United Surety Company v. American Fruit Product Company
| Decision Date | 14 June 1915 |
| Docket Number | No. 203,203 |
| Parties | UNITED SURETY COMPANY, Plff. in Err., v. AMERICAN FRUIT PRODUCT COMPANY |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. Wade H. Ellis, R. Golden Donaldson, Charles Cowles Tucher, and Abner H. Ferguson for plaintiff in error.
Messrs. George E. Hamilton, John W. Yerkes, and John J. Hamilton for defendant in error.
This is a suit originally brought by the defendant in error against the Semmes-Kelly Company in the supreme court of the District to recover $10,596.45 for goods sold. There was an attachment of a stock of goods that were worth much more than the judgment finally recovered, but never were formally appraised, and the next day the plaintiff in error, as surety to the Semmes-Kelly Company, signed an undertaking to release the property attached, in the form provided in the District Code, § 454 [31 Stat at L. 1261, chap. 854]. By that instrument it in terms submitted to the jurisdiction of the court and undertook 'to abide by and perform the judgment of the court in the premises in relation to said property, which judgment may be rendered against all the parties whose names are hereto subscribed.' By § 455, if the judgment goes for the plaintiff 'it shall be a joint judgment against both the defendant and his surety or sureties in said undertaking for the appraised value of the property.' After a second trial, judgment was entered against the Semmes-Kelly Company and the plaintiff in error for $9,937.90, that sum being found to be far less than the value of the property, as we have said. 40 App. D. C. 239.
The jurisdiction of this court is invoked upon a contention that the above §§ 454 and 455, as applied, deprive the plaintiff of its property without due process of law. In American Secur. & T. Co. v. District of Columbia, 224 U. S. 491, 56 L. ed. 856, 32 Sup. Ct. Rep. 553, it was held that the right to re-examine a judgment of the court of appeals, given by the Judicial Code, § 250 [36 Stat. at L. 1159, chap. 231, Comp. Stat. 1913, § 1227], —was confined to the construction of laws having general application throughout the United States. But in the same case it was left open whether the 3d clause, 'Cases involving . . . the constitutionality of any law of the United States,' did not have a wider meaning, and that suggestion is relied upon for the present attack upon the two sec...
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