Juan Bautista Jecker, Luis Jecker, Thomas De La Torre, Geidero De La Torre, and Jose Fernandez, Merchants Trading Under the Anme and Style of Jecker, Torre Company, Appellants v. John Montgomery and John Montgomery, Appellant v. Juan Bautista Jecker, Luis Jecker, Thomas De La Torre, Geidero De La Torre, and Jose Fernandez, Merchants Trading Under the Name and Style of Jecker, Torre Company

• Decision Date: 01 December 1851
• Parties: JUAN BAUTISTA JECKER, LUIS JECKER, THOMAS DE LA TORRE, GEIDERO DE LA TORRE, AND JOSE E. FERNANDEZ, MERCHANTS, TRADING UNDER THE ANME AND STYLE OF JECKER, TORRE & COMPANY, APPELLANTS, v. JOHN B. MONTGOMERY. AND JOHN B. MONTGOMERY, APPELLANT, v. JUAN BAUTISTA JECKER, LUIS JECKER, THOMAS DE LA TORRE, GEIDERO DE LA TORRE, AND JOSE E. FERNANDEZ, MERCHANTS, TRADING UNDER THE NAME AND STYLE OF JECKER, TORRE & COMPANY
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

54 U.S. 498

13 How. 498

14 L.Ed. 240

JUAN BAUTISTA JECKER, LUIS JECKER, THOMAS DE LA TORRE,

GEIDERO DE LA TORRE, AND JOSE E. FERNANDEZ, MERCHANTS,

TRADING UNDER THE ANME AND STYLE OF JECKER, TORRE &

COMPANY, APPELLANTS,

v. JOHN B. MONTGOMERY. AND JOHN B. MONTGOMERY, APPELLANT,

v. JUAN BAUTISTA JECKER, LUIS JECKER, THOMAS DE LA TORRE,

GEIDERO DE LA TORRE, AND JOSE E. FERNANDEZ, MERCHANTS,

TRADING UNDER THE NAME AND STYLE OF JECKER,

TORRE & COMPANY.

December Term, 1851

THESE were appeals from the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Columbia, holden in and for the county of Washington.

The facts are fully stated in the opinion of the court.

The cases were argued together by Mr. Coxe and Mr. Nelson, for Jecker, Torre & Company, and by Mr. Key and Mr. Johnson, for Captain Montgomery.

The arguments on both sides took a wide range, and it is impossible to insert the entire views of the case taken by the respective counsel. The following are given as those bearing upon what appear to be the principal points.

The arguments were divided into two heads:

1st. The ground of defence taken in the answer of the respondent, that the property had been carried into the port of Monterey, a town in California, then occupied by the American forces, within the limits of Mexico, and there had been regularly proceeded against and condemned as prize of war, by a court exercising at that place admiralty jurisdiction.

The libellants demurred to this plea of defence, and both the District and Circuit Courts sustained the demurrer; and from this decision the respondent appealed. The arguments of the counsel upon this branch of the case, although of an interesting character, are omitted for want of room.

The second demurrer was also to a part of the answer, and was as follows:

'The libellants, as to so much of the answer of the respondent, filed in this case, as alleges and sets up any act or thing on the part of the captain and crew of the said ship Admittance, or any of omission or commission of any sort or kind, as a justification of the said seizure of said ship or her cargo as lawful prize of war, or which might amount to probable cause of said seizure, demurs to the same; and for cause of demurrer avers and says, that this court in this cause has no rightful jurisdiction or authority to examine or adjudicate upon any question of prize, or of probable cause of capture as prize of war, but that the same belongs exclusively to the courts of the United States exercising prize jurisdiction, and having within its jurisdiction and control the property so seized or captured as prize, which this court has not, and, in consequence of the tortious and illegal acts of said respondent, as alleged and set forth in said libel, cannot have.

'Wherefore, and for other causes, these libellants do demur to so much of said answer as is above set forth.

'COXE, Advocate and Proctor for Libellants.'

This demurrer was also sustained by the District Court, but the judgment was reversed by the Circuit Court, and from this decision the libellants appealed.

Upon this point the argument of the counsel for the libellants was as follows:

The respondent, however, insists that he has in this action a right to show——

1. An actual and sufficient case of prize of war, as a bar to the remedy asked in the libel.

2. Probable cause of seizure, as a bar to the action.

1st. This is a civil suit to recover back property originally belonging to libellants, of which they have been forcibly divested by defendants, under whose authority it has been sold and converted into money. Can the party in such a suit aver legal cause of capture and condemnation as prize without producing a valid decree of condemnation as prize by a court of competent jurisdiction?

If he can, then this singular anomaly and most dangerous precedent will be exhibited, that a captor may distregard the injunctions of the law, and his own paramount duty; omit to bring his prize into court; to institute prize proceedings;—but may retain the property in his own hands, or at his pleasure convert it into money; and when called upon to answer in a civil suit, set up as a defence an original cause of condemnation.

