Chicago Life Insurance Company v. Bertha Cherry
| Decision Date | 07 May 1917 |
| Docket Number | No. 171,171 |
| Citation | 244 U.S. 25,61 L.Ed. 966,37 S.Ct. 492 |
| Parties | CHICAGO LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY and the Federal Life Insurance Company, Plffs. in Err., v. BERTHA R. CHERRY |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. Charles A. Atkinson, Chilton P. Wilson, and Charles J. O'Connor for plaintiffs in error.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 26-28 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Vernon R. Loucks, Charles O. Loucks, and Fred H. Atwood for defendant in error.
This is a suit in Illinois upon a judgment recovered in Tennessee against the Insurance Companies, plaintiffs in error. They pleaded and set up at the trial that there never was a valid service upon them in Tennessee and that the judgment was void. The defendant in error (the plaintiff) showed in reply, without dispute, that the defense was urged in Tennessee by pleas in abatement; that, upon demurrer to one plea and upon issue joined on the other, the decision was for the plaintiff; and that the judgment was affirmed by the higher courts. The plaintiff had judgment at the trial in Illinois, the judgment was affirmed by the appellate court, and a writ of certiorari was denied by the supreme court of that state. The Insurance Companies say that the present judgment deprives them of their property without due process of law. Other sections of the Constitution are referred to in the assignments of error, but they have no bearing upon the case.
The ground upon which the present judgment was sustained by the appellate court was that, as the issue of jurisdiction over the parties was raised and adjudicated after full hearing in the former case, it could not be reopened in this suit. The matter was thought to stand differently from a tacit assumption or mere declaration in the record that the court had jurisdiction.
A court that renders judgment against a defendant thereby tacitly asserts, if it does not do so expressly, that it has jurisdiction over that defendant. But it must be taken to be established that a court cannot conclude all persons interested by its mere assertion of its own power (Thompson v. Whitman, 18 Wall. 457, 21 L. ed. 897), even where its power depends upon a fact and it finds the fact (Tilt v. Kelsey, 207 U. S. 43, 51, 52 L. ed. 95, 99, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1). A divorce might be held void for want of jurisdiction although the libellee had appeared in the cause. Andrews v. Andrews, 188 U. S. 14, 16, 17, 38, 47 L. ed. 366, 367, 372, 23 Sup. Ct. Rep. 237. There is no doubt of the general proposition that, in a suit upon a judgment, the jurisdiction of the court rendering it over the person of the defendant may be inquired into. National Exch. Bank v. Wiley, 195 U. S. 257, 49 L. ed. 184, 25 Sup. Ct. Rep. 70; Haddock v. Haddock, 201 U. S. 562, 573, 50 L. ed. 867, 871, 26 Sup. Ct. Rep. 525, 5 Ann. Cas. 1. But when the power of the court in all other respects is established, what acts of the defendant shall be deemed a submission to its power is a matter upon which states may differ. If a statute should provide that filing a plea in...
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