A supersedeas obtained by a plaintiff in error under the
provisions of Rev.Stat. § 1007 does not operate to enjoin the
defendant in error from bringing a new suit on a new cause of
action, but arising out of the same general matter and involving
the same questions of law which are brought here for review.
Page 123 U. S. 517
This was a motion for a rule on J. V. Guilotte, Mayor of the
City of New Orleans, and Henry Larque, lessee of the public markets
of New Orleans, to show cause why they should not be punished for a
contempt of the supersedeas in this case. The case is stated in the
opinion of the Court.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE delivered the opinion of the Court.
This motion is denied. The plaintiffs in error were proceeded
against in the name of the State of Louisiana before the Recorder
of the First Recorder's Court of the City of New Orleans for an
alleged violation of an ordinance of that city. The judgment of the
recorder's court does not appear in the printed record, but the
case was taken by appeal to the supreme court of the state, and in
the opinion of that court it is stated that the appeal was by the
defendants
"from judgments rendered against them for the payment of a fine,
and, in default of payment, sentencing them to imprisonment for the
violation of ordinance No. 4,798, A.S., which forbids the keeping
of private markets within six squares of a public market within the
limits of the City of New Orleans."
The order of the supreme court was "that the judgment appealed
from be affirmed, with costs."
To reverse this judgment of the supreme court, the present writ
of error was sued out, and a supersedeas obtained, in accordance
with the provisions of § 1007, Revised Statutes, May 12, 1887. The
complaint now is that, with this supersedeas in force, the mayor of
the city and the lessee of the public markets have caused suits to
be begun in the Civil District Court of the Parish of New Orleans
to enjoin the plaintiffs in error, and each of them, "from opening,
maintaining, or carrying on a private market . . . anywhere . . .
in the City of New Orleans within six squares of a public market,"
and
"that the grounds on which said injunction are
Page 123 U. S. 518
based are the same law and city ordinance, the same defendants,
and the same location of mercantile business as that involved in
said writ of error, being the same persons and same course of
action in said injunctions, and based on the same law and city
ordinance, identical in every particular with the cases involved in
said writ of error."
It is not alleged that any attempt has been made to carry the
judgment which is here for review into execution. The whole
gravamen of the charge made in support of this motion is that the
mayor and lessee of the markets have commenced another suit in
another court upon another cause of action growing out of
violations of the same ordinance. The supersedeas provided for in §
1007 of the Revised Statutes stays process for the execution of the
judgment or decree brought under review by the writ of error or
appeal to which it belongs. It operates on the judgment or decree,
not on the questions involved, considered apart from the particular
suit in which they were decided. The new suits now complained of
are not brought to give effect to the judgment in this case, but to
enjoin the plaintiffs in error from further violations of the
ordinance which was the foundation of the prosecution now here for
review. This judgment is in no way connected with or made the basis
of the injunction in the civil district court. Both suits may
involve the consideration of the validity of the same ordinance,
but the last is in no sense process for the execution of the
judgment in the first. It follows that, upon the showing made by
the plaintiffs in error themselves, there is no ground for
proceeding here against the mayor or the lessee of the market, and
that the rule ought not to issue.
Denied.