Pierre Claude Piquignot, Plaintiff In Error v. the Pennsylvania Railroad Company

• Decision Date: 01 December 1853
• Citation: 14 L.Ed. 863,57 U.S. 104,16 How. 104
• Parties: PIERRE CLAUDE PIQUIGNOT, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR, v. THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD COMPANY
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

57 U.S. 104

16 How. 104

14 L.Ed. 863

PIERRE CLAUDE PIQUIGNOT, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR, v. THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD COMPANY.

December Term, 1853

THIS case was brought up, by writ of error, from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

The facts in the case are stated in the opinion of the court.

It was submitted, upon printed arguments, by Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Alden, for the plaintiff in error, and Mr. Snowden, for the defendants in error. But as the point of jurisdiction was not mentioned in the arguments, which were directed exclusively to other points, it is not thought necessary to give them.

Mr. Justice GRIER delivered the opinion of the court.

The caption of this suit, and the declaration, describe the plaintiff as a citizen of France, but contain no averment as to the citizenship of the defendant. Nor does it state whether 'The Pennsylvania Railroad Company' is a corporation or a private association, or the name of an individual. The declaration avers that the defendants are transporters of emigrants for hire, and undertook to convey the plaintiff and his wife from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, but did it in such a negligent and careless manner that his wife was frozen to death on her passage. The defendant pleaded in abatement, another action pending for the same cause of action between the same parties, in the District Court of Alleghany county. To this plea the plaintiff demurred; and the court gave 'judgment upon the demurrer in favor of the defendants.' Whereupon the plaintiff brought this writ of error.

The question raised by the plea in abatement, in this case, is one of considerable importance, and on which there is some conflict of opinion and decision, but the judgment of the court below on the plea is not subject to our revision on a writ of error.

The twenty-second section of the Judiciary Act, which defines what decrees or judgments in civil actions may be made the subjects of appeals or writ of error, provides, 'that there shall be no reversal on such writ of error, for error in ruling any plea in abatement other than a plea to the jurisdiction of the court.'

The question of jurisdiction has not been made the subject of plea or exception, nor is it necessary, where it is patent on the face of the record. The judgment of the court, so far as the record is concerned, does not distinctly show whether the court quashed the writ on the plea in abatement, or dismissed the suit for want of...