Plaquemines Tropical Fruit Co v. Henderson

Decision Date02 May 1898
Docket NumberNo. 204,204
Citation170 U.S. 511,18 S.Ct. 685,42 L.Ed. 1126
PartiesPLAQUEMINES TROPICAL FRUIT CO. v. HENDERSON et al
CourtU.S. Supreme Court

Duane E. Fox, for appellant.

Victor Leovy, for appellees.

Mr. Justice HARLAN delivered the opinion of the court.

This suit was commenced February 11, 1895, in the circuit court of the United States for the Eastern district of Louisiana, by the Plaquemines Tropical Fruit Company, a New Jersey corporation, against the defendant in error, William Henderson and Henry J. Leovy, citizens of Louisiana.

It is, in effect, a suit to quiet the title of the plaintiff to certain lands in the parish of Plaquemines, in that state, and to restrain the defendants from committing trespasses thereon.

The defendants filed a joint and several plea, in which it was averred: That in 1892 a suit was instituted by the state of Louisiana in the civil district court of the parish of Orleans, La., against the Plaquemines Tropical Fruit Company, Charles C. Buck, the vice president of that company, and a citizen of Maryland, and others, in which suit the state sought a decree adjudging it to be the owner of certain lands within its limits, in which action, the defendants having appeared, it was found by the verdict of a jury, and in accordance with the verdict it was adjudged by the court, that the lands here in question belonged to the state, and that the Plaquemines Tropical Fruit Company and Buck had no title thereto; that such judgment, upon the appeal of the company and Buck, was affirmed by the supreme court of Louisiana; that a writ of error sued out by the same defendants to this court was dismissed; that the lands the title to which is involved in this suit are part of those the title to which was involved in that action; that Henderson and Leovy acquired title from the state after the above judgment obtained by it had become final; and that such judgment remained unreversed and unmodified.

The defendants Henderson and Leovy pleaded the above proceedings and the judgment obtained by the state in bar of the present suit.

At the hearing below, the plaintiff having admitted the correctness in point of fact of the defendants' plea in bar, it was adjudged that the plea was sufficient. The bill was accordingly dismissed.

The contention of the appellant is that the civil district court of the parish of Orleans could not, consistently with the constitution of the United States, take cognizance of any suit brought by the state of Louisiana against citizens of other states, and, consequently, its judgment, now pleaded in bar, was null and void. If that contention be overruled, the judgment below must be affirmed; otherwise, it must be reversed, and the cause remanded, with directions to hold the plea insufficient.

The appellant, in support of its contention, insists that the entire judicial power surrendered to the United States by the people of the several states vested absolutely in the United States under the constitution; that by the instrument the nation acquired certain portions of the judicial power naturally inherent in sovereignty; that thereafter a state court could not, without the expressed consent of the United States, take cognizance of a case embraced in such cession of judicial power; and that the judicial power of the United States, not distributed by the constitution itself, cannot be so distributed that a state court may take cognizance of a case or controversy to which that power is extended, if its determination thereof is not made by congress subject to re-examination by some court of the United States.

These propositions applied to the case before us mean that the civil district court of the parish of Orleans was without jurisdiction to render judgment in the above suit instituted by the state, because there was no provision in the acts of congress whereby its judgment could be reviewed by some court of the United States.

The constitution provides:

'The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme court and in such inferior courts as the congress may from time to time ordain and establish. * * *' Article 3, § 1.

'The judicial power shall extend to all cases in law and equity, arising under this constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority; to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls; to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; to controversies to which the United States shal be a party; to controversies between two or more states; between a state and citizens of another state; between citizens of different states; between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants of different states, and between a state, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects.

'In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the supreme court shall have original jurisdiction. In all other cases before mentioned, the supreme court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the congress shall make.' Article 3, § 2.

Do the words, 'The judicial power shall extend * * * to controversies * * * between a state and citizens of other states,' and the words, 'In all cases * * * in which a state shall be party, the supreme court shall have original jurisdiction,' necessarily manifest a purpose to exclude all such controversies from cognizance by the courts of the several states? Was it intended that the constitution should, by its own force, without legislation by congress, devest the courts of the states of jurisdiction of cases or controversies to which the judicial power of the United States was extended?

These questions were the subject of earnest consideration while the constitution was before the people of the United States for acceptance or rejection. It was contended by some who recommended its rejection that the proposed constitution, without legislation by congress, would give to the one supreme court established by it, and to such other courts as congress should from time to time create, exclusive jurisdiction in all such cases or controversies. That interpretation was disputed, and Hamilton, in the Federalist (page 607), said: 'The principles established in a former paper teach us that the state will retain all pre-existing authorities, which may not be exclusively delegated to the federal head, and that this exclusive delegation can only exist in one of three cases: Where an exclusive authority is, in express terms, granted to the Union; or, where a particular authority is granted to the Union, and the exercise of a like authority is prohibited to the states; or, where an authority is granted to the Union, with which a similar authority in the states would be utterly incompatible. Though these principles may not apply with the same force to the judiciary as the legislative power, yet I am inclined to think that they are, in the main, just with respect to the former, as well as the latter. And, under this impression, I shall lay it down as a rule that the state courts will retain the jurisdiction they now have, unless it appears to be taken away in one of the enumerated modes.' He recognized the fact that there was apparent support to the objection referred to in the clause, 'the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme court, and in such inferior courts as the congress shall from time to time ordain and establish.' That clause, he said, 'might either be construed to signify that the supreme and subordinate courts of the Union should alone have the power of deciding those causes, to which their authority is to extend, or simply to denote that the organs of the national judiciary should be one supreme court, and as many subordinate courts as congress should think proper to appoint; in other words, that the United States should exercise the judicial power with which they are to be invested, through one supreme tribunal, and a certain number of inferior ones, to be instituted by them. The first excludes, the last admits, the concurrent jurisdiction of the state tribunals. And, as the first would amount to an alienation of state power by implication, the last appears to me the most defensible construction.' He also said that the judicial power of every government 'looks beyond its own local or municipal laws, and in civil cases lays hold of all subjects of litigation between parties within it jurisdiction, though the causes of dispute are relative to the laws of the most distant part of the globe. Those of Japan, not less than of New York, may furnish the objects of legal discussion to our courts. When, in addition to this, we con- sider the state governments and the national government, as they truly are, in the light of kindred...

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