The sixty-second rule of this Court (13 How.) is as follows:
"In cases where a writ of error is prosecuted to the Supreme
Court and the judgment of the inferior court is affirmed, the
interest shall be calculated and levied from the date of the
judgment below until the same is paid at the same rate that similar
judgments bear interest in the courts of the state where such
judgment is rendered. The same rule shall be applied to decrees for
the payment of money in cases in chancery unless otherwise ordered
by this Court. This rule to take effect on the first day of
December term, 1852."
Before this rule, interest was to be calculated at six percent
from the date of the judgment in the circuit court to the day of
affirmance here and the confirmation of the report of the clerk in
the case of
Mitchell v.
Harmony, 13 How. 149, was under the rules then
existing.
So also, where a case from Mississippi was affirmed at December
term, 1851, the mandate from this Court should have been construed
to allow interest at six percent from the date of the decree in the
court below to the date of the affirmance in this Court. Therefore
it was erroneous either to allow six percent until paid or to allow
the current rate of interest in Mississippi in addition to the six
percent allowed by this Court.
The several rules upon this subject examined and explained.
It is stated in the report of the preceding case that, at
December term, 1851, a case of
Fourniquet v. Perkins came
up from Mississippi, and the decree of the Circuit Court was here
affirmed by a divided Court. It was therefore not reported.
The proceedings under the mandate, and the questions which arose
thereon, are set forth in the following opinion of the Court:
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE TANEY delivered the opinion of the Court.
It appears in this case that on 22 May, 1849, the Circuit Court
for the Southern District of Mississippi passed a decree in favor
of the appellees against the appellant directing
Page 55 U. S. 329
him to pay the sum of $16,496.61, within thirty days thereafter,
with legal interest from the date of the said decree, or, in
default thereof, the appellees to have execution against the
appellant.
This decree was affirmed at the last term of this Court, with
costs and damages, at the rate of six percent per annum, and a
mandate issued to the circuit court reciting the judgment of this
Court and directing it to be carried into execution.
After this mandate was filed in the circuit court, the appellees
obtained an execution against the appellant by which the marshal
was commanded to levy the amount of the original judgment in the
circuit court with the Mississippi interest of eight percent and
damages at the rate of six percent in addition, making together,
fourteen percent, from the date of the original judgment, until
paid.
The appellant insisted that under the mandate, he was bound to
pay nothing more than damages at the rate of six percent on the
original decree, from the time it was rendered. And, acting upon
this construction of the judgment of this Court, and supposing
himself chargeable with the six percent damages until the decree
was satisfied, he paid the marshal, on the 12th of May, 1852, the
amount he supposed to be due, calculating the interest up to that
time, and, by some error in the reckoning, he paid a small sum
over. And as the appellees still insisted upon levying the whole
amount for which they had obtained process of execution, he moved
the circuit court to refer it to a commissioner to report the
amount due under the judgment of this Court, and how much, if any,
he had overpaid in his settlement with the marshal. It was admitted
that the costs were all paid. The only controversy was about the
interest and damages, as above stated.
The commissioner reported that according to the basis of
settlement claimed by the appellant, he had overpaid the amount due
on the decree, $61.50, but that, according to the construction of
the mandate insisted on by the appellees, there was still due to
them a balance of $3,831.02.
Upon this report, the appellant moved the court to order
satisfaction of the decree to be entered of record, or to quash the
execution then in the hands of the marshal and order the clerk of
the court to issue no further
fi. fa. on the decree, and
also for an order on the marshal or the appellees, as might be
proper, to refund the money overpaid.
But the court overruled the motion, ordering at the same time
that no further execution should issue until the appellant had a
reasonable time to present an appeal to this Court. And this appeal
was accordingly taken.
An objection has been made to the manner in which this case
Page 55 U. S. 330
has been brought before the Court, and a motion made to dismiss,
upon the ground that an appeal will not lie from this decision of
the circuit court.
