Brougham v. Oceanic Steam Navigation Co.
| Decision Date | 12 May 1913 |
| Docket Number | 216. |
| Citation | 205 F. 857 |
| Parties | BROUGHAM v. OCEANIC STEAM NAVIGATION CO. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Writ of error to review an order of the District Court, Southern District of New York, adjudging the plaintiff in error guilty of contempt of court and imposing upon him a fine of $200 payable one-half to the United States and one-half to the petitioner in the limitation of liability proceedings.
It appears from the record that the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, Limited, an English corporation, as the owner of the steamship Titanic, brought a petition to the District Court averring that said steamship, which was a British vessel, had on her first voyage from England to the United States collided with an iceberg in mid-ocean and had received such injuries that she sank with great loss of life and property. The petition further averred that the collision and consequent loss were occasioned without the privity or knowledge of the petitioner; that proceedings had been instituted against it to recover damages for injuries alleged to have been sustained through the loss of the steamship that nothing was saved from the wreck of the steamship except certain boats and equipment which had been brought within the jurisdiction and that certain moneys had been paid for passage and earned as freight. Upon these allegations, the petitioner claimed that it was entitled to the benefit of the statutes of the United States relating to the limitation of the liability of ship owners and prayed for appropriate relief including an injunction to restrain the commencement and prosecution of suits.
Upon the filing of the petition an injunction of the nature prayed for was issued by the District Court but, notwithstanding the plaintiff in error, an attorney at law, began an action against the petitioner in behalf of the representative of a person who had lost her life in the sinking of the steamship. The petitioner instituted and carried on contempt proceedings against the plaintiff in error on account of the violation of the injunction and in such proceedings he was fined as above stated and has brought this writ of error.
A. L. Brougham, of New York City (F. M. Brown, of New York City, of counsel), for plaintiff in error.
Burlingham, Montgomery & Beecher, of New York City (J. P. Kirlin, N. B. Beecher, and Charles C. Burlingham, all of New York City, of counsel), for defendant in error.
Before LACOMBE, WARD, and NOYES, Circuit Judges.
NOYES Circuit Judge (after stating the facts as above).
In view of the decision of the Supreme Court in Gompers v. Buck Stove, etc., Co., 221 U.S. 418, 31 Sup.Ct. 492, 55 L.Ed. 797, 34 L.R.A. (N.S.) 874, and of this court in Matter of Kahn (C.C.A.) 204 F. 581, decided April 14, 1913, it may be doubted whether this case does not present a variance between the procedure adopted-- apparently civil in its nature-- and the penalty imposed-- apparently partly punitive. But the plaintiff in error raises no such question in his assignment of errors and states in his brief that 'no fault is found with the regularity of the proceedings to punish the plaintiff in error. ' Moreover the record may support at least a part of the judgment and the error, if it exist, is not one which we are bound to notice without assignment. In the circumstances, we have concluded to refrain from taking up the question. We think it altogether preferable to defer the consideration of the application of the Gompers decision to orders in the form shown here to an occasion when the question is duly raised and fully presented.
The fundamental question raised by the parties is one of jurisdiction. Did the District Court have power to make the order which the plaintiff in error disobeyed?
It is sometimes said that every court has jurisdiction to determine its own jurisdiction. This is partly true and partly untrue. A court must as an incident to its general power to administer justice have authority to consider its own right to hear a cause. But the mere decision by a court that it has such right when it does not exist does not give it authority. A court by moving in a cause assumes authority but the assumption does not confer it. All of which refinement, however, advances us little in determining the substantial jurisdictional question here.
The jurisdiction with which we are concerned is the power to hear and determine a cause. It is not limited to making correct decisions but includes power to decide wrong as well as right. As applied to a particular controversy it is the power to hear and determine the subject-matter of that controversy. And by this is meant the power to hear and determine causes of the class to which the particular controversy belongs. It is the power to act upon the general question in its relation to the facts presented; to adjudge whether such facts call for the exercise of the abstract power. As said by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in Foltz v. St. Louis, etc., R. Co., 60 F. 316, 8 C.C.A. 635:
The jurisdiction of a court depends upon its right to decide a case and never upon the merits of its decision. The distinction between want of jurisdiction and error is clear. When a court makes an order in a cause over which it has no jurisdiction, it is a nullity. No one is bound to obey it or is liable for disobeying it. Similarly if a court have jurisdiction of a cause and yet make an order in it beyond its power, the order is void. In the one case there is action without any authority; in the other, action in excess of authority. In both cases the order is a nullity, and affords no foundation for contempt proceedings. Ex parte Fisk, 113 U.S. 713, 5 Sup.Ct. 724, 28 L.Ed. 1117; In re Sawyer, 124 U.S. 200, 8 Sup.Ct. 482, 31 L.Ed. 402. But if a court have jurisdiction to make an...
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