Although bills of review are not strictly within the statute of
limitations, yet courts of equity will adopt the analogy of the
statute in prescribing the time within which they shall be
brought.
Appeals in equity causes being limited by the Judiciary Acts of
1789, c. 20, s. 22, and of 1893, c. 353, s. 2, to five years after
the decree, the same period of limitation is applied to bills of
review.
Quaere whether a bill of review founded upon matter
discovered since the decree is also barred by the lapse of five
years?
It is in the discretion of the Court to grant leave to file a
bill of review for that cause.
The appellant, Thomas, filed in the Circuit Court of Kentucky at
the November term, 1818, a bill to review and reverse a final
decree of the same court pronounced at the May term, 1810, by which
the plaintiff in the bill of review and defendant in the original
suit was decreed to convey
Page 23 U. S. 147
to the heirs of John Harvie, the plaintiffs in the original
suit, a certain tract of land which formed the subject of
controversy in that suit. The bill of review, after stating the
substance of the original bill, which was filed by John Harvie, and
the bill of revivor after his death, in the name of the present
respondents, in whose favor the decree was passed, assigns the
following errors in the said decree as causes for its reversal.
1. That the entry of James Clark under whom the said John Harvie
claimed the land in dispute was void for uncertainty.
2. That before the final decree was passed, the said Harvie
died, leaving a will by which he devised the land in controversy to
his sons, Edwin and Jacqueline, two of the plaintiffs in the bill
of revivor, of which will the plaintiff was wholly ignorant until
long after the final decree was entered.
3. That the said Edwin Harvie died previous to the said decree,
and his right in the said land descended to his heirs at law, John
and Lewis, who were no parties to the said suit, of which facts the
plaintiff was wholly ignorant until long after the decree
complained of.
To this bill of review the defendants plead in bar the decree
passed and enrolled in the original suit, and the prosecution by
the plaintiff, Thomas, of a writ of error to the supreme court to
reverse the same, which was dismissed, and then demurred to so much
of the bill as sought to review and reverse the said decree. Upon
argument of the plea and demurrer, the court below
Page 23 U. S. 148
dismissed the bill of review, and the cause was brought by
appeal to this Court.
Page 23 U. S. 149
MR. JUSTICE WASHINGTON delivered the opinion of the Court, and
after stating the case, proceeded as follows:
The first error assigned in the bill of review involves the
merits of the original cause, and was intended to induce a
reexamination of the title of the plaintiffs in that cause, the
validity of which had been established by the decree. But previous
to an investigation of that subject, a preliminary question has
been suggested by the counsel for the appellee which the Court is
called upon to consider. The record shows that the order of the
court permitting the bill to be filed was granted eight years
subsequent to the final decree in the original cause, and the
question to be decided is whether this remedy was not barred by
length of time.
It must be admitted that bills of review are not strictly within
any act of limitations prescribed by Congress; but it is
unquestionable that
Page 23 U. S. 150
courts of equity, acting upon the principle that laches and
neglect ought to be discountenanced and that in cases of stale
demands, its aid ought not to be afforded, have always interposed
some limitation to suits brought in those courts. It is stated by
Lord Camden in the case of
Smith v. Clay, Ambl. 645, 3
Bro.Ch.Cas. 639, note,
"that as the court of equity has no legislative authority, it
could not properly define the time of bar by a positive rule, but
that, as often as Parliament had limited the time of actions and
remedies to a certain period in legal proceedings, the court of
chancery adopted that rule and applied it to similar cases in
equity."
Upon this principle it is that an account for rents and profits
in a common case is not carried beyond six years, or a redemption
of mortgaged premises allowed after twenty years possession by the
mortgagee, or a bill of review entertained after twenty years, by
analogy to the statute which limits writs of error to that
period.
These principles seem to apply with peculiar strength to bills
of review in the courts of the United States, from the circumstance
that Congress has thought proper to limit the time within which
appeals may be taken in equity causes, thus creating an analogy
between the two remedies, by appeal and a bill of review, so
apparent that the court is constrained to consider the latter as
necessarily comprehended within the equity of the provision
respecting the former. For it is obvious that if a bill of review
to reverse a decree on the ground of error apparent
Page 23 U. S. 151
on its face may be filed at any period of time beyond the five
years limited for an appeal, it will follow that an original decree
may in effect be brought before the Supreme Court for reexamination
after the period prescribed by law for an immediate appeal from
such decree by appealing from the decree of the circuit court upon
the bill of review. In short, the party complaining of the original
decree would in this way be permitted to do indirectly what the act
of Congress has prohibited him from doing directly.
Whether a bill of review founded upon matter discovered since
the decree is in like manner barred by the lapse of five years
after such decree is a question which need not be decided in the
present case, since we are all of opinion that it is in the
discretion of the Court to grant leave to file a bill of review for
that cause, and that such leave ought not to be granted in a case
where it appears that the plaintiff is not aggrieved by the decree
on account of the error so assigned, or that being granted, the
Court ought to dismiss the bill where no other error is
assigned.
In this case the court below decided in the original cause that
the title to the land the controversy was vested in the heirs of
John Harvie and decreed the appellant to convey the same to
them.
If Thomas then had no title to the land, of what consequence was
it to him that the conveyance was decreed to be made to all the
complainants
Page 23 U. S. 152
in that cause, as being the heirs of Harvie, rather than to two
of them who, he alleged, were entitled to the land as devisees? If
they did not complain of the decree (and that they did not is
proved by their plea and demurrer to the bill of review) and if the
plaintiff in this bill was not injured by it, the Court is at a
loss to conceive upon what legal or equitable ground that decree
could have been reversed for the errors growing out of the after
discovered evidence. These observations apply equally to the second
and third errors assigned.
Decree affirmed with costs.