It will scarcely be doubted that the jurisdiction of the prize courts, in cases of prize, is exclusive. The nature and extent of this jurisdiction, as it exists in England, are distinctively given by Lord Mansfield in Lindo v. Rodney, Dougl. 613. 1 Kent, 353; Conkl. 354; Dunl. Ad. Pr. 26; 12 Wheat. 1, 11. In every respect it differs from the ordinary Court of Admiralty. 'The manner of proceeding is totally different, the whole system of litigation and jurisprudence in the Prize Court is peculiar to itself; it is no more like the Court of Admiralty than it is to any court in Westminster Hall.' See particularly the language of Lord Mansfield, p. 616.

The claimant of the property cannot himself institute prize proceedings. They must always be had in the name of the government, to whom all prizes prim a facie belong. The only remedy the captured has is by monition, a proceeding in personam to compel the captors to perform their duty.

The ordinary Court of Admiralty has no more authority to condemn a prize than a court of common law; and should the doctrine asserted for this defendant prevail, these singular results must inevitably follow——

1st. The captors can never acquire any legal right to the property, unless by a decree of a prize court. This is, throughout, recognized in Home v. Camden, in 1 H. Bl. 476; 4 T. R. 382; and especially in 2 H. Bl. 541, 542, in the unanimous opinion of the twelve judges.

2d. The United States can assert no right, for its right depends also upon a sentence of condemnation, which alone can divest the former title.

3d. The original proprietor is forbidden by this doctrine from asserting his title.

The only party in whom the law recognizes a title, is forbidden to assert it, and the government, and the sub-officers and crew of the capturing vessel, have no rights cognizable in a court. This property, therefore, on this doctrine, must remain in the hands of the present defendant, subject to no responsibility.

The only mode of avoiding these absurd consequences is to enforce the law as above stated. 2 Wheat. Appx. 9. When a ship is captured, it is the duty of the captors to send her into some convenient port for adjudication. Citing the Huldah, and other cases; the Mentor, 1 Rob. 151; the Susanna, 6 Rob. 48.

In the Madonna del Burso, (4 Rob. 171,) Sir W. Scott says: 'However justifiable the seizure may have been, the first obligation which the seizor has to discharge, is that of accounting why he did not institute proceedings against the vessel and cargo immediately; and unless he can exculpate himself with respect to delay in this matter, he is guilty of no inconsiderable breach of duty. It would be highly injurious to the commerce of other countries, and disgraceful to the jurisprudence of this, if any persons, commissioned or non-commissioned, could lay their hands upon valuable ships and cargoes in our harbors, and keep their hands upon them without bringing such an act to judicial notice in any manner for the space of three or four months.'- 'A belligerent nation which is in the exercise of these rights of war, is bound to find tribunals for the regulation of them; tribunals clear in their authority, as well as pure in their administration; and if from causes of private internal policy, arising out of the peculiar relation of the component parts of the belligerent State, difficulties arise, the neutral is not to be prejudiced on that account; he has a right to speedy and unobstructed justice, and has nothing to do with such difficulties created by questions of domestic constitution.' Id. 177.

This view furnishes an answer to the suggestion of the necessity of creating and resorting to such a court as was erected in California. So, in page 147, will be found an equally decisive answer to the suggestion of counsel, that the master of the Admittance appeared before the Alcalde at Monterey. These libellants were not present, nor had the captain any authority to represent them; and he, as Sir W. Scott says, 'only followed where he was led.'

In the case of the St. Juan Baptista, (5 Rob. 33,) the prize was brought into England on the 12th of August, and proceedings were instituted on the 12th September, and the court held that it was bound to require a satisfactory cause for this delay. 'Grievous,' says Sir W. Scott, 'would be the injury to neutral trade, and highly disgraceful to the honor of our country, if captors could bring in ships at their own fancy, and detain them any length of time without bringing the matter to the cognizance of a court of justice. In the present instance this first and fundamental duty has not been performed.' 'Persons venturing to take out a commission of war must instruct themselves in their own duty, and if any inconvenience arises from their neglect, the neutral claimant is not to suffer.' In the case at bar, no prize proceedings have to this day been instituted; this fundamental duty, as Sir W. Scott calls it, has been wholly neglected. The property has never been brought within the United States,—another fundamental duty. The papers and documents on board have never been transmitted to any District Court, a peremptory requisition of the law is thus disregarded. It is intimated they are in the possession of the Navy Department. How did the captors procure them from the pseudo court at Monterey, and under what authority are they lodged in the Navy Department? The property no longer remains specifically; it has been converted into money, and no prize court can now proceed to adjudication.

In the Wilhelmsberg, (5 Rob. 143,) the same learned judge, observing upon the duty of the captor to send his prize to some convenient port, says that 'in that consideration the convenience of the claimant, in...