When, in a case appealed from a circuit court, the record
discloses that the defendants below appealed upon the express
ground that the court erred in taking jurisdiction of the bill and
in not dismissing the bill for want of jurisdiction, and prayed
that their appeal should be allowed, and the question of
jurisdiction be certified to the Supreme Court, and that said
appeal was allowed, and the certificate further states that there
is sent a true copy of so much of the record as is necessary for
the determination of the question of jurisdiction, and as part of
the record so certified is the opinion of the court below, in
accordance with which defendants' motion to dismiss the cause for
want of jurisdiction was denied, it sufficiently shows that the
appeal was granted solely upon the question of jurisdiction.
When the requisite citizenship of the parties appears, and the
subject matter is such that the circuit court is competent to deal
with it, the jurisdiction of that court attaches, and whether the
court sustains the complainant's prayer for equitable relief or
dismisses the bill with leave to bring an action at law, either is
a valid exercise of jurisdiction; and if any error be committed in
the exercise of such jurisdiction, it can only be remedied by an
appeal to the circuit court of appeals.
In the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of
Massachusetts, Gordon McKay, as trustee for the McKay Sewing
Machine Association and a citizen of the State of Rhode Island,
filed a bill of complaint against Frank W. Smith and others,
citizens of the State of Massachusetts, doing business as
copartners in the firm name of Smith, Stoughton & Payne. The
bill was brought upon a lease between said parties, bearing date
January 23, 1878, whereby the complainant had granted to the
defendants, in consideration of rent or license fees, the right to
use certain sewing machines and other patented devices belonging to
the complainant. The bill alleged a failure by the defendants to
comply with the terms of the lease, and prayed for a discovery,
accounting, payment of rent, and for an injunction restraining the
defendants from using the patented machines until they had fully
paid the amount found to be due.
The defendants filed an answer responding to various allegations
of the bill and averring that the complainant, so far as he had any
just cause of action, had a plain, adequate, and complete remedy at
law. Subsequently the defendants filed a special motion to dismiss
the bill for the alleged reason that the complainant had a plain,
adequate, and complete remedy at law. After argument, this motion
was denied. The cause was heard upon the pleadings and proofs, and
at the May term, 1889, an accounting was awarded, a master was
appointed, and, on the coming in of his report on December 22,
1891, a final decree was rendered that the complainant should
recover damages in excess of the sum of five thousand dollars and
costs of suit. From this decree an appeal was taken and allowed to
this Court, and error was assigned to the action of the circuit
court in taking jurisdiction of the bill and in not dismissing the
same for want of jurisdiction.
Page 161 U. S. 356
MR. JUSTICE SHIRAS, after stating the facts in the foregoing
language, delivered the opinion of the Court.
The appellants seek to have this Court review the action of the
circuit court in entertaining jurisdiction of a bill in equity in a
case in which, as they allege, it appears that the complainant had
a plain, adequate, and complete remedy at law.
It is contended on the part of the appellee that we should
dismiss this appeal because the question of jurisdiction is not
properly certified to this Court.
Page 161 U. S. 357
The record discloses that the defendants below appealed upon the
express ground that the court erred in taking jurisdiction of the
bill and in not dismissing the bill for want of jurisdiction, and
prayed that their appeal should be allowed, and the question of
jurisdiction be certified to the supreme court, and that said
appeal was allowed. The certificate further states that there is
sent a true copy of so much of the record as is necessary for the
determination of the question of jurisdiction, and as part of the
record so certified is the opinion of the court below, in
accordance with which defendants' motion to dismiss the cause for
want of jurisdiction was denied. It therefore appears that the
appeal was granted solely upon the question of jurisdiction, and
this brings the case within the rulings in
Shields v.
Coleman, 157 U. S. 168, and
In re Lehigh Mining Co., 156 U. S. 322.
It is further contended by the appellee that this appeal should
be dismissed because there is no right of appeal to this Court in
such a case as the present one.
