Freeland v. Williams
Decision Date | 13 May 1889 |
Citation | 9 S.Ct. 763,131 U.S. 405,33 L.Ed. 193 |
Parties | FREELAND v. WILLIAMS |
Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Chas. C. Cole and W. L. Cole, for plaintiff in error.
Robert White and Chas. J. Faulkner, for defendant in error.
This case is brought before us by a writ of error directed to the judges of the supreme court of appeals of the state of West Virginia. We can, perhaps, best present the questions of federal cognizance, which are supposed to give this court jurisdiction, by a short statement of its history. David Freeland, the present plaintiff in error, brought in the circuit court of Preston county, in the state of West Virginia, against Joseph V. Williams and his brother, Charles Williams, an action of trespass de bonis asportatis for the taking and conversion of of cattle which were the property of the plaintiff; and on the 22d day of December, 1865, he recovered a judgment in that court against Joseph V. Williams, for $1,110, with interest and costs, there being a verdict in favor of the other defendant. From that judgment the defendant took a writ of error, on which it was affirmed in the supreme court of appeals of the state of West Virginia. Williams v Freeland, 2 W. Va. 306. The trespass took place while the late civil war was flagrant in that part of the country. The records of the circuit court of Preston county, in which this judgment was rendered, have been destroyed by fire, and no transcript of the proceedings of that case is to be found in the record presented to us, except that a certified copy of the judgment of the supreme court of appeals, affirming the judgment of the circuit court, is appended as an exhibit to the answer of Freeland made in the suit now under consideration. The judgment thus recovered remaining unsatisfied, the defendant in that case, Joseph V. Williams, on the 15th day of August, 1883, filed his bill in chancery in the circuit court of Preston county, which, as it is short, and contains the matter which we are called upon to review, will be here inserted, as follows:
'JOSEPH V. WILLIAMS, by Counsel.'
To this bill there was a demurrer by Freeland, and also an answer. The demurrer relies upon the proposition that the thirty-fifth section of article 8 of the constitution of the state, which the plaintiff in that case sets up as the foundation of his relief, is in conflict with the tenth section of the first article of the constitution of the United States, and also with the first section of the fourteenth article of amendment to that constitution, and is therefore null and void. The answer sets out the same matter, and also says that the judgment was for a lot of cattle owned by Freeland, and taken and converted by the plaintiff, but not in accordance with the usages of civilized warfare; and that Williams went to trial on the plea of not guilty to the action of trespass for the recovery of the value of these cattle, though the plaintiff might have waived the trespass, and declared in assumpsit. To this there was a replication, and testimony by way of depositions was taken on the issue as to whether the taking, on which the original judgment for the plaintiff rested, was an exercise of belligerent rights, and was done according to the usages and principles of public war. There can be no question that these depositions establish the fact that Williams, the defendant in the original action, was a soldier under the command of Gen. Fitzhugh Lee, whose force was dominant in that part of Wet Virginia in January, 1864, and that it was under his orders that the cattle were seized while Lee was on a raid through that county, and object of which was to get beef cattle, and the order of the commanding officer was to take beef cattle and surplus horses. Upon the final hearing the circuit court rendered its decree in the following language: 'It is therefore considered by the court that the judgment in the bill mentioned in favor of the defendant against the plaintiff, described as a judgment rendered by the circuit court of Preston county, on the 22d day of December, 1865, for $1,110, with interest thereon from the 4th day of January, 1864, and the costs, is void, and that the defendant be perpetually enjoined and restained from the enforcement and collection of the same and every part thereof, and that the defendant do pay to the plaintiff his costs herein.' Thereupon Freeland, the present plaintiff in error, made application, according to the laws of West Virginia, by a petition, for an appeal, which petition was denied. This denial, as in the case of similar proceedings in the state of Virginia, this court has held to be a final judgment of the highest court of the state, which can be reviewed in this court in a proper case. The errors assigned, and the questions presented by counsel and by this record, are substantially two: (1) That the new constitution of West Virginia, relied on as the foundation of relief by the defendant in error, is a violation of that clause of the constitution of the United States which declares that no state shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts. Section 10, art. 1, of the original constitution. (2) That it violates the provision of the first section of the fourteenth article of amendment, viz., that no state shall 'deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.'
It is proper to observe that counsel have commented upon the fact that the defendant, Williams, in the original action of trespass, filed certain pleas setting up the fact that what he did in the way of seizing the cattle was under order of superior military authority, and in the exercise of belligerent rights, and that therefore he was not personally liable to the plaintiff...
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