1. A writ of error has the effect to remove the record into the
court granting the writ, and when the conditions prescribed in the
23d section of the Judiciary Act are complied with, the
jurisdiction of the subordinate court is suspended until the cause
is remanded from the appellate tribunal.
2. Neither appeals nor writs of error become a supersedeas and
stay execution by virtue merely of process issued by this Court;
but this effect is derived from the Judiciary Act on complying with
its conditions.
3. When these conditions acre complied with, if the subordinate
court proceeds thereafter to issue final process, it is competent
for this Court, in the exercise of its appellate power, to correct
the error by a supersedeas, and this may be done though the
application for the supersedeas is made before the return day of
the writ of error.
4. Where injunctions had been granted in the District Court of
the State of Louisiana, and suspensive appeals had been taken to
the supreme court of the state, where the decrees granting the
injunctions had been affirmed, and a writ of error under the 25th
section of the Judiciary Act sued out to that judgment of
affirmance, the writ of error and bond, though filed within ten
days of the affirmance, did not authorize this Court to enjoin or
supersede the action of the district court in giving effect to the
said injunctions subsequent to the issuing of the writ of error.
The supersedeas of the act operated alone upon the supreme court of
the state to which the writ of error is directed under the said
25th section.
5. The appeals from the district to the supreme court of the
state operated as a stay of execution, and suspended all
jurisdiction to proceed further until the cause was remanded. But
when the Supreme Court rendered
Page 77 U. S. 274
its final judgment and perpetuated the injunction, whatever
conditions were annexed to the appeal were abrogated, as the appeal
was then fully executed.
6. A writ of error to a state court cannot have any greater
effect than if the judgment or decree had been rendered or passed
in a circuit court; and neither an injunction nor a decree
dissolving an injunction passed in a circuit court is reversed or
nullified by an appeal or writ of error before the cause is heard
in this Court.
These were motions made at the close of this term (December,
1869), in behalf of several plaintiffs in error, to enforce the
supersedeas on writs of error which had issued in five several
cases to the Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana, returnable to
the term now coming (December, 1870) of this Court.
The case was this:
By the 25th section of the Judiciary Act of 1789, this Court has
power, on writ of error, to reexamine a final judgment or decree in
any suit in the highest court of law or equity of a state in which
a decision in the suit could be had,
"where is drawn in question the validity of a statute of, or an
authority exercised under, any state, on the ground of their being
repugnant to the Constitution of the United States, and the
decision is in favor of such their validity."
By this same section the writ of error to such supreme court of
the state "shall have the same effect as if the judgment or decree
complained of had been rendered or passed
by a circuit
court."
By a prior section of the act (the 22d) it is enacted that
"
final judgments and decrees in civil actions and suits
in equity
in circuit courts . . . may be reexamined, and
reversed or affirmed in the Supreme Court, a citation to the
adverse party being in such case signed by a judge of such circuit
court, or justice of the supreme court, and the adverse party
having at least thirty days' notice."
The same section proceeds:
"And writs of error shall not be brought but within five years
after rendering or passing the judgment or decree complained of.
And every justice or judge signing a citation on any writ
Page 77 U. S. 275
of error, shall take good and sufficient security that the
plaintiff in error shall prosecute his writ to effect,"
&c.
A following section (the 23d), declaring the
effect of
a writ of error to a judgment in a
circuit court,
says:
"That a writ of error, as aforesaid,
shall be a supersedeas
and stay execution in cases only where the writ is served, by
a copy thereof being lodged for the adverse party in the clerk's
office, within ten days after rendering the judgment or passing the
decree complained of. Until the expiration of which term of ten
days execution shall not issue in any case where a writ of error
may be a supersedeas."
The same act of 1789 provides by its fourteenth section that
this Court
"shall have power to issue writs of
scire facias,
habeas corpus, and all other writs not specially provided for by
statutes,
which may be necessary for the exercise of their
respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the principles and usages
of law."
An Act, however, of March 2, 1793, entitled "An act "
in
addition" to the act" above quoted, of 1789, thus
declares:
"Writs of
ne exeat and injunction may be granted by any
judge of the supreme court in cases where they might be granted by
the supreme or a circuit court; but no writ of
ne exeat
shall be granted unless a suit in equity be commenced and
satisfactory proof made that the defendant designs quickly to
depart from the United States;
nor shall a writ of injunction
be granted to stay proceedings in any court of a state."
