This Court has no jurisdiction, under the 25th section of the
Judiciary Act, of a case like the following, namely:
Where an assignee of some creditors of a person who had taken
the benefit of the bankrupt act of the United States filed a bill
against the bankrupt to set aside the discharge as void upon the
ground of fraud. The defendant demurred to the bill upon the ground
of staleness, want of equity, and the statute of limitations.
It does not follow that the supreme court of the state, in
dismissing the bill, placed any construction whatever upon the
bankrupt act, and moreover, if they did, the decision must have
been in favor of the privilege set up by the bankrupt, and not
against it.
Page 59 U. S. 244
MR. JUSTICE GRIER delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case comes before us on a motion to dismiss for want of
jurisdiction. It is a writ of error to the High Court of Errors and
Appeals of the State of Mississippi.
The plaintiff in error, who was complainant in a bill in equity
before the chancellor of that state, claims jurisdiction for this
Court to review the judgment of the court of appeals under the 25th
section of the Judiciary Act, because the title to his demand comes
through a bankrupt assignee, and therefore from an authority
exercised under an act of Congress, and because the judgment of the
state court was against his claim. He contends that his case is
within the third clause of this section, which authorizes this
Court to review the decision of a state court
"where is drawn in question the construction of any clause of
the constitution, or of a treaty or statute, or commission held
under the United States, and the decision is against the title,
right, privilege or exemption specially set up or claimed
&c."
It is not enough to give jurisdiction to this Court under this
clause that the decision of the state court was against a party
claiming title under some statute of or commission held under the
United States. The origin of the title may be but an accident of
the controversy, and not the subject or substance of it. The suit
must have drawn in question the construction of such statute or
commission and the judgment of the state court must have been
adverse to the claim set up under them.
"The record also must show, if not
ipsissimis verbis,
at least, by clear and necessary intendment, that such question of
'construction' was raised, and must have been decided in order to
induce the judgment. It is not enough to show that the question
might have arisen and been applicable to the case unless it is
further shown on the record that it did arise and was applied by
the state
Page 59 U. S. 245
court to the case."
The cases which establish these principles are too numerous for
quotation.
The record before us presents no evidence that such a question
did arise or could have been decided.
The bill shows that, twelve years after the defendants were
discharged under the bankrupt act, the complainant got an
assignment of certain claims against them from creditors who had
received their dividends of the bankrupt's assets without
questioning the legality of their discharge; that being thus
possessed, he set about "to ferret out the frauds, devices,
combinations, priorities, preferences &c., practiced, done, and
given by the defendants," and that he had discovered numerous
instances of preferences given by the defendants to endorsers and
other favored creditors previous to their bankruptcy, in
consequence of which it was alleged that their certificate of
discharge was void. The balances claimed under these assignments,
with interest, would amount to near a million of dollars. The
averment of the bill that the assignments to the complainant were
for "value received" would be satisfied by the consideration of a
dollar or less. The respondents demurred to the bill and set forth
numerous causes of demurrer, the chief of which were a want of
equity in the bill and the bar of the statute of limitations or the
staleness of the demand. But in no one of them is any objection
interposed which called for a construction of the bankrupt act
where the complainant claimed any title or exemption under it. The
only "privilege or exemption" which could have been "drawn in
question" under the act were those of the defendant, the validity
of whose discharge under it was impugned. But as the decision was
in their favor, the case is not brought within our jurisdiction.
See Strader v.
Baldwin, 9 How. 261.
The whole argument for plaintiff in error was expended in
endeavoring to prove that the bill ought not to have been dismissed
for want of equity or staleness, and, assuming this to be so, it
was contended that the court could not have done so for these
reasons, and consequently their decision must have been the result
of some misconstruction of the bankrupt law as to the rights
claimed by the complainant under it. But as we have already shown,
if the plaintiffs could successfully establish both their premises
and conclusion, it would not avail to give us jurisdiction. And we
may add, moreover, that we see no reason from anything that appears
on this record why the state court might not have dismissed the
bill as devoid of equity and as exhibiting a claim which, if not
champertous, is on its face a litigious speculation in stale,
abandoned, and, as to much the larger portion, wholly unfounded
demands.
The writ of error is therefore dismissed for want of
jurisdiction.