United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

El Paso & Southwestern R. Co. v. Eichel, 226 U.S. 590 (1913)

El Paso & Southwestern Railroad Company v. Eichel & Weikel

No. 252

Argued December 3, 1912

Decided January 13, 1913

226 U.S. 590

Syllabus

This Court cannot review a judgment of the state court under § 709, Rev.Stat., on the ground of denial of a federal right, privilege, or immunity unless the same was specially set up or claimed in the state court.

Questions of the lex loci contractus and of the lex loci solutionis are questions of general law that frequently arise in litigation and do not, unless specially so claimed, constitute the setting up of a federal right or privilege.

In this case, the insistence of plaintiff in error that his rights under a contract were to be determined according to the law of a different state did not amount to claiming that full faith and credit was

Page 226 U. S. 591

denied to the law of another state so as to give a basis for a review of the judgment by this Court under § 709, Rev.Stat.

Where, as in this case, it appears that the state court based its decision upon the interpretation of the contract, and not upon the law of another state, there is no basis for review by this Court on the ground of failure to give full faith and credit to the acts of another state.

The assertion of a federal right in an unsuccessful application to the highest court of a state to grant a writ of error to a lower court of that state raises no question reviewable in this Court.

Writ of error to review 130 S.W. 922 dismissed.

The facts, which involve the jurisdiction of this Court to review a judgment of a state court on writ of error under § 709, Rev.Stat., are stated in the opinion.