In re Abdu at al

• Decision Date: 20 May 1918
• Docket Number: No. 31,31
• Citation: 38 S.Ct. 447,247 U.S. 27,62 L.Ed. 966
• Parties: In re ABDU at al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

247 U.S. 27

38 S.Ct. 447

62 L.Ed. 966

In re ABDU at al.

No. 31.

Argued April 29, 1918.

Decided May 20, 1918.

Mr. Silas B. Axtell, of New York City, for petitioners.

Mr. Robert S. Erskine, of New York City, for respondent.

Mr. Chief Justice WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.

In the trial court the petitioners, six in number, Arabian seamen and members of the crew of a British ship, as libelants sought to enforce the payment of one-half their wages in reliance upon the provisions of section 4530, Revised Statutes, as amended by section 4 of the Act of March 4, 1915, c. 153 38 Stat. 1165 (Comp. St. 1916, § 8322). In granting an appeal from a decree dismissing their claim the court, in view either of the provisions of the Act of Congress of July 1, 1916, c. 209, 39 Stat. 313 (Comp. St. 1916, § 1630a), or those of the Act of June 12, 1917, c. 27, 40 Stat. 157, or both, directed that the appellants be permitted to perfect their appeal without costs.

In the Circuit Court of Appeals the clerk declined to file the record without the deposit to secure costs required by the rules. The court was asked to direct the clerk to do otherwise, but for reasons stated in a brief memorandum (The Nigretia, 249 Fed. 348) it refused to do so. Assuming that this action was based solely on the view that the act of 1916 had ceased to be operative by limitation of time, relying upon the act of 1917, the request for direction to the clerk to file the record without costs or security for the same was again made to the court and refused upon the ground of want of merit in the application, that is, upon the conclusion that the act of Congress relied upon did not relieve seamen from costs in appellate courts. Leave to present a petition for mandamus against the clerk to compel him to file the record without costs was then here granted and the matter is before us on the submission of the rule to show cause consequent upon such permission and the answer of the clerk to the rule setting out the action of the court, in which answer reliance is placed upon the orders of the court which are appended and the two opinions expressed by the court on the subject.

The existence of ultimate discretionary power here to review the cause on its merits and the deterrent influence which the refusal to file must have upon the practical exertion of that power in a case properly made gives the authority to consider the subject which the rule presents.¹ But that does not without more dispel the seeming con- fusion resulting from the fact that the remedy prayed is directed not to the court below but to its clerk and hence in form the relief sought is a mandamus to direct the clerk to disobey the order of the court, leaving the order unreviewed and unreversed. The incongruity is obvious and we cannot as a general rule sanction it. Looking, however, through form to the essence of things, as no mere independent action of the clerk as clerk is involved, but the authority exe ted by the court in directing the action of the clerk complained of is the subject-matter at issue and is the only justification relied upon by the clerk in the answer to the rule, we are of the opinion that in the exercise of a sound discretion we may treat the case from that point of view, that is to say, under the circumstances consider the authority to have made the order with the clerk alone as a technical party to the proceeding.

The contention that the court mistakenly refused to permit the appellate proceedings to be conducted without payment of costs is based upon a provision in the Appropriation Act of June 12, 1917, as follows:

'Provided, that courts of the United States shall be open to seamen, without furnishing bonds, or prepayment of or making deposit to secure fees or costs, for the purpose of entering and prosecuting suit or suits in their own name and for their own benefit for wages or salvage and to enforce laws made for their health and safety.'

The provision does not in express words relate to appellate proceedings and the whole argument advanced to sustain the theory that it includes such proceedings rests upon the conception that because the provision was intended to benefit seamen by giving them access to the courts without cost, therefore by necessary implication the statute should be construed as all-embracing, that is, as giving the right to carry on appellate proceedings free from costs. But this simply assumes the proposition contended for and after all comes but to the contention that because the...