John Clellan v. John Carland

• Citation: 54 L.Ed. 762,30 S.Ct. 501,217 U.S. 268
• Decision Date: 11 April 1910
• Docket Number: No. 630,630
• Parties: JOHN C. McCLELLAN, James S. McClellan, William S. McClellan, et al., Petitioners, v. JOHN E. CARLAND, U. S. District Judge for the District of South Dakota
• Court: United States Supreme Court

217 U.S. 268

30 S.Ct. 501

54 L.Ed. 762

JOHN C. McCLELLAN, James S. McClellan, William S. McClellan, et al., Petitioners,

v JOHN E. CARLAND, U. S. District Judge for the District of South Dakota.

No. 630.

Argued January 25, 26, 1910.

Decided April 11, 1910.

Messrs. Melvin Grigsby and Grigsby & Grigsby for petitioners.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 269-271 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Frederic D. McKenney, S. W. Clark, and U. S. G. Cherry for respondent.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 271-274 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice Day delivered the opinion of the court:

This case comes here upon a writ of certiorari to the circuit court of appeals for the eighth circuit. In that court McClellan and others, petitioners, filed a petition for a writ of mandamus against the United States district judge for the district of South Dakota, praying a writ of mandamus to said judge, sitting as a judge of the circuit court of said district, commanding him to set aside and vacate certain orders staying proceedings in an action pending in the circuit court, and to proceed to try and determine the suit in the usual course of procedure, without regard to the pendency of certain proceedings, to be hereinafter referred to, in the courts of the state of South Dakota. The circuit court of appeals, upon the petition for a writ of mandamus being presented to it, denied the prayer thereof and dismissed it. Thereafter this court granted the writ of certiorari.

From the transcript of the record of the case in the circuit court of appeals it appears that petitioners and others, on the 8th day of September, 1908, commenced suit against George T. Blackman, special administrator of the estate of John C. McClellan, deceased, and others, in the circuit court of the United States for the district of South Dakota, in which suit complainants were citizens of states other than South Dakota, and respondent, George T. Blackman, a citizen of South Dakota, was sued as special administrator of the estate of John C. McClellan, deceased. The bill set up that complainants were the sole surviving heirs at law and next of kin of John C. McClellan, deceased, who died on or about the 31st of August, 1899, intestate, in the city of Sioux Falls, county of Minnehaha, South Dakota, leaving an estate of real and personal property of the value of about $33,000. The bill sets out the issuing of letters of administration to one William Van Eps, who held possession of the estate until July 12, 1906, when he died; that subsequently thereto special letters of administration were issued to George T. Blackman, the respondent. The bill further avers that there were in possession of said Blackman, as said special administrator, belonging to said estate, assets in excess of the sum of $35,000, consisting of real estate, cash on hand, etc. The bill avers that ther were no claims against the estate, and that all the creditors of John C. McClellan had been paid, and that the estate was ready for distribution according to the laws of South Dakota. The bill further prayed that the complainants might be adjudicated the sole heirs at law and next of kin of said decedent, and entitled to inherit the estate, real and personal, and that the said Blackman render a just and true account of the property in his hands belonging to said estate, and, after deducting his lawful fees and expenses, be required to distribute the same in certain proportions to the complainants, as heirs at law of the decedent. The defendant Blackman appeared and answered the bill, admitting certain allegations thereof, and denying others, and demanding proof thereof, and stating that he held the property described in the bill of complaint subject to the order of the court. A general replication was filed to the answer, and thereupon it appears that the state of South Dakota came, by its attorney general and its attorney for the county of Minnehaha, and special counsel, and asked leave to intervene in the case, and, upon hearing, the circuit court of the United States overruled the motion, and ordered that the further prosecution of the action then pending before it be stayed for the period of ninety days, for the purpose of allowing the state of South Dakota to commence a proper action or proceeding to establish its title and interest in and to the property in the estate of the decedent, and that, in the event that such action be commenced within that time, then the pending action to be stayed until the determination of such action brought by the state of South Dakota. Afterwards the complainants filed an application for the vacation of the orders staying the prosecution of their suit until the determination of the suit in the state court, but the same was denied, and thereafter the petition for mandamus in the circuit court of appeals was filed, with the result already stated.

