Freeland v. Williams

Citation9 S.Ct. 763,131 U.S. 405,33 L.Ed. 193
PartiesFREELAND v. WILLIAMS
Decision Date13 May 1889
CourtUnited States Supreme Court

Chas. C. Cole and W. L. Cole, for plaintiff in error.

Robert White and Chas. J. Faulkner, for defendant in error.

MILLER, J.

This case is brought before us by a writ of error directed to the judges of the supreme court of appeals of the state of West Virginia. We can, perhaps, best present the questions of federal cognizance, which are supposed to give this court jurisdiction, by a short statement of its history. David Freeland, the present plaintiff in error, brought in the circuit court of Preston county, in the state of West Virginia, against Joseph V. Williams and his brother, Charles Williams, an action of trespass de bonis asportatis for the taking and conversion of of cattle which were the property of the plaintiff; and on the 22d day of December, 1865, he recovered a judgment in that court against Joseph V. Williams, for $1,110, with interest and costs, there being a verdict in favor of the other defendant. From that judgment the defendant took a writ of error, on which it was affirmed in the supreme court of appeals of the state of West Virginia. Williams v Freeland, 2 W. Va. 306. The trespass took place while the late civil war was flagrant in that part of the country. The records of the circuit court of Preston county, in which this judgment was rendered, have been destroyed by fire, and no transcript of the proceedings of that case is to be found in the record presented to us, except that a certified copy of the judgment of the supreme court of appeals, affirming the judgment of the circuit court, is appended as an exhibit to the answer of Freeland made in the suit now under consideration. The judgment thus recovered remaining unsatisfied, the defendant in that case, Joseph V. Williams, on the 15th day of August, 1883, filed his bill in chancery in the circuit court of Preston county, which, as it is short, and contains the matter which we are called upon to review, will be here inserted, as follows:

'The Bill of Complaint of Joseph V. Williams, Plaintiff, against David Freeland, Defendant, filed in the Circuit Court of Preston County.—To the Honorable Wm. T. Ice, Judge of the Circuit Court of Preston County: The plaintiff complains and says that the defendant instituted in the circuit court of said county his action of trespass against the plaintiff and a certain Charles Williams, and on the 22d day of December, 1865, recovered a judgment therein against the plaintiff alone for $1,110, with interest thereon from the 4th day of January, 1864, and for the costs of the plaintiff therein expended. The record of said judgment has been destroyed by the burning of the court-house of said county. From said judgment the plaintiff obtained a writ of error and supersedeas, and the said judgment was by the supreme court of appeals, at the July term thereof, in the year 1867, affirmed; and thereafter, on the ___ day of _____, 1875, the said defendant sued out an execution on said sum of $_____, with interest from the ___ day of _____, and for costs and damages, as was in said case then provided for by law; that the plaintiff then proceeded to invalidate and have said judgment set aside, according to an act of the legislature of the state of West Virginia, on the ___ day of _____, and said judgment was by the circuit court of said county by order entered in said proceedings, set aside, and a new trial ordered in said original action; that from said order an appeal was taken by said Freeland, and said order was reversed, and said proceedings to set aside said judgment were dismissed; and so, therefore, the said original judgment is apparently in force, although, in fact, void,f or reasons hereinafter stated. The plaintiff further states that said action in which said judgment was obtained was not an action ex contractu, but was an action ex delicto; that it was, in fact, for cattle or other personal property, alleged by the defendant to belong to him, taken by the military authorities of the Confederate States, and taken by the soldiery and military authorities aforesaid during the late war between the government of the United States and a part of the people thereof; and the plaintiff says that said judgment was for acts done according to the usages of civilized warfare in the prosecution of said war by the said Confederate States and the military power and authority thereof. The plaintiff further states that during said war he was a citizen of the state of Virginia until the formation of the state of West Virginia, and thereafter was and has been continually since a citizen of the state of West Virginia, and is now a citizen of the state of West Virginia; that he aided and participated in said war in the armies of the said Confederate States from the time he entered the service thereof, in the year 1862, until the termination thereof. The plaintiff further states that he resides in the county of Grant, and is the owner of real estate therein; that said judgment has been docketed in his said county, as he believes, and has occasioned a cloud upon his title to said property. The plaintiff further says that he is advised that said judgment is void, and that his property is not liable to be seized or sold therefor, and, notwithstanding said judgment is void, he is threatened and is in danger of having his property so seized and sold to satisfy said judgment, and the value and salable character of his said real estate by reason of the cloud on the title thereof as aforesaid is greatly impaired. The plaintiff further states that he has not full or adequate relief against said judgment, except by this his bill and the due process of law thereby, and by the enforcement of the protection afforded by the thirty-fifth section of the eighth article of the constitution of this state in his behalf, and to have said judgment by judicial authority declared void any inoperative. The plaintiff therefore prays that said judgment be declared void; that the defendant be perpetually enjoined and restrained from collecting the same and every part thereof, whether of principal, interest, cost, or damages, and from suing out execution thereon; and that he may have such other relief as the court may see fit to grant.

