United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Beers v. Arkansas, 61 U.S. 20 How. 527 527 (1857)

Beers v. Arkansas

61 U.S. (20 How.) 527

Syllabus

Under the Constitution of the State of Arkansas, the legislature passed a law allowing the state to be sued.

According to this law, a suit was brought upon some of the state bonds, and whilst the suit was going on, the legislature passed another law requiring the bonds to be filed in court or the suit to be dismissed.

The suitor refusing to file his bonds, the suit was dismissed, and the case was carried to the supreme court of the state, where the judgment was affirmed. The case, being brought to this Court under the twenty-fifth section of the Judiciary Act, must be dismissed for want of jurisdiction.

The permission to bring the suit was not a contract whose obligations were impaired by the passage of the subsequent law.

Page 61 U. S. 528

These three cases depended upon the same principle, and are therefore classed together. The report in the first-named case will apply to them all. It was a case which was brought up from the Supreme Court of the State of Arkansas by a writ of error issued under the twenty-fifth section of the Judiciary Act.

The case is stated in the opinion of the Court.