Chouteau v. Gibson
| Decision Date | 31 March 1884 |
| Citation | 28 L.Ed. 400,4 S.Ct. 340,111 U.S. 200 |
| Parties | CHOUTEAU and another v. GIBSON |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Thos. T. Gantt, S. T. Glover, and J. R. Shepley, for plaintiffs in error.
C. Gibson and John W. Noble, for defendant in error.
This is a motion to dismiss a writ of error to the supreme court of Missouri for want of jurisdiction. From the beginning it has been held that to give us jurisdiction in this class of cases it must appear affirmatively on the face of the record, not only that a federal question was raised and presented to the highest court of the state for decision, but that it was decided or that its decision was necessary to the judgment or decree rendered in the case. Murdock v. Memphis, 20 Wall. 636. The present record shows that Chouteau and Maffit began this suit against Gibson in the circuit court of St. Louis county, Missouri, to obtain a conveyance of certain lands, which they claimed that he held in trust for them. Among other defenses, Gibson set up a judgment in his favor in a suit brought by him against Chouteau and Maffit to recover the possession of the lands, in which, as he alleged, the identical matters presented in this case were directly passed upon and adjudicated between the parties. It is conceded that the state supreme court in deciding the case sustained this defense, and rendered the decree now here for review in favor of Gibson on that ground alone, without considering any of the other questions involved. Such being the case, it is clear we have no jurisdiction. The legal effect of the judgment set up in bar is a question of general law as to which the decision of the state court is not reviewable here. The federal questions, if any there were in the case, lay behind this defense, and could not be reached until it was out of the way. The question presented by the defense was not whether a federal right had been properly denied by a former judgment, but whether the right had been once judicially determined so as to become res judicata between the parties. Whether an equitable title could be set up in bar of the action at law brought by Gibson, the holder of the legal title, to recover possession, is a question of state law upon which the judgment of the state court is conclusive. The same is true of the question whether the pleadings in the former action were such as to present the equitable defense in proper form for final adjudication. The court below has decided that the pleadings were sufficient; that the...
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Flournoy v. Wiener
...L.Ed. 158, that the case 'in effect, was disposed of before the federal question said to be involved was reached. Chouteau v. Gibson, 111 U.S. 200, 4 S.Ct. 340, 28 L.Ed. 400; Chapman v. Goodnow's Adm'r, 123 U.S. 540, 548, 8 S.Ct. 211 (215), 31 L.Ed. 235. A decision of that question then bec......
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The State ex rel. National Subway Company v. St. Louis
... ... 233; Klinger v. Missouri, 13 ... Wall 263; Brown v. Atwell, 92 U.S. 327; Bank v ... Board of Liquidation, 98 U.S. 140; Chouteau v ... Gibson, 111 U.S. 200; Adams Co. v. Railroad, ... 112 U.S. 133. (2) This case is res adjudicata. Chouteau ... v. Gibson, 76 Mo. 47; ... ...
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Horton v. Seaboard Air Line Ry.
... ... 113, 6 S.Ct. 306, 29 L.Ed. 575), ... and, of course, as to the construction of pleadings upon the ... question of their sufficiency ( Chouteau v. Gibson, ... 111 U.S. 200, 4 S.Ct. 340, 28 L.Ed. 400). Many other examples ... might be stated, which would illustrate to what a great ... ...
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