'JOSEPH V. WILLIAMS, by Counsel.'

To this bill there was a demurrer by Freeland, and also an answer. The demurrer relies upon the proposition that the thirty-fifth section of article 8 of the constitution of the state, which the plaintiff in that case sets up as the foundation of his relief, is in conflict with the tenth section of the first article of the constitution of the United States, and also with the first section of the fourteenth article of amendment to that constitution, and is therefore null and void. The answer sets out the same matter, and also says that the judgment was for a lot of cattle owned by Freeland, and taken and converted by the plaintiff, but not in accordance with the usages of civilized warfare; and that Williams went to trial on the plea of not guilty to the action of trespass for the recovery of the value of these cattle, though the plaintiff might have waived the trespass, and declared in assumpsit. To this there was a replication, and testimony by way of depositions was taken on the issue as to whether the taking, on which the original judgment for the plaintiff rested, was an exercise of belligerent rights, and was done according to the usages and principles of public war. There can be no question that these depositions establish the fact that Williams, the defendant in the original action, was a soldier under the command of Gen. Fitzhugh Lee, whose force was dominant in that part of Wet Virginia in January, 1864, and that it was under his orders that the cattle were seized while Lee was on a raid through that county, and object of which was to get beef cattle, and the order of the commanding officer was to take beef cattle and surplus horses. Upon the final hearing the circuit court rendered its decree in the following language: 'It is therefore considered by the court that the judgment in the bill mentioned in favor of the defendant against the plaintiff, described as a judgment rendered by the circuit court of Preston county, on the 22d day of December, 1865, for $1,110, with interest thereon from the 4th day of January, 1864, and the costs, is void, and that the defendant be perpetually enjoined and restained from the enforcement and collection of the same and every part thereof, and that the defendant do pay to the plaintiff his costs herein.' Thereupon Freeland, the present plaintiff in error, made application, according to the laws of West Virginia, by a petition, for an appeal, which petition was denied. This denial, as in the case of similar proceedings in the state of Virginia, this court has held to be a final judgment of the highest court of the state, which can be reviewed in this court in a proper case. The errors assigned, and the questions presented by counsel and by this record, are substantially two: (1) That the new constitution of West Virginia, relied on as the foundation of relief by the defendant in error, is a violation of that clause of the constitution of the United States which declares that no state shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts. Section 10, art. 1, of the original constitution. (2) That it violates the provision of the first section of the fourteenth article of amendment, viz., that no state shall 'deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.'

It is proper to observe that counsel have commented upon the fact that the defendant, Williams, in the original action of trespass, filed certain pleas setting up the fact that what he did in the way of seizing the cattle was under order of superior military authority, and in the exercise of belligerent rights, and that therefore he was not personally liable to the plaintiff...

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