Moses v. the Mayor
| Citation | 21 L.Ed. 176,15 Wall. 387,82 U.S. 387 |
| Parties | MOSES v. THE MAYOR |
| Decision Date | 01 December 1872 |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
ON motion of Mr. P. Phillips, to dismiss for want of juris diction; the case being thus:
Moses and another had filed their bill in a State court of Alabama, asserting that a law of that State authorized them, on payment of a certain sum, to establish a lottery; that they had paid the sum and established a lottery accordingly. They now complained that they had been several times arrested by the mayor's police, charged with gambling, and had been thus obstructed in the pursuit of their business. The bill then prayed an injunction to restrain the mayor, &c., from interfering in their 'carrying on the scheme of the roulette table and ball, or in the use of the scheme of the revolving oblong box and balls on the principle of the game called keno,' &c., &c. The chancellor granted the injunction as prayed for. The answer of the mayor denied among other things that the complainants had fulfilled the conditions of the act under which they claimed the right of lottery, and asserted that under pretext of its authority they were carrying on a corrupting system of gambling, which it was admitted the mayor was determined to put down. It insisted that after a default of payment as required by the act, while it was still due and before it was paid, the legislature repealed the said act under which the complainants claimed this right to carry on the lottery or 'system of gambling' described in the bill; and further, that the mode used in conducting this business was unauthorized by the act.
Upon the coming in of the answer a motion was made to dissolve the preliminary injunction, but this was denied. An appeal was taken from this order refusing to dissolve to the Supreme Court of the State, and the order of the chancery court was reversed and the said injunction dissolved. From this decree Moses and the other took an appeal to this court, under the assumption that the case came within the first paragraph of the 25th section of the Judiciary Act of 1789 (quoted supra, p. 3), or the similar section of the act of 1867;* for that the complainants having paid the sum required by the act authorizing the lottery had 'a contract' with the State, and that the subsequent act of the State repealing the former one impaired the obligation of that contract.
Mr. Phillips, in support of the motion:
1. There is no Federal question.
2. If there be, there is no final judgment.
As to the first ground. The pretensions of the complainants are under a State act, and their complaint is that certain trespassers were interfering with their rights under it. The defence is that the rights insisted on were not warranted by the true construction of that act, that its conditions had not been complied with, and that while the default existed the legislature had repealed it.
The decision of the chancellor extends only to a refusal to dissolve the preliminary injunction. He decides no question of Federal jurisdiction.
On this refusal to...
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