Baltzer v. State of North Carolina

• Decision Date: 02 March 1896
• Docket Number: No. 93,93
• Citation: 40 L.Ed. 684,161 U.S. 240,16 S.Ct. 500
• Parties: BALTZER v. STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

161 U.S. 240

16 S.Ct. 500

40 L.Ed. 684

BALTZER

v STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA.

No. 93.

March 2, 1896.

Simon Sterne, for plaintiff in error.

J. E. Shepherd and C. M. Busbee, for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice WHITE delivered the opinion of the court.

By an ordinance of the constitutional convention of the state of North Carolina, held in 1868, certain bonds were authorized to be issued in aid of the Chatham Railroad. While there was some question raised on the subject in the discussion at bar, it may be, for the purposes of this case, conceded that, at the time the ordinance authorizing the bonds was passed, section 11 art. 4, of the constitution of North Carolina, adopted in 1868, was in existence, and was as follows:

'Claims against the State.—The supreme court shall have original jurisdiction to hear claims against the state, but its decision shall be merely recommendatory. No process in the nature of execution shall issue thereon; they shall be reported to the next session of the general assembly for its action.'

In 1879 an amendment to the constitution of North Carolina was submitted by the legislature of that state to the people thereof, and this amendment was ratified by a popular vote in 1880. It is as follows:

'Nor shall the general assembly assume or pay or authorize the collection of any tax to pay, either directly or indirectly, expressed or implied, any debt or bond incurred or issued by authority of the convention of the year 1868, nor any debt or bond incurred or issued by the legislature of the year 1868, either at the special session of the year 1868 or at its regular sessions of the years 1868-'69 and 1869-'70, except the bonds issued to fund the interest on the old debts of the state, unless the proposing to pay the same shall have first been submitted to the people and by them ratified by the vote of a majority of all the qualified voters of the state at a regular election held for that purpose.'

After the incorporation of this amendment in the constitution of the state, the plaintiff in error commenced in the supreme court of North Carolina an action against that state for the recovery of the amount of interest due on coupons forming part of certain bonds which had been issued under the ordinance of the constitutional convention of 1868 above referred to. The attorney general of the state, reserving all its rights to plead to the jurisdiction, answered, denying both the existence and validity of the bonds and coupons declared on, and pleading the statute of limitations of three and ten years. Thereupon a motion was made by the attorney general on behalf of the state to dismiss the action for want of jurisdiction. This motion prevailed, the court referring, as its grounds for dismissing the suit, to the reasons assigned by it in the previous cases of Horne v. State, 84 N. C. 462, and Baltzer v. State, 104 N. C. 265, 10 S. E. 153. The cases thus referred to held that the power of the court to recommend claims to the favorable consideration of the legislature had (quoad claims identical in legal nature with the coupons sued on) been repealed by the constitutional amendment to which we have referred, and that the court was without jurisdiction to render judgment of recommendation on a claim against the state when its validity was denied by the state constitution. To the judgment thus rendered, this writ of error is prosecuted.

In Railroad Co. v. Tennessee, 101 U. S. 337, this court was called upon to determine whether the repeal, by a state, of a statutory provision authorizing itself to be sued in its own courts, but which gave no power to the courts to enforce their judgments, and which enacted that, when such judgments were rendered, the money could only be obtained through an appropriation by the legislature, was an impairment of the obligation of a contract entered into by the state while the authority conferred by the statute was unrepealed. In speaking on this subject, this court, by Mr. Chief Justice Waite, said:

'The question we have to decide is not whether the state is liable for the debts of the bank to the railroad company, but whether it can be sued in its own courts to enforce that liability. The principle is elementary that a state cannot be sued in its own courts without its consent. This is a privilege of sovereignty. It is conceded that, when this suit was begun, the state had withdrawn its consent to be sued; and the only question now to be determined is whether that withdrawal impaired the obligation of the contract which the railroad company seeks to enforce. If it did, it was inoperative, so far as this suit is concerned, and the original consent remains in full force, for all the purposes of the particular contract or liability here involved.

'The remedy which is protected by the contract clause of the constitution is something more than the privilege of having a claim adjudicated. Mere judicial inquiry into the rights of parties is not enough. There must be the power to enforce the results of such an inquiry before there can be said to be a remedy which the constitution deems part of a contract. Inquiry is one thing; remedy, another. Adjudication is of no value as a remedy unless enforcement follows. It is of no practical importance that a right has been established if the right is no more available afterwards than before. The constitution preserves only such remedies as are required to enforce a contract.

'Here the state has consented to be sued...