United States v. American Bell Tel Co

• Decision Date: 11 November 1895
• Docket Number: No. 745,745
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. AMERICAN BELL TEL. CO. et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

159 U.S. 548

16 S.Ct. 69

40 L.Ed. 255

UNITED STATES

v AMERICAN BELL TEL. CO. et al.

No. 745.

November 11, 1895.

Causten Browne and R. S. Taylor, for the United States.

James J. Storrow and Frederic P. Fish, for appellees.

Mr. Chief Justice FULLER delivered the opinion of the court.

This is a suit by the United States to cancel a patent for an invention granted to the American Bell Telephone Company, as assignee of the inventor, Emile Berliner. On a hearing in the circuit court there was a finding and decree for the complainant. 65 Fed. 86. The cause having been taken to the circuit court of appeals for the First circuit, the decree of the circuit court was reversed, and it was ordered that the bill be dismissed. 15 C. C. A. 569, 68 Fed. 542. From this decree an appeal was taken by the United States to this court, which appellees now move to dismiss 'for want of jurisdiction in this court to entertain it under the circuit court of appeals act of March 3, 1891, c. 517 (23 Stat. 828), for the reason that the case is a case arising under the patent laws.'

The supreme court has appellate jurisdiction, under the constitution, in all cases to which the judicial power extends (other than those in respect of which it has original jurisdiction), 'with such exceptions and under such regulations as the congress shall make.' It was early held that, in the passage of the judiciary act of 1789, congress was executing the power of making exceptions to the exercise of appellate jurisdiction, and that the affirmative description of the cases to which the appellate power extended was to be understood as implying a negative on the exercise of such appellate power as was not comprehended within it, but that, as this restriction rested on implication founded on the manifest intent of the legislature, it could be sustained only when that manifest intent appeared. Durousseau v. U. S., 6 Cranch, 307.

Where the appellate jurisdiction is described in general terms, so as to comprehend the particular case, no presumption can be indulged of an intention to oust or to restrict such jurisdiction; and any statute claimed to have that effect must be examined in the light of the objects of the enactment, the purposes it is to serve and the mischiefs it is to remedy, bearing in mind the rule that the operation of such a statute must be restrained within narrower limits than its words import, if the court is satisfied that the literal meaning of its language would extend to cases which the legislature never intended to include in it. Petri v. Bank, 142 U. S. 644, 650, 12 Sup. Ct. 325; Brewer's Lessee v. Blougher, 14 Pet. 178; Ceiche v. Smythe, 13 Wall. 162, 164; Market Co. v. Hoffman, 101 U. S. 112.

We inquire, then, whether the appellate jurisdiction of this court over controversies to which the United States are parties has been circumscribed by congress in respect to the right of appeal.

By section 629 of the Revised Statutes, original jurisdiction was conferred upon the circuit courts (with a limitation as to the value of the matter in dispute) of all suits in equity and all suits at common law where the United States are petitioners or plaintiffs; all suits at law or in equity arising under any act providing for revenue from imports or tonnage; all causes arising under any law providing internal revenue; all causes arising under the postal laws; and all suits at law or in equity arising under the patent or copyright laws of the United States. By the fifth paragraph of section 711 the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States of all cases 'arising under the patent right or copyright laws of the United States' was declared to be exclusive.

By the act of March 3, 1875 (18 Stat. 470), it was provided: 'The circuit courts of the United States shall have original cognizance, concurrent with the courts of the several states, of all suits of a civil nature at common law or in equity, where the matter in dispute exceeds, exclusive of costs, the sum or value of five hundred dollars, and arising under the constitution or laws of the United States, or treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority, or in which the United States are plaintiffs or petitioners.' And this was repeated in substance (the differences being immaterial here) in the acts of March 3, 1887 (24 Stat. 552), and August 13, 1888 (25 Stat. 433).

And this court had appellate jurisdiction over all final judgments and decrees of any circuit court, or of any district court acting as a circuit court, in civil actions where the matter in dispute exceeded the sum or value of $5,000. Rev. St. §§ 690-692; 18 Stat. 315.

The primary object of the act of March 3, 1891, c. 517, as stated in American Const. Co. v. Jacksonville, T. & K. W. Ry. Co., 148 U. S. 372, 382, 12 Sup. Ct. 758, 'well known as a matter of public history, manifest on the face of the act, and judicially declared in the leading cases under it, was to relieve this court of the overburden of cases and controversies arising from the rapid growth of the country, and the steady increase of litigation, and, for the accomplishment of this object, to transfer a large part of its appellate jurisdiction to the circuit courts of appeals thereby established in each judicial circuit, and to distribute between this court and those, according to the scheme of the act, the entire appellate jurisdiction from the circuit and district courts of the United States.'

By section 5 of this act, appeals or writs of error may be taken from the circuit court directly to this court in six specified classes of cases: Where the jurisdiction of the court below is in issue; in prize causes; in cases of convictions of capital or otherwise infamous crimes; in cases involving the construction or application of the constitution of the United States; in cases in which the constitutionality of any law of the United States, or the validity or construction of any treaty made under its authority, is drawn in question; in cases where the constitution or law of a state is claimed to be in contravention of the constitution of the United States. Cases in which the United States are plaintiffs or petitioners are not enumerated as falling within either of these classes, nor are cases involving merely the construction of a law of the United States, those ordinarily arising under the heads of jurisdiction in respect of subjects-matter treated of in the sixth section.

By the sixth section it is provided that the circuit courts of appeals shall have appellate jurisdiction 'in all cases other than those provided for in the preceding section of this act, unless otherwise provided by law.' The circuit courts of appeals, therefore, have appellate jurisdiction of all cases in which original jurisdiction is conferred on the circuit courts by reason of the United States being plaintiffs or petitioners. It is further provided by that section that 'the judgments or decrees of the circuit courts of appeals shall be final in all cases in which the jurisdiction is dependent entirely upon the opposite partie...