These statutory enactments being in force, the Legislature of
Louisiana, A.D. 1869, in professed exercise of its power to protect
the health, promote the cleanliness, and regulate the police of the
City of New Orleans, passed an act by which it ordered all animals
imported for consumption in the city to be landed at certain
places, and all intended for food to be slaughtered there, and for
the purpose of executing this law conferred on seventeen persons,
as a company, the exclusive right to maintain landings for cattle
and to erect slaughterhouses &c., chartering them under the
name of
Page 77 U. S. 276
The Crescent City Livestock Landing and Slaughterhouse
Company.
The plaintiffs in error, being different individuals and
companies, undertaking or continuing to maintain other landings and
slaughtering houses, in opposition to those of the chartered
company, that company filed petitions in certain of the district
courts of the state asserting their right to the monopoly conferred
by the act, and obtained preliminary injunctions against these
different parties and associations prohibiting the use of the
landings and the exercise of the business of slaughtering as
infringing upon the exclusive right which the new company claimed
under the act. These injunctions, upon the hearing of exceptions
and answers, were perpetuated.
In other of the district courts of the state, those who asserted
that the act was a violation of their rights also filed petitions
against the company, upon which preliminary injunctions were
perpetuated in favor of the petitioners.
The ground maintained against the act was, that it violated the
fourteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States,
which declares that
"No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor
shall any state deprive any person of liberty or property without
due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction
the equal protection of the laws."
These conflicting decrees in the district courts were all taken
by what are known in Louisiana as "suspensive appeals" to the
supreme court of the state, where judgment in all was given in
favor of the new company, which asserted the validity of the act.
And to these judgments of the supreme court of the state writs of
error were taken from this Court under the already-mentioned 25th
section of the Judiciary Act; the writs of error, service citation,
bond &c., being all regularly taken and made, and filed within
the ten days prescribed by the 23d section, which prevents the writ
of error from operating as a supersedeas and stay of execution
unless these be taken within that time.
Page 77 U. S. 277
Before the judgments here complained of were rendered in the
Supreme Court of Louisiana, the legislature of that state created a
new court, known as the Eighth District Court of New Orleans,
giving to
it exclusive original jurisdiction in cases of
injunction, and authorizing the removal of such cases into it from
other courts.
The parties denying the rights of the new company to the
exclusive privileges granted to it by the act of 1869, being, after
the writ of error from this Court to the supreme court of the
state, about to proceed to the landing and killing of cattle
&c., in disregard of the injunction, which, as they asserted,
was superseded by the writ of error taken from this Court, the
Attorney General of Louisiana, now intervening on what till now had
been a litigation between citizens in a question of private right,
moved in this new court in one of the cases here the subject of
writ of error to enforce the judgment rendered on appeal to the
supreme court of the state making perpetual the injunction
originally granted by the court from which the cause was removed;
but the new court refused to grant this motion on the ground that
the writ of error sued out to this Court (the Supreme Court of the
United States) operated as a supersedeas under the 23d section of
the Judiciary Act. But it did enforce the
preliminary
injunctions granted by those district courts which thought that
injunctions ought to be granted; and, in addition, upon a petition
in proceedings of an original character, instituted by the new
corporation, and afterwards adopted by the attorney general as
representing the state, to which proceedings none of the plaintiffs
in error in these present cases were parties, but which were
directed against the corporation of New Orleans and the board of
metropolitan police there, the new court ordered the city and the
board of police to prevent all persons except the new company from
landing or slaughtering cattle or selling animal meat for food.
