of each car,” should be inter- ' preted and applied in view of practical railroad operations, and does not mean that the handholds on the sides shall be supplied at all four corners, but is satisfied if they are placed at corners diagonally opposite. P. 498.</p> <p>Whether a railroad company was negligent in not notifying a brakeman that a car was not supplied with handholds on its sides at all four corners, held a matter dependent on appreciation of peculiar facts concerning which this court will accept the concurrent judgment of the two courts below without entering upon a minute analysis of evidence. Id.</p>

<p>Whether a state statute is intended to validate a contract previously unenforceable under the state law is for the state courts finally to decide and involves no federal question. P. 502.</p> <p>As applied to transactions subsequent to its enactment, a state law providing that conveyances of local realty taken, by sister-state corporations before they have filed their articles with the local secretary of state.shall be wholly void on behalf of them or their assigns, violates neither the contract clause nor the' due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. P. 503.</p> <p>The power of the State to exact such conditions of outside corporations precedent to acquisition of land within the State, and the rule that conveyances are governed by the lex loci rei sites, are not affected by dehvery of the deeds, etc., in another State; the transaction does not thus become a matter of interstate commerce. Id.</p>

Held: under the provisions of title 'National Banks,’ Revised Statutes, to enjoin the Comptroller of the Currency, or any receiver acting under his direction, as provided by said title.

Burnap v. United States, 252 U.S. 512 (1920), was a decision of the United States Supreme Court concerning the Appointments Clause.

Held: that a decree dismissing such petition was not appealable by the claimant to this court in advance of any determination of the main issue of claimant’s liability. A case cannot be brought up piecemeal. Collins v. Miller, ante, 364. Appeal dismissed. The case is stated in the opinion. Mr. Geo. Wkitefield Betts, Jr., with whom Mr. George C. Sprague was on the brief, for appellant.

Held: that money derived by a mutual, company from redundancy of premiums paid in previous years, and paid to policyholders during the tax year as dividends in cash, not applied in abatement or reduction of their current premiums, should not be deducted from premium receipts in computing gross income. P) 527.

Held: that a mark consisting of a fanciful design in combination with certain ' words forming part of it was not debarred from registration by reason of the fact that some of the words — “Moistair Heating System”— were descriptive; that to require the deletion of such descriptive words because of their descriptive quality as a condition to registration of the mark, was erroneous; and that the act would be fully complied…

Held: that the interests of •the legátees in such funds were vested, within the meaning of the •'" Refunding Act of June 27,1902, § 3, 32 Stat. 406 . New York Code of Civil Procedure, 1899, §§ 2718, 2721 and 2722, considered. .' P. 551. .

<p> Order Consolidating Causes for the Purpose of Taking Testimony, Des- . igkaiing Times for Taking Testimony and Appointing Commissioner. </p>

<p>Error to the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri.</p>

<p>Error to the Supreme Court of the State of Mississippi.</p>

<p>Appeal from the District Court c>f the United States for the Eastern District of New York.</p>

<p>Error to the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois.</p>

<p>Error to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.</p>

<p>Error to the Supreme Court of the State of Iowa.</p>

<p>Error to the Supreme Court of the State of Ohio.</p>

<p>On motion for leave to file original bill.</p>

<p>Certiorari to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.</p>

<p>Appeal from the Court of Claims.</p>

<p>Error to the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri.</p>

<p>Error to the Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana.</p>

<p>Error to the Superior Court of the State of Massachusetts.</p>

<p>Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.</p>

<p>Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of New York.</p>

<p>Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of Ohio.</p>

<p>Error to the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois,</p>

<p>Error to the Supreme Court of the State of New Mexico.</p>

<p>Error to the Supreme Court of the State of Wisconsin.</p>

<p>Appeal from the Court of -Claims.</p>

<p>Error to the Supreme Court of Appeals of the State of Virginia.</p>

<p>Error to the Supreme Court of the State of Oklahoma.</p>

<p>Error to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.</p>