Manufacturers Record Publishing Company v. Lauer

• Decision Date: 28 July 1959
• Docket Number: No. 17735.,17735.
• Citation: 268 F.2d 187
• Parties: MANUFACTURERS RECORD PUBLISHING COMPANY, Appellant, v. Margaret E. LAUER, the duly qualified and authorized Testamentary Executrix of the Succession of Jacques E. Blevins, etc., et al., Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

268 F.2d 187 (1959)

MANUFACTURERS RECORD PUBLISHING COMPANY, Appellant, v. Margaret E. LAUER, the duly qualified and authorized Testamentary Executrix of the Succession of Jacques E. Blevins, etc., et al., Appellees.

No. 17735.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

June 29, 1959.

Rehearing Denied July 28, 1959.

W. Scott Wilkinson, John M. Madison, John C. Christian, Shreveport, La., for appellant.

Kalford K. Miazza, Clem H. Sehrt, Edward J. Boyle, C. Ellis Henican, New Orleans, La., Henican, James & Cleveland, New Orleans, La., of counsel, for Margaret E. Lauer, the duly qualified and authorized testamentary executrix of the Succession of Jacques E. Blevins.

Before HUTCHESON, Chief Judge, and RIVES and TUTTLE, Circuit Judges.

HUTCHESON, Chief Judge.

This is an appeal from a judgment dismissing, for the reasons stated in the opinion of the district judge,¹ plaintiff's suit to enjoin as a nullity the execution and enforcement of the judgment of the Supreme Court of Louisiana in the case of Blevins v. Manufacturers Record Publishing Co., 235 La. 708, 105 So.2d 392, and, in the alternative, for a declaratory judgment.

While the nature of the litigation and the questions it posed below and poses here are fully disclosed in the thorough and careful opinion of the district judge, we think it desirable, in order to more precisely point up plaintiff-appellant's position on this appeal, to reproduce in substance in the margin the "Statement of the Case" as appellant's brief sets it out.²

Upon the basis of this statement appellant, declaring:

"In this proceeding, Manufacturers is not attacking the judgment of the Louisiana Supreme Court on the ground that the court erroneously interpreted or misapplied the Louisiana law, as mis-stated by the United States District Court below, but appellant, Manufacturers, attacks the judgment of the Louisiana Supreme Court on the ground that said judgment was and is an Absolute Nullity, in that the court totally failed to apply fundamental and mandatory requirements of the Louisiana law, that it recognized as controlling, in the following respects:

"(1) The Louisiana Supreme Court\'s action in examining Manufacturers\' (defendant possessor in the petitory action) title, without first requiring Blevins to prove a valid title, as the court was compelled to do under the mandatory provisions of Articles 43 and 44 of the Louisiana Code of Practice;

"(2) The Louisiana Supreme Court\'s failure to follow the mandatory provisions of Articles 43 and 44 and compel Blevins to prove a chain of title between the years 1923 and 1940-45 from Wisner Estates, Inc. to himself.

"(3) The complete failure of the Louisiana Supreme Court to adhere to the mandatory provision of Art. 7, Sec. 1 of the Louisiana Constitution of 1921 and adduce reasons for:

"(a) Its arbitrary denial to Manufacturers of its procedural and substantive rights under the provisions of Articles 43 and 44 of the Louisiana Code of Practice;

"(b) Adjudicating Manufacturers\' property to Blevins on the strength of the 1940 and 1945 contracts with Wisner Estates, Inc., whose title had been completely lost at sheriff\'s sale in 1923."

concludes:

"The Louisiana Supreme Court completely failed to follow the mandatory law and require Blevins to prove his title before examining Manufacturers\' title, and completely failed to require Blevins to prove a title from Wisner Estates, Inc. to himself, or to prove a title in Wisner Estates, Inc. subsequent to its divestiture in 1923, as required in Article 44 of the Louisiana Code of Practice, which the court on rehearing recognized for the first time as controlling. The court failed to adduce any reasons for its failure to follow the mandatory law of this state as required by the mandatory provisions of Art. 7, Sec. 1 of the Louisiana Constitution of 1921. The Louisiana Supreme Court denied to appellant, a non-resident defendant, the equal protection of the Louisiana law and violated procedural due process in not according appellant its rights under the mandatory Louisiana law."