In this state of things the plaintiffs in error in the five
several cases (here designated generally and by their popular name
as "The Slaughterhouse Cases," but of which
Page 77 U. S. 278
the specific names are also given at the beginning of the case,
on p. <|77 U.S. 273|>273) filed petitions in this Court
setting forth the general history of things below, the fact that
they had obtained writs of error &c., within ten days, so as to
remove the causes to this Court and to be a supersedeas to any
execution; that after this had been done the defendants in error,
to defeat the operation of the writs and in disobedience of the
supersedeas, applied to the Eighth District Court for orders of the
sort already described to prevent all persons (except the
defendants) from landing, keeping, or slaughtering any cattle; that
the orders were granted as asked for, and had been executed so as
to prevent the plaintiffs in error from having any benefit of the
supersedeas to which they were entitled, and so far as the orders
were on the original proceedings had in effect turned the
corporation of New Orleans and the metropolitan board of police
into sheriffs to enforce the judgments of courts which had been
superseded by the writs of error. All of which would appear, the
petitioners asserted, from the record of the proceedings in the
Eighth District Court, and the affidavits on file with the same,
submitted with the petition.
The motion in this Court therefore was for an order of
injunction and supersedeas to command the defendants in error and
the City of New Orleans, the metropolitan board of police, in no
manner to hinder or to prevent the plaintiffs in error from landing
or slaughtering animals, or of having, keeping, or establishing
landings or slaughterhouses, or for vending animal food in the
markets of New Orleans, as fully as they could before the passage
of the act of 1869, incorporating the defendants, or as the
defendants were allowed to do by the said act, and that a suitable
order might be made to the said Eighth District Court to prohibit
it from further proceeding in the premises.
Page 77 U. S. 284
MR. JUSTICE CLIFFORD stated the case in detail, and delivered
the opinion of the Court.
All persons and corporations, except the Crescent City Livestock
Landing and Slaughterhouse Company, are prohibited, by an act
passed by the Legislature of the State of
Page 77 U. S. 285
Louisiana, to land, keep, or slaughter any cattle, beeves,
calves, sheep, swine, or other animals, or to have, keep, or
establish any stock-landings, yards, pens, slaughterhouses, or
abattoirs at any point or place within the City of New Orleans or
the parishes of Orleans, Jefferson, and St. Bernard, or at any
place on the east bank of the river within the corporate limits of
the city, or at any point on the west bank of the same above the
railroad depot therein mentioned and designated.
Said act was passed on the eighth day of March, 1869, and is
entitled An act to protect the health of the City of New Orleans,
to locate the stock-landings and slaughterhouses, and to
incorporate "the Crescent City Livestock Landing and Slaughterhouse
Company." Though approved on the day mentioned, still the act did
not go into operation till the first day of June following, but it
appearing that the company created and organized under the act
intended to enforce the prohibition, the plaintiffs in the suit
first mentioned, on the twenty-sixth of May of that year, filed a
petition or bill of complaint in the Sixth District Court of New
Orleans against that company, alleging that for more than thirty
years past there had existed in the Parish of Orleans and the
adjacent parishes the lawful trade of butchering domestic animals
to supply with meat the markets of the city and the adjacent
parishes, and that the regular pursuit of that trade involved the
necessity of collecting, feeding, and sheltering such animals
before they were slaughtered, and of preparing and preserving their
meat for use or sale for food, and their hides, tallow, and other
valuable parts of the animals for the market; that a thousand
persons throughout that period have been engaged in that trade
without interruption and unmolested prior to the organization of
that company by any ordinance, regulation, or enactment from any
public authority; that they, the petitioners, are duly incorporated
under a law of the state, and that for more than two years they
have been and are in the lawful exercise of that trade and
employment, and that they have constructed and erected for that
purpose,
Page 77 U. S. 286
and now hold within those parishes, places for landing cattle
and for sheltering the same, and slaughterhouses for butchering the
animals for market, and have secured stalls and such other
privileges in the market places as are necessary and convenient to
the prosecution of the business; that the respondents, though they
must well know that the act is in violation of the Constitution of
the United States, openly declare that it is their intention to
executed its provisions and to compel the complainants to abandon
the objects of their incorporation, and to destroy the value of
their investments, and render it necessary for them to relinquish
their lawful pursuit and the prosecution of their legitimate
business.
Wherefore they pray that the respondents may be enjoined from
any such interference with the petitioners, and from interfering,
directly or indirectly, by suit or otherwise, with their customers
in purchasing, slaughtering, or butchering animals of any kind used
for meat, during the pendency of the suit, and also for process,
and that they, the complainants, may have judgment against the
respondents in damages for the sum of ten thousand dollars.