The matters we have stated constitute the entire record before the circuit court of appeals. Upon that record it appears that the circuit court of the United States, having an action before it to determine the interest of the complainants in the estate of John C. McClellan, upon which issue had been joined, upon application of the state of South Dakota refused to permit it to intervene in the case to set up its right and title to the property in the estate of the decedent, upon the claim that he died without legal heirs, and stayed the proceedings in the case before it until the state of South Dakota could bring an action in the state court for the purpose of determining such rights; and afterwards, it appearing that the state had commenced such action against all persons having or claiming a right, title, or interest therein, stayed the pending action until the determination of the action in the state court.

It is first objected on behalf of the respondent herein that this is not a case in which this court has the authority to issue the writ of certiorari. It is contended that the application for the writ in this case was under the act of March 3, 1891 (26 Stat. at L. 826, chap. 517, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 488), and that the right to grant writs of certiorari to the circuit court of appeals is limited by the act to certain cases made final in the circuit court of appeals, and that by § 10 of the court of appeals act it is declared that whenever on appeal, writ of error, or otherwise, a case coming from the circuit court of appeals shall be reviewed and determined in the Supreme Court, it shall be remanded to the proper district or circuit court for further proceedings in pursuance of such determination.

These provisions, it is contended, show that a writ of certiorari is not warranted in this case, it being an original application in mandamus in the court of appeals, and the jurisdiction in the circuit court not depending upon the opposite parties to the suit being citizens of different states, and, therefore, the judgment not final in the circuit court of appeals, nor could the case be remanded to the proper district or circuit court, as it was an original proceeding in mandamus in the circuit court of appeals. But the power of this court to issue writs of certiorari is not limited to the court of appeals act. Section 716 of the Revised Statutes of the United States (U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 580) provides:

'The Supreme Court and the circuit and district courts shall have power to issue writs of scire facias. They shall also have power to issue all writs not specifically provided for by statute, which may be necessary for the exercise of their respective jurisdictions, and agreeable to the usages and principles of law.'

Of this section it was said in Re Chetwood, 165 U. S. 443, 461, 41 L. ed. 782, 788, 17 Sup. Ct. Rep. 385, 392:

'By § 14 of the judiciary act of September 24, 1789 (1 Stat. at L. 81, chap. 20, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 580), carried forward as § 716 of the Revised Statutes, this court and the circuit and district courts of the United States were empowered by Congress to issue all writs, not specifically provided for by statute, which may be agreeable to the usages and principles of law; and, under this provision, we can undoubtedly issue writs of certiorari in all proper cases. American Constr. Co. v. Jacksonville, T. & K. W. R. Co. 148 U. S. 372, 380, 37 L. ed. 486, 489, 13 Sup. Ct. Rep. 758. And although, as observed in that case, this writ has not been issued as freely by this court as by the court of Queen's bench, in England, and, prior to the act of March 3, 1891 (chap. 517, 26 Stat. at L. 826, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 488), had been ordinarily used as an auxiliary process merely, yet, whenever the circumstances imperatively demand that form of interposition, the writ may be allowed, as at common law, to correct excesses of jurisdiction, and in furtherance of justice. Tidd, Pr. 398; Bacon, Abr. 'Certiorari."

In Whitney v. Dick, 202 U. S. 132, 50 L. ed. 963, 26 Sup. Ct. Rep. 584, a writ of certiorari was granted to the circuit court of appeals for the ninth circuit to review the judgment of that court where an original application had been made for the writ of habeas corpus and a writ of certiorari in that court. This court held, upon the question of jurisdiction, that there could be no appeal from the circuit court of appeals in such a case, but that a writ of certiorari might issue to bring the case here from the circuit court of appeals, upon the authority of Re Chetwood, supra. The case at bar being a petition for mandamus, there is no amount in controversy, and consequently there could be no appeal to this court; and, as in Whitney v. Dick, supra, the judgment of the circuit court of appeals was not final because of the diversity of citizenship in the court below, and, consequently, certiorari would not issue under the act of 1891. In Whitney v. Dick the case was remanded to the circuit court of appeals, with instructions to quash the writ of certiorari issued by that court, and...