Larkin v. Saffarans

• Decision Date: 20 February 1883
• Citation: 15 F. 147
• Parties: LARKIN v. SAFFARANS and others.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Tennessee

15 F. 147

LARKIN v. SAFFARANS and others.

United States Circuit Court, W.D. Tennessee.

February 20, 1883

W. M Randolph, for plaintiff.

C. F Vance and C. W. Frazer, for defendants.

HAMMOND J.

* * * The next ground for a new trial is based on the objection to the jurisdiction of the court. Resolving all doubt in favor of the jurisdiction, which seems to be the rule in such cases, I have concluded to adhere to the ruling made at the trial and sustain the jurisdiction. Smith v. People, 47 N.Y. 330, 341. It is proper to state, however, that any doubt entertained on the subject arises out of the want of conclusive authority for this judgment, rather than any want of conviction of its correctness.

Naturally enough, persons holding title under the United States direct sales supposed that cases arising under the acts of congress authorizing the tax were cognizable in the courts of the United States, whether there were a diverse citizenship or not, and actions of ejectment were brought in this court, as this case was, under that belief.

In the case of Eaton v. Calhoun, 2 Flippin, 593, which was brought on a title derived through, but not directly from the direct-tax sales, the action, unlike this, was commenced after the act of March 3, 1875, c. 137, (18 St.at Large 470;) but originally the declaration claimed jurisdiction under the act of March 3, 1833, (4 St.at Large, 732; Rev. St. Sec. 629, subsec. 4,) historically known as the 'Force Bill,' passed to meet threatened nullification of the revenue laws of the United States. No suggestion was made in the argument of that case before me of jurisdiction under the act of 1875, and it was not until it came to be heard with the circuit judge on the bench that it was relied upon, the suit being found to have been commenced subsequently to the passage of that act. Of course, the question in this case, where the suit was brought before and was pending at the time the act of 1875 was passed, did not arise in that case; but here the plaintiff claims, as did that plaintiff until he was let in under the act of 1875, that we have jurisdiction under the act of 1833, and that question is again presented for decision. This case is somewhat better for jurisdiction under the act of 1833 and its amendments than that, because here the purchaser at the tax sale sues directly on his certificate of sale, and the questions involved are those pertaining to the legality of the sale, while there it was a remote purchaser, in whose chain of title the tax sale was found to be a link, who was suing. Still, perplexing difficulties as to jurisdiction under those acts are so great that if the jurisdiction depended solely on them, I should perhaps feel constrained, for reasons stated in Eaton v. Calhoun, ^[1] to dismiss this case.

But, under the act of 1875, there can be no doubt of our jurisdiction, if the first section applies to cases pending in the courts at the time of its passage. And why does it not apply? Counsel say it is because it is giving that act a retrospective operation, without any words directing that it shall so operate, and because it interferes with vested rights. The first obvious suggestion here is, can the statute, in conferring jurisdiction over suits then pending, be said to act retrospectively in any proper sense? It acts immediately on a thing then in existence, and from that moment gives the court a power to act on that thing which it did not before have; but the idea that it acts retrospectively is founded on the assumption that the question of jurisdiction is to be determined as of the date when the suit was brought, and not as of the date when the decision is made, it being argued that the proceeding was void in the beginning, and cannot be made valid by subsequent legislation. That congress has the power to bestow jurisdiction over a pending suit there can be no doubt whatever, if the act says so in terms; and, in this connection, it must be remembered that there are no constitutional restrictions upon congress in the matter of retrospective legislation as there are in some of the states. Satterlee v. Matthewson, 2 Pet. 380; Sinking Fund Cases, 99 U.S. 700.