On the same day the respondents in that suit instituted in the
Fifth District Court of New Orleans a countersuit against the
complainants in the suit commenced against them in the Sixth
District Court of the same municipality. They allege in their
petition that
"the sole and exclusive privilege of conducting and carrying on
the livestock landing and slaughterhouse business in that city and
its environs in vested in their company, as is fully set forth in
the act of their incorporation; that the corporation named in their
petition, as respondents, are about to land, shelter, and protect
cattle &c., intended for slaughter, and to conduct and carry on
the livestock landing and slaughterhouse business within the limits
of the city as prohibited by law and in violation of their
exclusive rights and privileges. Wherefore they pray that the
respondents, the complainants in the suit pending in the Sixth
District court, may be enjoined and prohibited from landing,
stabling, and sheltering cattle,
Page 77 U. S. 287
&c., and other animals destined for sale and slaughter in
that city, and from conducting and carrying on the livestock
landing and slaughterhouse business within the limits of the
parishes described in their charter, and from molesting and
interfering with the petitioners in the exercise and enjoyment of
their exclusive rights and privileges; and they also claim damages
in the sum of four thousand dollars, and for general relief."
Judgment in the first suit was rendered for the petitioners, and
it was ordered that the injunction previously issued in the case
against the respondents should be made perpetual. Pursuant to the
suggestion of the respondents in that case, that there was error to
their prejudice in the final judgment of the Sixth District court,
it was ordered "that a suspensive appeal be granted herein to the
defendants, returnable to the supreme court of the state."
Hearing was also had in the suit commenced in the Fifth District
court by the Crescent City Livestock Landing and Slaughterhouse
Company against The Butchers' Benevolent Association of New
Orleans, and it was ordered, adjudged, and decreed in that case
that there by judgment in favor of the petitioners, and that the
corporation respondents, their president and members, be forever
enjoined and prohibited, as prayed in the petition.
Exceptions having been filed to certain rulings of the court, it
was also ordered, on motion of the respondents, that they, the
respondents, be allowed a suspensive appeal to the supreme court of
the state, as in the preceding case.
Separate suits were also commenced in the Seventh District Court
of the city against the Crescent City Livestock Landing and
Slaughterhouse Company by Hotair Imbau, and by the Livestock
Dealers' and Butchers' Association of New Orleans, as appears by
the transcripts filed here in those cases. Injunctions were prayed
and granted against the respondents in both of those cases, and
they, the respondents, were allowed suspensive appeals to the
supreme court of the state from the respective judgments.
Suit was also commenced in behalf of the state by the
Page 77 U. S. 288
Attorney General against Paul Esteben, in which it is alleged
that they have, without authority of law, formed themselves into a
corporation by the name of the Livestock Dealers' and Butchers'
Association of New Orleans; that they, as such corporation, are
about to lease or purchase a certain tract of land partly in the
city and partly in the Parish of St. Bernard, and that they are
about to commence the erection of buildings and structures thereon
for the purpose of collecting, landing, and sheltering beef cattle
designed for food, to be sold in the Parishes of Orleans,
Jefferson, and St. Bernard, contrary to the act of the General
Assembly of the state. Wherefore the petitioner prays that a writ
of injunction may issue restraining and enjoining the respondents
from using that tract of land for the purpose set forth in the
petition and from slaughtering any beef cattle or any other animals
intended to be sold for food in those parishes. Final judgment in
the case was rendered in favor of the state, and it was also
ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the respondents be forever
enjoined and restrained, as prayed by the petition. Attempt was
made by the respondents to secure a rehearing, but the motion was
denied, and on their petition it was ordered that they be allowed a
suspensive appeal to the supreme court of the state, as in the
preceding cases.
These several appeals, together with one other which it is
unnecessary to describe, were duly entered in the supreme court of
the state, and were, by the written agreement of the parties,
submitted for decision at the same time. They were submitted on the
twenty-eighth of January, 1870, and the opinion of the appellate
court was delivered on the eleventh of April following. Pursuant to
that opinion, the judgment of the Sixth District court, as rendered
in the first case, was reversed, and the directions of the supreme
court of the state were that the injunction granted by the
subordinate court should be dissolved, and that the demand of the
petitioners should be rejected with costs in both courts. They also
rendered a judgment of reversal in the same form and with the same
directions in the third and
Page 77 U. S. 289
fourth cases, being the two appeals from the judgments rendered
in the Seventh District court. Judgments of affirmance were also
rendered on the same day in the second and fifth cases, in the
order herein adopted, with costs of appeal.
