The Judiciary Act of March 3, 1891, 26 Stat. c. 517, pp. 826,
827, having provided that no appeals shall be taken from circuit
courts to this Court except as provided in that act and having
repealed all acts and parts of acts relating to appeals or writs of
error inconsistent with the provisions for review by appeals or
writs of error contained in that act, and the joint resolution of
March 3, 1891, 26 Stat. 1115, having provided that nothing
contained in that act shall be held to impair the jurisdiction of
this Court in respect of any case wherein the writ of error or the
appeal shall have been sued out or taken to this Court before July
1, 1891, it is
held that an appeal to this Court from a
judgment entered in a circuit court November 18, 1890, appealable
before July 1, 1891, could not be taken after July 1, 1891.
Motion to dismiss. The case is stated in the opinion.
Page 144 U. S. 571
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER delivered the opinion of the Court.
This was a bill brought against the receiver of an insolvent
national bank and its late directors in the Circuit Court of the
United States for the Eastern District of Virginia, to which a
demurrer was sustained, and the bill dismissed, November 18, 1890.
On August 20, 1891, an appeal was allowed to this Court, bond for
costs given and approved, and citation issued and served. The case
comes before us on a motion to dismiss.
Section 4 of the Judiciary Act of March 3, 1891, 26 Stat. 826,
827, c. 517, provides
"That no appeal, whether by writ of error or otherwise, shall
hereafter be taken or allowed from any district court to the
existing circuit courts, and no appellate jurisdiction shall
hereafter be exercised or allowed by said existing circuit courts,
but all appeals by writ of error [or] otherwise from said district
courts shall only be subject to review in the Supreme Court of the
United States or in the circuit court of appeals, hereby
established, as is hereinafter provided, and the review by appeal,
by writ of error, or otherwise, from the existing circuit courts,
shall be had only in the Supreme Court of the United States or in
the circuit courts of appeals, hereby established, according to the
provisions of this act regulating the same."
By section 14 of that act, section six hundred and ninety-one of
the Revised Statutes, and section three of the Act of February 16,
1875, c. 77, 18 Stat. 316, and
"all acts and parts of acts relating to appeals or writs of
error inconsistent with the provisions for review by appeals or
writs of error in the preceding sections five and six of this
act"
were repealed.
By section 5, it is provided that appeals or writs of error
Page 144 U. S. 572
may be taken from the district courts or from the existing
circuit courts direct to the supreme court in any case in which the
jurisdiction of the court is in issue; from the final sentences and
decrees in prize causes; in cases of conviction of a capital or
otherwise infamous crime; in any case involving the construction or
application of the Constitution of the United States; in any case
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, and in any case in which the
Constitution or law of a state is claimed to be in contravention of
the Constitution of the United States. But nothing in the act was
to affect the jurisdiction of this Court in cases appealed from the
highest court of a state, nor the construction of the statute
providing for review of such cases.
In view of the general rule that if a law conferring
jurisdiction is repealed without any reservation as to pending
cases, all such cases fall with the law,
Railroad Company v.
Grant, 98 U. S. 398;
Gurnee v. Patrick County, 137 U.
S. 141, a joint resolution was passed on March 3, 1891,
providing
"that nothing in said act shall he held or construed in any wise
to impair the jurisdiction of the supreme court or any circuit
court of the United States in any case now pending before it,"
and it was added,
"or in respect of any case wherein the writ of error or the
appeal shall have been sued out or taken to any of said courts
before the first day of July, anno Domini eighteen hundred and
ninety-one."
26 Stat. 1115, 1116.
The case in hand did not come within either of the six classes
of cases specified in section 5, and as the appeal was not taken
until after July 1, 1891, it must be dismissed.
Wauton v.
DeWolf, 142 U. S. 138.
When the decree was entered, appellants had two years thereafter in
which to take an appeal to this Court. The act and resolution of
March 3, 1891, declared that the right must be exercised prior to
July 1, 1891. Although the appellate powers of this Court are given
by the Constitution, they are nevertheless limited and regulated by
acts of Congress.
Durousseau v. United
States, 6 Cranch 307,
Page 144 U. S. 573
10 U. S. 314.
In that case it was held that the affirmative description of
jurisdiction implied a "negative on the exercise of such appellate
power as is not comprehended within it." And here the appellate
jurisdiction is not left to inference, but is taken a way in terms
after the date mentioned.
Appeal dismissed.