This objection to the form of proceeding, involves nothing more
than a question of practice. The mandate from this Court left
nothing to the judgment and discretion of the circuit court, but
directed it to carry into execution the decree of this Court, which
was recited in the mandate. And if the decree of this Court has
been misunderstood, or misconstrued by the court below to the
injury of either party, we see no valid objection to an appeal to
this Court in order to have the error corrected. The question is
merely as to the form of proceeding which this Court should adopt
to enforce the execution of its own mandate in the court below. The
subject might, without doubt, be brought before us upon motion and
a mandamus issued to compel its execution. But an appeal from the
decision of the court below is equally convenient and suitable, and
perhaps more so in some cases, as it gives the adverse party notice
that the question will be brought before this Court, and affords
him the opportunity of being prepared to meet it at an early day of
the term. The appeal certainly would not stay proceedings. And it
would be the duty of the circuit court, notwithstanding the appeal,
to proceed to execute the judgment of this Court, unless, as in
this case, he entertained doubts of its construction and meaning,
and deemed it, therefore, just and equitable to suspend its
execution until the decision of this Court could be had in the
premises.
In the case before us, however, there was substantially an
equity proceeding and final decree after the mandate was filed. It
is true they were summary, and necessarily so, as the matters in
dispute under the execution were brought before the court by
motion. But the claims of the respective parties were referred to a
commissioner to examine and report; he made his report, and the
court decided upon it. This decision, although briefly stated, was
in substance a final decree upon the matters in controversy. It
might therefore, under the act of Congress, be regarded as such and
revised accordingly by an appeal to this Court. Plenary and formal
proceedings are not necessary, and never required when the dispute
is confined to matters arising under process of execution. They are
more conveniently and as fully brought before the Court by a
summary proceeding on motion.
The questions in controversy in the circuit court, and its
decision upon them, are therefore regularly before us.
The difficulty in that court seems to have arisen from supposing
that the act of 1842 applied to judgments and decrees in
Page 55 U. S. 331
this Court. And this, we presume, occasioned the error it
committed in the construction and execution of the decree and
mandate in question.
The act of 1842 does not embrace cases in equity; nor does it
extend to either judgments or decrees in this Court. It is confined
in plain terms to judgments at law in the circuit and district
courts. It places the judgments of these courts, in respect to
interest, upon the same footing with the judgments of the state
courts. And where, by the law of the state, the judgment of a court
carries a certain interest until paid, the former rule and the same
rate of interest is to be allowed in the circuit and district
courts of the United States. And the marshal is directed to levy it
on process of execution, wherever it can be so levied on a judgment
in the state court. In such cases, the judgment bears interest by
force of the law, although, upon the face of it, it may not purport
to carry interest. Upon common law principles, a judgment does not
carry interest. It is true that damages may be recovered for the
detention of the debt in an action on the judgment. But previous to
the act of 1842, neither interest nor damages for the detention of
the debt could have been levied under process of execution upon the
judgment of a circuit or district court of the United States.
But the act of 1842 does not speak of interest or damages upon
the judgments of this Court, nor does it repeal the 23d section of
the act of 1789. This section provides that when a judgment or
decree is affirmed here, this Court is directed to adjudge or
decree to the respondent in error just damages for his delay and
single or double costs, at their discretion. Under this law, there
is no distinction made between cases in equity and at law. In
either of them, the damages to be allowed, in addition to the
amount found to be due by the judgment or decree of the court
below, is confided to the judicial discretion of this Court. And
the 17th, 18th, and 20th rules were adopted in pursuance of this
power.
These rules have been in force and acted on by the Court since
1807, when the 20th rule was adopted, until the new rule upon this
subject was made at the close of the last term. And the change then
made was not occasioned by any supposed repugnancy between them and
the act of 1842. But because the Court deemed it just to place the
judgments in this Court upon the same footing with the judgments in
the circuit and district courts and that suitors in the courts of
the United States should stand on the same ground with suitors in
the state courts in its appellate as well as in its inferior
tribunals. In adopting the new rule, this Court exercised the same
power which it had exercised in adopting the former rules -- that
is, the
Page 55 U. S. 332
discretionary power conferred by the act of 1789, as
hereinbefore mentioned.
The 17th rule provides that when a case appears to be brought
merely for delay, damages shall be awarded at the rate of ten
percent on the amount of the judgment, and by the 18th rule, the
damages are to be at the rate of six percent when it appears that
there is a real controversy.