Where the decision in the court below sustained the pretensions
of the Crescent City Livestock Landing and Slaughterhouse Company
the judgment of the subordinate court was affirmed, but the
judgment of the subordinate court was reversed in each case where
the decision of the subordinate court was adverse to those
pretensions, and the injunctions in those cases were dissolved.
Petitions for rehearing were filed by the losing parties, on the
twenty-sixth of April, 1870, and on the ninth of May following an
entry was made in each case, that the petition for rehearing was
refused. Writs of error to the state court were subsequently prayed
by the same parties, and on the thirteenth of May last the writs of
error were allowed by the Associate Justice of this Court allotted
to that circuit, and they were duly filed on the sixteenth day of
the same month, as appears of record.
Filed, as the writs of error were, within ten days from the date
of the entry refusing the petition for rehearing, it is claimed by
the plaintiffs that the several writs of error operate as a
supersedeas and stay execution, under the twenty-third section of
the Judiciary Act. Doubts were at one time entertained upon that
subject, but since the decision in the case of
Brockett v.
Brockett, [
Footnote 1] the
question must be considered as settled, in accordance with the
views of the plaintiff. [
Footnote
2]
Sufficient bonds were given in each of these cases, which is
necessary in every case, in order that the appeal or writ of error
may operate as a supersedeas and stay execution on judgments
removed into this Court for reexamination. What is necessary is
that the bond shall be sufficient, and when it is desired that the
appeal or writ of error shall operate as a supersedeas the bond
must be given within ten days from the date of the decree or
judgment. [
Footnote 3]
Page 77 U. S. 290
Suppose the writs of error were seasonably sued out and that
they operate in each case as a supersedeas and stay execution, as
provided in the twenty-third section of the Judiciary Act, still
the court is of the opinion that the several motions under
consideration must be denied upon other grounds, and for reasons
which are entirely satisfactory.
Controversies determined in a state court which are subject to
reexamination in this Court, are such, and such only as involve
someone or more of the questions enumerated and described in the
twenty-fifth section of the Judiciary Act, and which have passed to
final judgment or decree in the highest court of law or equity of a
state in which a decision in the suit could be had, as provided by
the constitution and laws of the state. Appeals were taken in the
cases before the court from the respective district courts, where
they were commenced, to the supreme court of that state before the
writs of error granted by this Court were sued out, and the decrees
or judgments brought here for reexamination are the final decrees
or judgments of the supreme court of the state in those cases.
Writs of error issued under the twenty-fifth section of the
Judiciary Act have the same effect as if the judgments or decrees
were rendered in a circuit court, and they operate as a supersedeas
and stay execution only where the writ of error is served by a copy
thereof being lodged for the adverse party in the clerk's office
where the record remains, within ten days, Sundays exclusive, from
the date of the judgment or decree. [
Footnote 4]
Such a writ of error is in the nature of a commission by which
the judges of one court are authorized to examine a record upon
which a judgment or decree was given in another court, and on such
examination to reverse or affirm that judgment or decree. When
regular in form, and duly served, the writ of error operates upon
the record of the court to which it is addressed in the case
described in the writ, and it has the effect to remove that record
into the
Page 77 U. S. 291
court granting the writ of error and to submit it to
reexamination, and the twenty-third section of the Judiciary Act
provides to the effect that where all the conditions prescribed in
that section concur in the case the jurisdiction of the court where
the record remained when the writ of error was sued out and served
shall be suspended until the cause is determined by or remanded
from the appellate tribunal. [
Footnote 5]
Exceptional cases arise where the judgment or decree given on
appeal in the highest court of a state is required by the law of
the state to be returned to the subordinate court for execution,
and in such cases it is held that the writ of error from this Court
may operate as a supersedeas if granted and served at any time
within ten days from the return entry of the proceedings in the
court from which the record was removed, but in all other cases the
writ of error must be issued and served within ten days from the
date of the judgment or decree in order that it may operate as a
supersedeas and stay execution. [
Footnote 6]
Appeals and writs of error do not become a supersedeas and stay
execution in the court where the judgment or decree remains by
virtue of any process issued by this Court merely as such, but they
