Lafayette Campbell v. United States
| Decision Date | 18 March 1912 |
| Docket Number | No. 161,161 |
| Citation | 32 S.Ct. 398,224 U.S. 99,56 L.Ed. 684 |
| Parties | LAFAYETTE E. CAMPBELL et al., Plffs. in Err., v. UNITED STATES |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. Aldis B. Browne, Gerald Hughes, Alexander Britton, Evans Browne, Clayton C. Dorsey, and Barnwell S. Stuart for plaintiffs in error.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 100-102 intentionally omitted] Assistant Attorney General Denison for defendant in error.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 102-104 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice Van Devanter delivered the opinion of the court:
This was an action at law against the sureties on the official bond of a receiver of public moneys to recover for a default of their principal. The answer set forth that the defendants had not and could not obtain sufficient information upon which to base a belief respecting the default charged, and therefore denied the same, and also interposed an affirmative defense, which need not be specially noticed. The action was begun in the district court, and was tried to the court without a jury. There was a special finding of the facts, accompanied by conclusions of law, and upon these there was a judgment for the defendants. The plaintiff took the case on writ of error to the circuit court of appeals, which held that the facts found were insufficient to support the judgment, and reversed the latter, with a direction to enter a judgment for the plaintiff upon the finding. ——L.R.A.(N.S.) ——, 95 C. C. A. 114, 170 Fed. 318. The defendants then sued out the present writ of error.
At the outset we are confronted with the question of the power of the circuit court of appeals to consider the sufficiency of the facts found to support the judgment. Section 566, Rev. Stat. (U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 461) provided that the trial of issues of fact in the district courts, in all cases except cases in equity and cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, and except as otherwise provided in proceedings in bankruptcy, should be by jury. This was not one of the excepted cases. Sections 649 and 700, Rev. Stat. (U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, pp. 525, 570), made special provision for the trial by the court, without a jury, of the issues of fact in actions at law in the circuit courts, and for the review of the rulings of the court in the progress of such a trial, including the question of the sufficiency of the facts found to support the judgment; but those sections were in terms limited to cases in the circuit courts, and there was no similar provision in respect of cases in the district courts. In this state of the statute law, the trial to the district court without a jury was in the nature of a submission to an arbitrator,—a mode of trial not contemplated by law, and the court's determination of the issues of fact and of the questions of law supposed to arise upon its special finding was not a judicial determination, and therefore was not subject to...
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