The appellants claim that this appeal is within the first class
under ยง 5 of the Judiciary Act of March 3, 1891, providing that
"in any case in which the question of the jurisdiction of the
court is in issue, in such case, the question of jurisdiction alone
shall be certified to the Supreme Court from the court below for
decision."
The position of the appellee is that only questions of federal
jurisdiction can be brought directly here; that, if the circuit
court has jurisdiction of the parties and of the matters in
dispute, the fact that it is contended that it has no jurisdiction
on its equity side raises no question of jurisdiction within the
meaning of the act under which this appeal is taken, and that
whether a case has been made out by the plaintiff in equity or at
law is not a question that puts in issue the jurisdiction of the
court in the sense in which that phrase is used in the Judiciary
Act. The question thus raised has never been directly decided by
this Court. It did present itself in the case of
World's
Columbian Exposition Case, 56 F. 654. That was a case in which
the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern
Page 161 U. S. 358
District of Illinois had granted at the suit of the United
States, an injunction against the World's Columbian Exposition, a
corporation of the State of Illinois, restraining the defendant
from opening the exposition grounds or buildings to the public on
Sunday. From this decree an appeal was taken to the Circuit Court
of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and that court, speaking
through Chief Justice Fuller, presiding, stated and disposed of the
question as follows:
"The appellees have submitted a motion to dismiss the appeal
upon the grounds that the jurisdiction of the circuit court was in
issue; that the case involved the construction or application of
the Constitution of the United States; that the constitutionality
of laws of the United States was drawn in question therein; that
therefore the appeal from a final decree would lie to the Supreme
Court of the United States, and not to this court, and hence that
this appeal, which is from an interlocutory order, cannot be
maintained under the seventh section of the Judiciary Act of March
3, 1891."
"We do not understand that the power of the circuit court to
hear and determine the cause was denied, but that the appellants
contended that the United States had not, by their bill, made a
case properly cognizable in a court of equity. The objection was
the want of equity, and not the want of power. The jurisdiction of
the circuit court was therefore not in issue within the intent and
meaning of the act."
We regard this as a sound exposition of the law, and, applied to
the case now in hand, it demands a dismissal of the appeal on the
ground that the objection was not to the want of power in the
circuit court to entertain the suit, but to the want of equity in
the complainant's bill. The appellants' contention in this respect
would require us to entertain an appeal from the circuit court in
every case in equity in which the defendant should choose to file a
demurrer to the bill on the ground that there was a remedy at
law.
When the requisite citizenship of the parties appears, and the
subject matter is such that the circuit court is competent to deal
with it, the jurisdiction of that court attaches, and whether the
court should sustain the complainant's prayer
Page 161 U. S. 359
for equitable relief, or should dismiss the bill with leave to
bring an action at law, either would be a valid exercise of
jurisdiction. If any error were committed in the exercise of such
jurisdiction, it could only be remedied by an appeal to the circuit
court of appeals.
The learned counsel for the appellants claims in his brief that
the case of
Mississippi Mills v. Cohn, 150 U.
S. 202, sustains his present contention.
That was an appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States
for the Western District of Louisiana under the provisions of the
Act of February 25, 1889, 25 Stat. 693, c. 36. The court below
dismissed the complainant's bill in equity on the ground that no
relief could be had in equity because, under the practice
prescribed by a state law, there was a remedy by an action at law.
But this Court held that the jurisdiction of federal courts,
sitting as courts of equity, cannot be enlarged or diminished by
state legislation, and that hence the circuit court had committed
error by allowing a state law to overturn the well settled practice
in the federal court. In the condition of the federal statutes at
that time, there was no circuit court of appeals, and the
plaintiff's remedy, given him by the Act of February 25, 1889, was
by appeal to this Court. Should such a state of facts again arise,
the remedy would now be by appeal to the circuit court of
appeals.
The appeal from the circuit court is accordingly
Dismissed.