Appellees, in their turn, insisting that the district judge was right throughout, point out that in and by its very discussion appellant demonstrates that what and all it is seeking is to have relitigated and redecided in the District Court of the United States the matter finally adjudged in and by the Louisiana Supreme Court, that, in short, the suit is an effort to appeal to, and have reviewed for error in, the district court a final decision and judgment of the Louisiana Supreme Court, a procedure not provided for in, or known to, federal jurisprudence.

Arguing that the opinion and judgment under attack here, dealing as they do with and only with the State Law of Louisiana, constitute the law of Louisiana and are binding upon, and not reviewable in, any of the federal courts, particularly the district court, appellees insist that there is nothing in the State Court opinion and decree which presents, or could conceivably present, a denial of due process of law or raise any question reviewable in and by the federal district court, and that any other conclusion would not only run counter to the settled law of the cases but would be contrary to right reason.

They argue that this is so because, in the first place, the complaint does not present a claim for which relief can be granted in the federal courts because a suit for such relief could not be brought in the state courts under the law of Louisiana;³ in the second place, if a federal court could otherwise grant the relief by injunction sought by plaintiff, it is by Section 2283, Title 28 U.S.C. forbidden to do so; and, in the third place, if the prohibitions of Section 2283 do not prevent the relief sought here, it is settled under the general principles established in the cases that the complaint does not present a claim for relief cognizable in a federal district court.

Finally, they argue that if we accept appellant's claim that it is seeking federal question relief, the district judge correctly dismissed the suit because the complaint on that score presents nothing more than a claim that the decision of the Supreme Court violates federal due process because it is contrary to the recognized jurisprudence of Louisiana, and, as shown in the multitude of cases they cite⁴ where, as here, the state courts had jurisdiction of the parties and the subject matter, such a claim does not present a violation of due process which a federal district court is competent to relieve against.

So arguing, they insist that this is so because the Federal Constitution and statutes do not attempt to, they do not confer upon federal district courts, and Sec. 2283, supra, forbids, supervisory jurisdiction by injunction or otherwise over state supreme courts in respect to a claim such as that asserted here, that its decision and judgment is contrary to state statutes or earlier decisions or practices of the court. Cf. Horton v. Stegmyer, 8 Cir., 175 F. 756, at page 758, where it is said:

"A federal court sitting in equity has jurisdiction to disregard or to enjoin the enforcement of an unconscionable judgment of a state or of a national court for new causes, such as fraud, accident, or mistake, which deceive the court into a wrong decree, or which prevent the judgment defendant from availing himself of a meritorious defense that was not fairly presented to the court which rendered the judgment. But it has no power to take such action on account of errors or irregularities in the proceedings on which the judgment or decree is founded, or on account of erroneous or illegal decisions by the court which rendered the judgment or decree. The reason of this rule is that cases of the former class present new controversies, which have never been raised in other courts, while cases of the latter class invoke a jurisdiction which does not exist, a jurisdiction in a federal court to review and revise the acts and decisions of courts of co-ordinate jurisdiction upon questions which they have lawfully considered and adjudged. National Surety Co. v. State Bank of Humboldt, 8 Cir., 120 F. 593, 598, 600, 56 C.C.A. 657, 662, 664, 61 L.R.A. 394, and cases there cited. The decree of the state court is therefore valid, and it must be enforced and respected, unless the complainant has pleaded facts evidencing such a fraud as will warrant a disregard of it." (Emphasis supplied.)

We find ourselves in complete agreement with these views. Indeed, as shown in 12 A.J., page 273, note 4 supra, and cases cited above, they merely state hornbook law. The trouble with appellant's argument is that, without attacking the judgment for fraud or want of jurisdiction or alleging what the decision and judgment show to be the contrary, it assumes that it is not...