are constituted such by the act of Congress when the conditions
prescribed in the twenty-third section of the Judiciary Act are
fulfilled. Where those conditions are complied with, the act of
Congress operates to suspend the jurisdiction of the court to which
the writ of error is addressed, and stay execution in the case
pending the writ of error and until the case is determined or
remanded. [
Footnote 7]
Power to issue a supersedeas to a judgment rendered in a
subordinate court does not exist in this Court where the writ of
error is not sued out and served within ten days from the
Page 77 U. S. 292
date of the judgment, except where the aggrieved party is
obliged to sue out a second writ of error in consequence of the
neglect of the clerk below to send up the record in season, or
where the granting of such a writ is necessary to the exercise of
the appellate jurisdiction of the court, as where the subordinate
court improperly rejected the sureties to the bond because they
were not residents of the district. [
Footnote 8]
Undoubtedly the writs of error in these cases were seasonably
sued out and served, and it is equally clear that the parties in
whose favor they were granted complied in each case with all the
conditions prescribed in the act of Congress as necessary to give
the writ effect as a supersedeas and stay execution, as contended
by the plaintiffs in the pending motions. Such proceedings operate
as a stay of execution, and it is well settled that if the
subordinate court, under such circumstances, proceeds to issue
final process, it is competent for this Court to issue a
supersedeas, as an exercise of appellate power, to correct the
error. [
Footnote 9]
Doubt upon that subject cannot be entertained where it appears
that the court to which the writ of error was directed has made the
return of the same to the proper term of the court, pursuant to the
commands of the writ, and the same has been duly entered on the
calendar. Objection is made, however, that the motions before the
court are premature, as the return day of the writ of error is the
first day of the next term, but we are of the opinion that the
court possesses the power to grant a remedy in such a case even
before the return day of the writ of error, where it appears that
the court to which it was addressed has made return to the same,
and that the plaintiff has filed in the clerk's office a copy of
the record duly certified as required by law.
Except in a case of urgent necessity the court, in the
exercise
Page 77 U. S. 293
of a proper discretion, might well decline to exercise the power
before the return day of the writ, but the better opinion, we
think, is that the jurisdiction for such a purpose attaches from
the time the party in whose favor the writ of error is granted has
complied with all the conditions prescribed in the act of Congress
to make the writ of error operate as a supersedeas and stay of
execution. [
Footnote 10]
Grant all this, still the Court is of the opinion that the
motions cannot be granted, as it is conceded that nothing has been
done by the supreme court of the state since the writs of error
were served and became a supersedeas inconsistent with the
prohibition contained in the act of Congress which gives the writs
of error that effect. Argument upon that topic is unnecessary, as
the affidavits filed in support of the motions affirm nothing of
the kind, nor do the plaintiffs set up any such theory.
Incorporated as the respondents in the motions are by the
general assembly of the state, they claim the sole and exclusive
privilege of conducting and carrying on the livestock landing and
slaughterhouse business within the limits described and the
privileges granted in the act giving them corporate powers. On the
other hand, the plaintiffs contend that the act granting them such
exclusive privileges is in violation of the Constitution of the
United States and void, and that they, the plaintiffs, have equal
right to establish a livestock landing and to erect slaughterhouses
and to conduct and carry on that business as if no such special
privileges had been granted to the respondents.
Injunctions were obtained by each party against the other in the
courts where the suits were commenced, but appeal was taken in each
case by the losing party to the supreme court of the state, where
the injunctions previously granted against the respondents in the
motions were dissolved and those previously granted against the
plaintiffs were made perpetual. Judgments of reversal on the one
side and of affirmance on the other were accordingly rendered by
the
Page 77 U. S. 294
supreme court of the state in the respective causes, as before
explained, and it is to those judgments and to that court that the
writs of error in question were directed and addressed. Those
judgments remained in the supreme court of the state when the
respective writs of error were sued out and became a supersedeas
and stay of execution, and the records show that that court has
neither reversed nor modified the judgments, nor any one of them,
nor has that court done anything to vary or impair the rights of
the parties or to carry the judgments into effect.
