United States of America Ex Rel the State of Louisiana v. Hon Aleck Boarman
| Decision Date | 04 June 1917 |
| Docket Number | No. 264,264 |
| Citation | 37 S.Ct. 605,244 U.S. 397,61 L.Ed. 1222 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA EX REL. THE STATE OF LOUISIANA, Petitioner, v. HON. ALECK BOARMAN, 1 Judge United States District Court, Western District of Louisiana |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Mr. Harry Gamble and Mr. A. V. Coco, Attorney General of Louisiana, for petitioner.
Messrs. Henry Bernstein and Willard F. Keeney for respondent.
By act of its general assembly in 1886, amended in 1888, the state of Louisiana created the Tensas Basin Levee District for the purpose of providing a system of levees and other works to aid in protecting the lands within its boundaries from floods and overflow. The act provided for the appointment of a levee board of commissioners to have charge of the affairs of the district, and constituted this board a corporation, with power to sue and be sued, and to sell, mortgage, pledge, and otherwise dispose of lands which the state donated and caused to be conveyed to the board.
In 1898 the levee board sold to the Tensas Delta Land Company, Limited, a large acreage of the land thus acquired, and executed conveyances for it.
Eleven years later, in 1909, suit was brought by the attorney general of Louisiana, in the name of the state, claiming that the sale of 1898 was fraudulent and void, and praying that it should be set aside and that the state should be decreed to be the owner of the property.
Such proceedings were had in the case that the supreme court of Louisiana held (State v. Tensas Delta Land Co. 126 La. 59, 52 So. 216) that the only proper party plaintiff in such a suit was the levee board, and that, the state being without authority to maintain it, the case must be dismissed.
After the dismissal of the suit of the state, the levee board brought suit against the Tensas Basin Land Company, Limited, in a district court of Louisiana, upon the same cause of action stated in the prior petition, which case was removed to the United States district court for the appropriate district. The petition was there given the form of a bill in equity, and, as amended, a demurrer to it by the defendant was sustained. On appeal this decision was reversed and the case was remanded for further proceedings, but before the time allowed for answer had expired, the defendant appeared and informed the district court that $100,000 had been paid in settlement of the case agreed upon between the parties, and moved the court to dismiss the suit. This motion was filed on July 22, 1913, and a rule was forthwith issued to the plaintiff to show cause on the first day of the next term of the court (October 20th) why the motion should not be granted. The return of service of this rule shows personal service on the attorney general as solicitor for the levee board, and acknowledgment of service by the board itself.
On August 5 the board, appearing by its president, answered the rule to show cause, averring that it had 'apprised its attorney of record' (the attorney general of the state) 'of the said settlement,' and, admitting the allegations of the motion, prayed that the suit be forthwith dismissed at its cost.
The attorney general for the state, not satisfied with the settlement, on October 6th filed a motion, which he signed 'R. G. Pleasant, Attorney General, State of Louisiana, and Attorney of Record for Complainant.' In this quite anomalous paper he averred somewhat rhetorically that the settlement made by the levee board for which he was attorney, was a 'condoning and compromising' of a fraud to which the court should not assent, that he was acting in the case under authority of an act of the general assembly of the state and by order of the governor, to whom alone he was responsible, and 'that the complainant could not compromise this suit, nor dismiss it without the governor's consent.' He prayed that the motion to dismiss be denied, the agreement of settlement disregarded, and that the case be set down for early trial.
The motion to dismiss came on for hearing on October 20th, but the court deferred consideration of it until the next day, and caused a telegram to be sent to the attorney general in order that he might have full opportunity to be present and be heard, but he did not appear in person or by representative, and thereupon the court heard the evidence and 'ordered, adjudged, and decreed that said compromise' . . . 'be and the same is recognized by this court as having the effect of the thing adjudged and as settling all the issues in this case,' and dismissed the suit.
It cannot escape notice that there is no allegation contained in any paper filed by the attorney general that the levee board, in compromising the controversy and suit, did not act in perfect good faith, nor is there any challenge of the character or competency of the members of the board.
After this entry of dismissal no further action was taken by the attorney general until on the 6th day of the following April, when he presented to the district court a 'petition of the United States of America on the relation of the state of Louisiana,' praying that the state be permitted to intervene and appeal from the judgment ratifying the compromise and dismissing the suit.
The district court denied this petition for leave to intervene and appeal, and thereupon the attorney general filed in the circuit court of appeals for the fifth circuit a 'petition for writs of mandamus and certiorari,' in which he prayed that court to order that the state of Louisiana be allowed to intervene in the district court and to appeal the case, and that it order that a transcript of all records be sent up to it for review.
The circuit court of appeals denied this petition, assigning two reasons for its action, viz.:
(1) Because the supreme court of Louisiana, on full consideration, had decided that the state was without real or beneficial interest in the lands in controversy, which decision must be controlling in that court; and
(2) Because the state was not a party to the record in the district court, 'and one who is not a party to a record and judgment is not entitled to an appeal therefrom.'
This decision is now here for review on certiorari.
This plain statement of the history of this litigation so argues against the claims of the petitioner as to make them in appearance, at least, unsubstantial to the point of being frivolous.
The supreme court of Louisiana, considering the statutes of its own state, held, in the case in which the state sought to set aside for fraud the same sale of the same lands involved in this litigation (126 La. 59, 52 So. 216), that the 'legislature vested the absolute title to the lands in controversy in the board of commissioners of the Tensas Levee District, with full power to sell the same on such terms as the board might deem proper [and], also vested in said board full power to sue and be sued, and to stand in judgment in all matters relating to their gestion and trust.' 'Most assuredly,' also says the court, 'the legislature has devested the state absolutely of all beneficial interest in said lands, and transferred same to the said board of levee commissioners.' And as it 'has vested the power to sue and be sued in the board of commissioners of the Tensas Levee District, and has vested no such co-ordinate power in the governor or attorney general, we are of the opinion that the institution of this suit in the name of the state is unauthorized.'
This decision determining the effect of the state statutes, where no claim of Federal right was involved, is accepted as conclusive by this court, and unless it has been modified by statute (there has been no modifying decision) the application of the state to intervene and to appeal was properly denied.
To the seemingly insurmountable barrier to the claims of the petitioner presented by this supreme court decision we must add that the state was not at any time a party to this record, and that its first application for leave to intervene and to appeal was long after the term at which the decree of dismissal was rendered, and within a few days of the expiration of the time within which even 'a real party in interest' would have been allowed an appeal.
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