City of Opelika v. Daniel
| Decision Date | 29 October 1883 |
| Citation | 3 S.Ct. 70,109 U.S. 108,27 L.Ed. 873 |
| Parties | CITY OF OPELIKA v. DANIEL |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
John T. Morgan, for plaintiff in error.
S. F. Rice, for defendant in error.
The action below was brought originally upon 119 interest coupons cut from 24 bonds of the city of Opelika. The bonds were in the aggregate for $24,000, and the amount claimed to be due on the coupons was more than $5,000. At first a demurrer was filed to the complaint. This being overruled, the validity of the bonds was put in issue by various pleas. Before trial, the plaintiff, Daniel, asked and obtained leave to amend his complaint so as to include only 90 of the coupons originally sued for. After the amendment a jury was impaneled, and on the trial the 90 coupons only were put in evidence. The verdict was for $4,755.64, and a judgment was entered thereon for that amount and no more. To reverse that judgment this writ of error was brought. At a former term Daniel moved to dismiss because the value of the matter in dispute did not exceed $5,000. That motion was continued for hearing with the case on its merits.
We decided at the last term in Elgin v. Marshall, 106 U. S. 579, [S. C. 1 SUP. CT. REP. 484], that our jurisdiction depends on 'the matter which is directly in dispute in the particular cause in which the judgment or decree sought to be reviewed has been rendered,' and that we are not permitted, 'for the purpose of determining its sum or value, to estimate its collateral effect in a subsequent suit between the same or other parties.' That, like this, was a suit on coupons, and the judgment was for less than $5,000, although the bonds from which they were cut amounted to much more, and the validity of the bonds was one of the questions in dispute. The two cases cannot be distinguished in this particular.
It was clearly within the discretion of the court to permit the amendment of the complaint before trial. In Thompson v. Butler, 95 U. S. 694, we declined to take jurisdiction where the verdict was for more than $5,000, but the plaintiff before judgment, with leave of the court, remitted the excess, and actually took judgment for $5,000 and no more. In that case it was said, page 696:
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