Marshall v. Holmes
Citation | 35 L.Ed. 870,12 S.Ct. 62,141 U.S. 589 |
Parties | MARSHALL v. HOLMES, Sheriff, et al |
Decision Date | 09 November 1891 |
Court | United States Supreme Court |
Suit by Sarah E. Marshall against Henry B. Holmes, sheriff, and David Mayer, in a court of Louisiana, to enjoin the enforcement of certain judgments rendered therein. Plaintiff petitioned for removal to the proper federal circuit court, but the state court denied the application and afterwards rendered judgment for defendant, which was affirmed by the proper state court of appeals. Plaintiff prosecutes a writ of error therefrom. Reversed.
STATEMENT BY HARLAN, J. On the 20th day of April, 1885, the plaintiff in error, Mrs. Sarah E. Marshall, a citizen of New York, filed in the eighth district court for the parish of Madison, La., a petition for injunction, representing that David Mayer, one of the defendants in error, had then recently obtained, in a suit in that court, a judgment against her for the sum of $127.50: that, in pursuance of an agreement that judgment in one suit should be decisive of other suits in the same court between the same parties and relating to the same subject-matter, judgments had been entered against her in his favor in other actions, 23 in number, for sums aggregating $3.089.31. Each judgment was for less than $500.
The petition alleges that all the judgments were obtained on false testimony and forged documents, and that equity and good conscience required that they be annulled and avoided for the following reasons:
Such was the case made in the petition. The relief asked was an injunction against Mayer and the defendant in error, Holmes, sheriff of the parish, restraining them from executing the above judgments, or any of them; that Mayer be cited to answer the petitioner's demand; that the judgments be annulled and avoided as obtained upon false testimony and forged documents; and that the petitioner have general and equitable relief.
A writ of injunction was issued as prayed for, and upon a supplemental petition, showing Mayer to be a non-resident of Louisiana, a curator ad hoc was appointed to represent him.
Mayer appeared and filed exceptions and pleas of estoppel and res adjudicata.
Subsequently, June 5, 1885, Mrs. Marshall filed a petition, accompanied by a proper bond, for the removal of her suit into the circuit court of the United States, upon the grounds that she was a citizen of New York, and the defendants, respectively, were citizens of Mississippi and Louisiana; that the controversy was wholly between citizens of different states; and that it could be fully tried and determined between them. The court made an order refusing the application for removal. The pleas were referred to the merits, and ordered to stand as an answer. Mayer answered, reiterating the allegations of the pleas previously filed by him, excepting to the petition as not disclosing any cause of action, denying each averment of the petition not admitted in the pleas, and praying that the plaintiff's demand be rejected.
Upon the trial of the case judgment was rendered, dissolying the injunction, and authorizing Mayer to execute the judgments enjoined. Judgment was also rendered in his favor on the injunction bond for 10 per cent. on the amounts enjoined, (special damages as attorney's fees,) and for 20 percent. on such amounts as general damages. An appeal by the plaintiff to the supreme court of Louisiana was dismissed for want of jurisdiction in that court to review the judgment. It was held that the appeal should have gone to the proper state court of appeals. 39 La. Ann. 313, 1 South. Rep. 610. Thereupon an appeal was prosecuted to the court of appeals for the second circuit of the state of Louisiana, where the original judgment, after being amended by reducing the general damages to 10 per cent., was affirmed. From that judgment Mrs. Marshall has prosecuted the present writ of error.
W. H. Peckham and A. Q. Keasbey, for plaintiff in error.
C. J. Boatner, for defendants in error.
After the filing of the petition for removal, accompanied by a sufficient bond, and alleging that the controversy was wholly between citizens of different states, the state court was without authority to proceed further in the suit if, in its nature, it was one of which the circuit court of the United States could rightfully take jurisdiction. If, under the act of congress, the cause was removable, then, upon the filing of the above petition and bond, it was, in law, removed so as to be docketed in that court, notwithstanding the order of the state court refusing to recognize the right of removal. Steam-Ship Co. v. Tugman, 106 U. S. 118, 122, 1 Sup. Ct. Rep. 58; Railroad Co. v. McLean, 108 U. S. 212, 216, 2 Sup. Ct. Rep. 498; Stone v. South Carolina, 117 U. S. 430, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 799; Crehore v. Railroad Co., 131 U. S. 240, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 692.
Is the right of removal affected by the fact that no one of the judgments against the plaintiff in error exceeded the amount $500, exclusive of costs—limited by the act of 1875 for the jurisdiction, whether original or upon removal, of a circuit court of the United States, in suits between citizens of different states? We think not. The judgments aggregate more than $3,000. They are all held by Mayer, and are all against Mrs. Marshall. Their validity depends upon the same facts. If she is entitled to relief against one of the judgments, she is entitled to relief against all of them. The cases in which they were rendered were, in effect, tried as one case, so far as she and Mayer were concerned; for the parties stipulated that the result in each one not tried should depend upon the result in the one tried. As all the cases not tried went to judgment in accordance with the result in the one tried, as the property of Mrs. Marshall was liable to be taken in execution on all the judgments, as the judgments were held in the same right, and as their validity depended upon the same facts, she was entitled, in order to avoid a multiplicity of actions, and to protect herself against the vexation and cost that would come from numerous executions and levies, to bring one suit for a decree finally determining the matter in dispute in all the cases; and as, under the rules of equity...
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