Ricaud v. American Metal Co
| Decision Date | 11 March 1918 |
| Docket Number | No. 119,119 |
| Citation | 62 L.Ed. 733,246 U.S. 304,38 S.Ct. 312 |
| Parties | RICAUD et al. v. AMERICAN METAL CO., Limited |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. Frank E. Hunter, of El Paso, Tex., and Ernest Wilkinson, of Washington, D. C., for Ricaud and others.
Mr. U. S. Goen, of El Paso, Tex., for American Metal Co., Limited.
In this suit in equity, commenced in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, the plaintiff in that court claims to be the owner of and entitled to a large consignment of lead bullion held in bond by the collector of customs at El Paso, Texas. An injunction was granted restraining the collector until further order from delivering the bullion to either of the other defendants.
Barlow, one of the defendants in the District Court, claims to be the owner of the property by purchase from the defendant Ricaud, who it is claimed purchased it from General Pereyra, who in the year 1913 was the commander of a brigade of the Constitutionalist army of Mexico, of which Venustiano Carranza was then First Chief.
It is not seriously disputed that General Pereyra, in his capacity as a commanding officer, in September, 1913, demanded this bullion from the Penoles Mining Company, a Mexican corporation doing business at Bermejillo, Mexico; that when it was delivered to him he gave a receipt which contains a promise to pay for it 'on the triumph of the revolution or the establishment of a legal government'; that Pereyra sold the bullion to defendant Ricaud, who sold it to the defendant Barlow; that the proceeds of the sale were devoted to the purchase of arms, ammunition food and clothing for Peryra's troops, and that Pereyra in the transaction represented and acted for the government of General Carranza, which has since been recognized by the United States government as the de jure government of Mexico.
The plaintiff, appellee here, claims to have purchased the bullion from the Penoles Mining Company in June, 1913.
The District Court rendered a decree in favor of the plaintiff from which defendants appealed to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and that court certifies three questions as to which it desires the instruction of this court.
The sufficiency of the certificate of the Circuit Court of Appeals is challenged at the threshold.
There is no denying that there is much of merit in the objection to the form of this certificate, including the form of the questions, for the reason that the certificate, instead of containing a 'proper statement of the facts on which the questions and propositions of law arise,' as is required by rule 37 of this court (32 Sup. Ct. xiv), contains a statement of what is 'alleged and denied' by the parties plaintiff and defendant in their pleadings, with the additional statement that there was evidence 'tending to establish the facts as claimed by each party,' but without any finding whatever as to what the evidence showed the facts to be, and the first question, on which the other two depend, is in terms based entirely on an 'assumed' statement of facts.
If this certificate had not been supplemented by the recognition by the United States government of the government of Carranza, first as the de facto and later as the de jure government of Mexico, of which facts this court will take judicial notice (Jones v. United States, 137 U. S. 202, 11 Sup. Ct. 80, 34 L. Ed. 691; Underhill v. Hernandez, 168 U. S. 250, 18 Sup. Ct. 83, 42 L. Ed. 456), it would be our duty to declare the certificate insufficient and to return it to the Circuit Court of Appeals without answering the questions (Cinn., Ham. & Dayton Rd. Co. v. McKeen, 149 U. S. 259, 15 Sup. Ct. 1038, 40 L. Ed. 143; Graver v. Faurot, 162 U. S. 435, 16 Sup. Ct. 799, 40 L. Ed. 1030; Cross v. Evans, 167 U. S. 60, 17 Sup. Ct. 733, 42 L. Ed. 77; Stratton's Independence v. Howbert, 231 U. S. 399, 422; 34 Sup. Ct. 136, 58 L. Ed. 285).
But this recognition of the government under which General Pereyra was acting, as the legitimate government of Mexico, makes the answers to the questions so certain and its effect upon the case is so clear, that, for the purpose of making an end of the litigation, we will proceed to answer the questions.
The first question is:
I. 'Assuming that the bullion in suit was seized, condemned, and sold for war supplies by the Constitutionalist forces in revolution in Mexico, acting under authority from General Carranza, claiming to be the provisional president of the Republic of Mexico, had the District Court of the Western District of Texas, into which the said bullion had been imported from Mexico, jurisdiction to try and adjudge as to the validity of the title acquired by and through the said seizure, appropriation and sale by the Carranza forces as against an American citizen claiming ownership of said bullion prior to its seizure?'
There can be no doubt that the required diversity of citizenship to give the District Court jurisdiction of the case was stated in the petition for injunction. The certificate shows that it was alleged in the petition that the bullion was the property of the plaintiff and that it had been...
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