The case of Sampeyreac v. U.S. 7 Pet. 222; S.C. Hempst. 118, is a direct authority for the power of congress to do what the plaintiff claims has been done here; and it will be found that it has been sometimes ruled in the state courts that such legislation interferes with no vested right, since one can have no vested right to any particular remedy, or to sue or be sued in any particular court, or to a defense growing out of mere remedial legislation. For example, a party cannot complain if the legislature enlarges the statute of limitations, if this be done before the bar actually attaches under the old statute. And it will be found that, both in the civil and common law, the repugnance to retrospective legislation was not understood to extend to remedial legislation of that character. In Tennessee we have a constitutional provision 'that no retrospective law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, shall be made,' and yet at a very early day it was construed to apply only to the impairment of contracts, and not prohibitory of the large class of legislation affecting remedies, remitting penalties, etc. 'In short,' says the supreme court, 'so many are the past transactions upon which the public good requires posterior legislation, that no government can preserve order, suppress wrong, and promote the public welfare without the power to make retrospective laws. ' Townsend v. Townsend, Peck, 1, 17; 1 Tenn.Code, (T. & S.) 79, and notes; 2 Meigs, Dig. (2d Ed.) § 727, p. 886.

Some statutes do not act retrospectively, 'unless, for particular reasons, the new laws indicate expressly that their provisions are to apply to the past; or unless, without such indication, they must serve as a rule to past things;' as Domat expresses the exception to that maxim derived by us from the civil law, by which we indicate our hostility to retrospective legislation. Broom, Legal Max. (7th Ed.) 34; Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386; Foster v. Essex Bank, 16 Mass. 245, 254, 273; Simmons v. Hanover, 23 Pick. 188; Dash v. Van Kleeck, 7 Johns. 501; Pells v. Sup'rs, 65 N.Y. 300; Templeton v. Kraner, 24 Ohio St. 554, 563. And the rule is that 'where the enactment deals with procedure only, unless the contrary be expressed, the enactment applies to all actions, whether commenced before or after the passing of the act. ' Broom, Legal Max. 35; Wright v. Hale, 6 Hurl.& N. 227; Kimbray v. Draper, L.R. 3 Q.B. 160.

This is only in accordance with the general rule that all remedial legislation shall be liberally construed, and particularly should this be so where new remedies are given, and with reference to the bestowal of jurisdiction on the courts. Strictly speaking, it may be that this statute is not an act relating only to procedure in the purview of the last above cited cases; but it takes away from these defendants no right of action, or defense to this action on its merits, if indeed an objection to the jurisdiction can be called a defense at all. The plea protests against the power of the court to act in the premises; it says this suit should not be entertained here because this court has not been empowered to try it. But the very non-existence of the power to hear it may be the strongest reason why the legislature should determine to confer it, and render this defense, if it may be called so, nugatory. Certainly nothing could be more appropriate than for congress to confer on its own courts power to hear controversies arising out of its own laws as the constitution has expressly authorized it to do; and I cannot see how any citizen can acquire a vested right in any omission of congress to do this, nor why the rule of construction should not be, by analogy to that above mentioned, to apply the act to pending cases, unless there be an express direction to the contrary, as in Good v. Martin, 95 U.S. 90, 98, where the question was whether a change in the law of evidence applied to pending cases.

If the defendants had made a motion to dismiss, and this case had been by judgment dismissed before congress had passed the new act, or if the court had refused to dismiss for want of jurisdiction and rendered a judgment against the defendants which was void for want of jurisdiction, the case would have been different; and this distinction will be found running through the cases and is reasonable, because then the matter is ended by judgment, there is no pending suit on which to act, as it is past and gone from the court, and in one sense there then vests a right in the defendant to the judgment; it becomes a sort of property, and should not ordinarily be taken from him, and when there are appropriate restrictions on legislative supremacy, as in many of the states, it cannot be. Whether congress is so restricted may be doubtful; but at all events, in such a case, the rule of construction I am applying here would not operate, and nothing less than a specific direction in the statute would authorize the courts to give it that retrospective effect. But the defendant allowed this case to remain here without dismissing it until the want of power to try it was supplied, and when it was tried the objection was no longer tenable; for I think it will be found generally that such questions as this are to be determined as the law exists at the time they are decided and not at the time the action was instituted. Oliver v. Moore, 12 Heisk. 482; Laughlin v. Com. 13 Bush, 261; Huff v. Cook, 44 Iowa, 639; State v. Union, 33 N.J.Law, 350. Why take that time as the one by which to test the jurisdiction? Would it not be as reasonable to confine us to the moment of time...