Fernand Vaughan Gasquet v. George Lapeyre

• Decision Date: 08 January 1917
• Docket Number: No. 116,116
• Citation: 37 S.Ct. 165,242 U.S. 367,61 L.Ed. 367
• Parties: FERNAND VAUGHAN GASQUET, Plff. in Err., v. GEORGE F. LAPEYRE and J. Martial Lapeyre
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

242 U.S. 367

37 S.Ct. 165

61 L.Ed. 367

FERNAND VAUGHAN GASQUET, Plff. in Err.,

v GEORGE F. LAPEYRE and J. Martial Lapeyre.

No. 116.

Argued and submitted November 16, 1916.

Decided January 8, 1917.

Messrs. William Winans Wall, Edward N. Pugh, J. C. Gilmore, and Thomas Gilmore for plaintiff in error.

Messrs. George Denegre, Victor Leovy, and Henry H. Chaffe for defendants in error.

Mr. Justice Van Devanter delivered the opinion of the court:

In a proceeding against the plaintiff in error, wherein he was fully heard, the civil district court of the parish of his residence and domicil pronounced a judgment of interdiction against him. He appealed to the supreme court of the state, which affirmed the judgment (136 La. 957, 68 So. 89), and thereafter he sued out this writ of error. Our jurisdiction is challenged by a motion to dismiss.

There are three assignments of error, and the facts essential to an understanding of two of them are these: After the judgment of interdiction, and before the hearing upon the appeal, the plaintiff in error, who was in custody under an order of the criminal district court of the parish, committing him to an asylum as a dangerous insane person, secured his release from such custody through an original proceeding in habeas corpus in the court of appeal of the parish, which adjudged that he had recovered his sanity. He then called the attention of the supreme court to this judgment and insisted that it was decisive of his sanity at a time subsequent to the judgment of interdiction, and was res judicata of the issue presented on the appeal. But the supreme court held that under the state Constitution and statutes the court of appeal was without jurisdiction, and therefore its judgment was not res judicata. In the assignments of error it is said of this ruling, first, that it practically suspended the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, contrary to § 9 of article 1 of the Constitution of the United States, and, second, that it denied the plaintiff in error the due process and equal protection guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, in that it did not give proper effect to certain provisions of the Constitution and statutes of the state, bearing upon the jurisdiction of the court of appeal and the supreme court. Both claims, in so far as the Federal Constitution is concerned, are so obviously ill founded and so certainly foreclosed by prior decisions that they afford no basis for invoking our jurisdiction. Section 9 of article 1, as has long been settled, is not restrictive of state, but only of national, action. Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, 135, 24 L. ed. 77, 87; Morgan's L. & T. R. & S. S. Co. v. Board of Health, 118 U. S. 455, 467, 30 L. ed. 237, 242, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1114; Johnson v. Chicago & P. Elevator Co. 119 U. S. 388, 400, 30 L. ed. 447, 451, 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 254. This is also true of the 5th Amendment. Barron v. Baltimore, 7 Pet. 243, 8 L. ed. 672; Booth v. Indiana. 237 U. S. 391, 394, 59 L. ed. 1011, 1016, 35 Sup. Ct. Rep. 617; Hunter v. Pittsburgh, 207 U. S. 161, 176, 52 L. ed. 151, 158, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 40. And, as our decisions show, there is nothing in the clauses of the 14th Amendment guarantying due process and equal protection which converts an issue respecting the jurisdiction of a state court under the Constitution and statutes of the state into anything other than a question of state law, the decision of which by the state court of last resort is binding upon this court. Iowa C. R. Co. v. Iowa, 160 U. S. 389, 393, 40 L. ed. 467, 469, 16 Sup. Ct. Rep. 344 Castillo v. McConnico, 168 U. S. 674, 683, 42 L. ed. 622, 625, 18 Sup. Ct. Rep. 229; Rawlins v. Georgia, 201 U. S. 638, 50 L. ed. 899, 26 Sup. Ct. Rep. 560, 5 Ann. Cas. 783; Burt v. Smith, 203 U. S. 129, 135, 51 L. ed. 121, 126, 27 Sup. Ct. Rep. 37; Standard Oil Co. v. Missouri, 224 U. S. 270, 280, 281, 56 L. ed. 760, 767, 768, 32 Sup. Ct. Rep. 406, Ann. Cas. 1913D, 936; De Bearn v. Safe Deposit & T. Co. 233 U. S. 24, 34, 58 L. ed. 833, 837, 34 Sup. Ct. Rep. 584; McBonald v. Oregon R. & Nav. Co. 233 U. S. 665, 669, 670, 58 L. ed. 1145, 1148, 1149, 34 Sup. Ct. Rep. 772; Missouri v. Lewis (Bowman v. Lewis) 101 U. S. 22, 30, 25 L. ed. 989, 992.

The facts bearing upon the remaining assignment are as follows: After the judgment of affirmance by the supreme court, and during the pendency of a ...