Hartford Life Ins Co v. Johnson

• Decision Date: 14 April 1919
• Docket Number: No. 291,291
• Citation: 63 L.Ed. 722,249 U.S. 490,39 S.Ct. 336
• Parties: HARTFORD LIFE INS. CO. v. JOHNSON
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

249 U.S. 490

39 S.Ct. 336

63 L.Ed. 722

HARTFORD LIFE INS. CO.

v JOHNSON.

No. 291.

Submitted March 26, 1919.

Decided April 14, 1919.

Messrs. James C. Jones, George F. Haid, and James C. Jones, Jr., all of St. Louis, Mo., for petitioner.

Messrs. Matthew A. Fyke and Charles W. German, both of Kansas City, Mo., for respondent.

Mr. Justice CLARKE delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is a suit, on a life insurance policy or certificate, in which judgment was rendered against the company, petitioner, successively, by three courts of the state of Missouri. The case is in this court on writ of certiorari granted on the asserted ground that the state Supreme Court failed and refused to give full faith and credit to the judgment and decree of a superior court of the state of Connecticut, and also to the petitioner's charter, 'a public record and act of the state of Connecticut,' in violation of the rights secured to it by article 4, section 1, of the Constitution of the United States.

Respondent moves to dismiss the writ for want of jurisdiction.

The decree of the superior court of Connecticut, to which it is claimed full faith and credit was denied, was rendered in the case of Charles H. Dresser et al. v. Hartford Life Insurance Company, of Hartford, Conn., the petitioner. The character of this decree and the effect which must be given to it when properly pleaded and introduced in evidence in courts of other states are both sufficiently stated in Hartford Life Insurance Co. v. Ibs, 237 U. S. 662, 35 Sup. Ct. 692, 59 L. Ed. 1165, L. R. A. 1916A, 765, and in Hartford Life Insurance Co. v. Barber, 245 U. S. 146, 38 Sup. Ct. 54, 62 L. Ed. 208.

The respondent, on this motion to dismiss, does not seek to have the decisions in the cases cited modified, but asserts that the claim of right now made was not so 'set up or claimed' in the state courts that full faith and credit could be or was denied to the Dresser decree.

The judgment in this case in the trial court was rendered against the petitioner in September, 1909, and the decree in the Dresser Case was not rendered until six months later, in March, 1910. The latter decree was not set up in any pleading and was not introduced in evidence in this case. The only way in which it came to the notice of the Missouri courts was in argument and as an exhibit to a brief filed in the appellate courts and the Supreme Court of Missouri dealt with it in this single paragraph:

'The case at bar was tried below on May 12, 1909, which was prior in time to the entering of the decree in the Dresser Case, and the record in the Dresser Case was therefore not offered or presented in the trial of this case. Since the record of the Dresser Case is in no manner properly raised or lodged in this case, we do not deem it to be within the scope of our review, and likewise the federal question based thereon. Under such circumstances the rule announced by the Supreme Court of the United States in Hartford Life Insurance Co. v. Ibs, supra [237 U. S. 662, 35 Sup. Ct. 692, 59 L. Ed. 1165, L. R. A. 1916A, 765], should not be applied to this case.'

The jurisdiction of this court to review the final judgment or decree of the highest court of a state, in such a case as we have here, is defined in section 237 of the Judicial Code (Act March 3, 1911, c. 231, 36 Stat. 1156), as amended September 6, 1916 (39 Stat. 726, c. 448, § 2 [Comp. St. § 1214]), which provides that it shall be competent for this court, by certiorari to require any such cause to be certified to it for review when there is claimed in it any title, right, privilege or immunity under the Constitution of the United States and 'the decision is either in favor of or against the title right, privilege or immunity especially set up or claimed, by either party, under such Constitution.' It is the settled law that this provision means:

'That the claim must be asserted at the proper time and in the proper manner by pleading, motion or other appropriate action under the state system of pleading and practice, * * * and upon the question whether or not such a claim has been so asserted the decision of the state court is binding upon this court, when it is clear, as it is in ...