In an action against a contractor and surety under the Act of
August 13, 1894, 28 Stat. 278, as amended, the district court has
jurisdiction to decide whether claims of materialmen were filed
within the year limited by the act, and upon the effect of filing
them later.
Prohibition will not issue to control the district court upon
questions which that court is competent to decide or questions
dependent on facts not presented to this Court.
Rule discharged.
Upon petition, a rule was made upon the judge of the District
Court for the Western District of North Carolina to show cause why
a writ of prohibition should not issue to prevent further
proceedings in an action brought against a contractor and the
petitioner as its surety, under the Act of August 13, 1894, c. 280,
28 Stat. 278, as amended. The decision was made upon the petition
and respondent's answer thereto.
Page 247 U. S. 20
Memorandum opinion by MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WHITE, by direction of
the Court.
The statute (c. 280, 28 Stat. 278, c. 778, 33 Stat. 811) makes
the district court of the district in which work contracted to be
done for the United States is to be performed the forum for the
assertion by supply creditors or materialmen of their claims
against the contractor and the surety on the bond. It moreover
authorizes one suit by all for the purpose of enforcing the
liability of the surety. In the light of these provisions and their
settled interpretation, all the contentions of the petitioner but
one which we shall hereafter separately notice are so completely
foreclosed by previous authorities as to require only reference to
them.
United States v. Congress Construction Co.,
222 U. S. 199;
Illinois Surety Co. v. Peeler, 240 U.
S. 214;
Illinois Surety Co. v. John Davis Co.,
244 U. S. 376.
Indeed, so certain is this the case that, as to the principal one
of the questions, the power of the court, when raised at this term
it was treated as not open to controversy, and was hence disposed
of by a per curiam opinion.
Hopkins v. Ellington &
Guy, 246 U.S. 655.
The one subject which we postponed considering is the contention
that rights of some of the claimants were asserted after the
one-year period of limitation which the statute fixes. But this
depends upon facts which are not before us, and besides involves a
question within the competency of the court to decide concerning
which therefore there is no basis for granting the writ of
prohibition or sanctioning a resort to any other extraordinary
legal remedy.
See In re New York & Porto Rico S.S.
Co., 155 U. S. 523;
Ex Parte Oklahoma, 220 U. S. 191.
It follows, therefore, that the rule must bed and it is,
discharged.
Rule discharged.