These two rules were passed in 1803. And as some difficulty
arose as to the time for which these damages were to be computed,
the 23d rule was afterwards (1807) adopted, and provides that the
damages allowed by the two former rules shall be calculated to the
day of the affirmance of the judgment in this Court.
The question as to the operation of the act of 1842 upon the
18th and 20th rules was brought to the consideration of the Court
at the last term in the case of
Mitchell v. Harmony. The
judgment brought up by the writ of error was rendered in the
circuit court of New York, and was affirmed in this Court. The sum
recovered was large, and the interest, even for a short time, was
therefore important. And the counsel for Harmony, the defendant in
error, moved the Court to allow him the New York interest of seven
percent upon the amount of the judgment, and that the interest
should run until the judgment was paid. But as the rules above
mentioned were still in force, the Court held that he was entitled
only to six percent, to be calculated from the date of the judgment
in the circuit court to the day of affirmance here.
The case now before us was decided in the early part of the last
term, before the case of
Mitchell v. Harmony, and
consequently falls within the operation of the same rules, and
damages upon the affirmance of the decree must be calculated in
like manner.
Indeed, in the New York case, the claim for interest stood on
stronger ground than in the present one, for that was an action at
law. The act of 1842 therefore applied to the judgment in the
circuit court, and it would have carried the state interest until
paid if it had not been brought here by writ of error. But this is
a decree in equity, and not embraced in the act of 1842, and
according to the settled chancery practice, no interest or damages
could have been levied under process of execution upon the amount
ascertained to be due and decreed to be paid if there had been no
appeal; 2 Ves. 157, 168, n. 1, Sumn. Ed.; 2 Dan.Chan.Plead. &
Prac. 1442, 1437, 1438. Nor could any damages or interest have been
given on its affirmance here but for the discretionary power vested
in this Court by the act of 1789. That discretion, as we have
already said, extends to
Page 55 U. S. 333
decrees in equity as well as judgments at law. And the rules
have always been applied to both unless otherwise specially
ordered.
It follows from what we have said that the appellees, upon the
affirmance of the decree, were entitled to damages at the rate of
six percent, to be calculated from the date of the decree to the
date of the affirmance, and to no further interest or damages. The
decree was passed by the circuit court on the 22d day of May, 1849,
for $16,496.61, and was affirmed in this Court on the 24th of
December, 1851. The interest from the date of the decree to the
time of affirmance in this Court is $2,562.37, making together the
aggregate sum of $19,058.98. This amount, together with the costs,
is all that the appellees were entitled to recover under the
judgment and mandate of this Court. It appears, however, that the
marshal has received, under the process of execution, $19,500, in
addition to the costs, and paid it over to the solicitor of the
appellees.
They have, therefore, received $441.02 more than they were
entitled, and that sum must be refunded to the appellant.
It is proper to say that the mandate in question was in the
usual form, and the same with the mandate in
Mitchel v.
Harmony, and indeed the same that has been used since the
adoption of the rules above mentioned. And it never has been
supposed by this Court to sanction the collection of state interest
on the judgment, and still less the unprecedented interest and
damages claimed in this case, amounting together to fourteen
percent
The decree of the circuit court overruling the motion of the
appellant must therefore be
Reversed and a mandate issued directing the court below to
enter the decree satisfied and also to order and direct the
appellees to repay to the appellant the sum of $441.02, with the
state interest thereon of eight percent from the time it was
received by their solicitor from the marshal.
Order
This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record
from the Court of Appeals of the United States for the Southern
District of Mississippi, and was argued by counsel. On
consideration whereof it is ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the
decree of the circuit court overruling the motion of the appellant
be and the same is hereby reversed with costs, and that this cause
be and the same is hereby remanded to the said circuit court with
instructions to that court to enter the decree rendered by that
court on the 22d day of May, A.D. 1849, for $16,496.61, with legal
interest from said date, satisfied,
Page 55 U. S. 334
and to order and direct the appellees to repay to the appellant
the sum of $441.02, with the state interest thereon of eight
percent from the time it was received by their solicitor from the
marshal.