Stevenson v. Christie

• Decision Date: 24 April 1897
• Citation: 42 S.W. 418
• Parties: STEVENSON v. CHRISTIE.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

42 S.W. 418

STEVENSON v. CHRISTIE.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

April 24, 1897.

Appeal from circuit court, Sebastian county; Edgar E. Bryant, Judge.

Action by E. T. Stevenson against Jennie Christie. Action dismissed, and plaintiff appeals. Reversed.

This action was commenced in justice court in Upper township, Sebastian county, on the 6th day of August, 1894, by the appellant filing in said court his account, affidavit, and bond for attachment. Personal service was had on the defendant, and a writ of garnishment served on the First National Bank of Ft. Smith. On the return day of said summons, by consent, this cause was continued to the 22d day of August, 1894, and on that day defendant entered her appearance in this cause, and moved the court to dismiss this cause for want of jurisdiction which motion was overruled; whereupon one Samuel Miller files an interplea for the money attached in the First National Bank, and on motion of appellant (plaintiff) the case was continued to August 24, 1894, and on that day defendant (appellee) "confesses plaintiff's claim sued on herein," the record states. On the trial of the interplea, the justice decided against the interpleader, who does not seem to have appealed; but the record recites that an affidavit for an appeal was filed, and Jennie Christie, the appellee, is the only defendant that figures in the circuit court. I conclude that she it was that appealed to the circuit court. The First National Bank, garnishee, having answered that it was indebted to defendant, Jennie Christie, in the sum of $200, by order of the court said garnishee paid into court $137, the amount of appellant's judgment and the cost of the suit, which said amount was paid over to Jo Johnson, plaintiff's attorney. At the trial of this cause in the circuit court, it was submitted to the court, on defendant's motion, to dismiss for the want of jurisdiction, being the same motion that was overruled by the justice, and the case was submitted on an agreed statement of facts. The motion filed by defendant to dismiss was not copied into the record. When it came on to be heard, the parties made the following agreement of facts: (1) The parties hereto are all residents of the Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory. The debt sued on was contracted there, and was payable there. (2) The plaintiff, Stevenson, was a white man and a citizen of the United States, married to a Cherokee woman, and is a merchant, carrying on a mercantile business in the said Indian Territory. His marriage was solemnized in the city of Ft. Smith, under license issued there. That, immediately after said marriage, he and his wife took up their residence in the Indian Territory. (3) Defendants are Cherokee Indians by blood. (4) The Cherokee Indian law regarding marriage is set out, which shows that a noncitizen marrying into the Cherokee Nation, as provided in that law, became a Cherokee Indian. (5) Page 8 says that there is no Cherokee law authorizing a noncitizen to do business in the Cherokee Nation. The circuit court sustained the motion to dismiss, on the ground that, under a certain treaty between the United States and Cherokee Indians, the United States court in the Indian Territory was the proper and only place for plaintiff and defendant to litigate their cause of action, and dismissed the case, and rendered judgment against plaintiff and his bondsmen for $137, to which proper exceptions were at the time taken. The grounds of motion for new trial are: (1) The court erred in sustaining defendant's motion to dismiss for jurisdiction. (2) The court erred in its declaration of law. (3) The court erred in refusing to find for plaintiff. (4) The court erred in rendering judgment against plaintiff. (5) The court erred in finding for defendant. (6) The court erred in rendering judgment for defendant. (7) The court erred in rendering any judgment whatever beyond simply and only passing on defendant's motion to dismiss. (8) The court erred in ordering the First National Bank garnished to pay and to return to defendant, Jennie Christie, the money still held by said bank as garnishee.

T. W. M. Boone, for appellant. Thos. E. Ward, for appellee.

HUGHES, J. (after stating the facts).

The court had jurisdiction of the subject-matter, the contract in this case, and obtained jurisdiction of the person of the appellee, by service of summons and by her appearance to the action. Counsel contend that the contract, being one that had been made with an Indian, in the Indian Territory, by one who was not an Indian, was void, and that, therefore, the court had no jurisdiction. The fact that the contract might have been shown to be void did not deprive the court of jurisdiction to try the question of its validity. Jurisdiction is the power to hear and determine a cause. U. S. v. Arredondo, 6 Pet. 709; Brown, Jur. § 1, pp. 2, 3. "There are three indispensable requisites touching the exercise of jurisdiction that always must exist. Judge Story defines them by saying that the court pronouncing judgment should have lawful jurisdiction over the cause (by which he means the subject-matter), over the thing in dispute, and over the parties." Brown, Jur. p. 4, § 1, and cases note 1. "Jurisdiction over the subject-matter is the right of the court to exercise judicial power over that class of cases." Brown, Jur. p. 4, § 1a. The opinion of a majority of the court is that the case was one within the jurisdiction of the magistrate and of the circuit court, and that the circuit court erred in dismissing it for the want of jurisdiction. Reversed and remanded, with directions to the circuit court to overrule the motion to dismiss, and to proceed to try the cause.

(Oct. 30, 1897.)

BUNN, C. J. (dissenting).

There are two principal questions in this case. One is: Was the account sued on void by reason of the political status of any of the parties thereto, or of all of them? The other question is: Granting that the contract (the account) was and is valid, had the state court jurisdiction to hear and determine the controversy over the same, between the parties, sustaining the relations they did to the state and the Indian Territory? It is admitted that Stevenson was married to an Indian woman, and was residing and doing a mercantile business in the Cherokee country; but it is also shown that he was married in the state of Arkansas, and according to the laws of Arkansas, which are materially different as to formality and ceremony from the tribal laws of the Indians, where a marriage is not regarded generally as legal unless in substantial conformity therewith. I am in doubt on this question from the limited examination I have been enabled to make of authorities on the subject. But it may be that a marriage between an Indian woman and a white man and citizen of the United States or one of the states, since it is not void as an establishment of the marital relation between them, is not void in the sense of establishing the relation of tribal adoption into the Cherokee Nation, but is only...