Subsequent to the commencement of these several suits, but
before the judgments were rendered in the Supreme Court, the
general assembly of the state created another court in that city,
called the Eighth District Court, and conferred upon that tribunal
the exclusive original jurisdiction of injunction causes, and also
made provision in the same act for the removal of such causes from
other courts to that jurisdiction.
Supersedeas writs of error having been sued out by the
plaintiffs to the respective judgments rendered in the Supreme
Court, they claimed that the injunctions against them granted by
that court were inoperative, and their theory was and still is that
the writs of error had the effect to dissolve or suspend the
injunctions granted by the supreme court of the state and to
restore and render operative the injunctions decreed in the
subordinate courts.
Governed by these views, the plaintiffs denied that the
respondents could claim to exercise any such exclusive privileges
as those described in their charter, and proceeded to make the
necessary preparations for carrying on the same business. Opposite
views were entertained by the respondent corporation and by the
state authorities, and especially by the attorney general, and for
the purpose of testing the question he moved in the Fifth District
Court that the fifth case embraced in the motions, as here
classified, should be removed into the Eighth District Court, and
the motion was granted.
Application was then made by him to the latter court to
Page 77 U. S. 295
enforce the judgment rendered on appeal in that case by the
supreme court of the state making perpetual the injunction
originally granted by the court from which the cause was removed,
but the court refused to grant the motion because, as the court
held, the writ of error sued out in the case operated as a
supersedeas.
Attempt is not made to call in question the correctness of that
decision, but the attorney general on the same day obtained a rule
in that court against all the respondents in that case except one
to show cause, if any, why they should not be punished for contempt
as having violated the injunction granted in the case before the
same was appealed to the supreme court of the state. Service was
made under the rule and the respondents appeared and were fully
heard, but it appearing that the respondents had acted under the
advice of counsel, the court refused to inflict any punishments.
Directions, however, were given to the sheriff in the form of an
order to enforce the preliminary injunction granted by the Fifth
District court.
Proceedings of an original character were also instituted by the
present respondents in the same district court in which they prayed
that the board of metropolitan police might be enjoined to prevent
all persons except the petitioners in that case from conducting or
carrying on the livestock landing and slaughterhouse business
within their chartered limits. Accompanying that petition was an
affidavit of merits, and upon that petition and affidavit an
injunction was granted as prayed.
Three days later, to-wit, on the sixth of June last, the
attorney general intervened for the state in the suit and adopted
the petition and prayed that the injunction might be made
perpetual. Various motions were made by parties opposed to the
proceedings to dissolve or modify the injunction, but they were all
overruled and denied by the court. No appeal was taken to the
supreme court of the state, nor does it appear that any attempt was
made by the respondents, in any form, to cause the proceedings to
be reexamined in the court of last resort. They regarded it as
unnecessary
Page 77 U. S. 296
to seek any such revision of the proceedings, as they insist
that the legal effect of the writ of error issued from this Court
to the supreme court of the state was to vacate the injunction
granted by the latter court and to continue in force the suspensive
features of the appeals allowed by the subordinate courts.
Beyond doubt, the appeal in the form granted by the subordinate
court operated as a stay of execution and suspended the
jurisdiction of the court to proceed further in the cause until the
same should be determined or remanded, but the supreme court
rendered a final judgment in the case and granted a perpetual
injunction.
Whatever conditions were annexed to the appeal in the
subordinate court were abrogated by the final judgment of the
appellate tribunal, as the appeal was then fully executed. Had no
writ of error been granted by this Court the plaintiffs, it is
presumed, would admit the correctness of that rule, but they insist
that the effect of the writ of error, if made a supersedeas, is
that it suspends the judgment of the supreme court and leaves the
judgment of the subordinate court in full operation during the
pendency of the writ of error.
Independent of statutory regulations, the term supersedeas has
little or no application in equity suits, as the rule is well
settled in the English courts that an appeal in chancery does not
stop the proceedings under the decree from which the appeal was
taken without the special order of the subordinate court. [
Footnote 11]
Proceedings are stayed in the courts of New York by appeal in a
chancery suit to the extent that if the party desires to proceed,
notwithstanding the appeal on the point from which the appeal was
taken, he must make application to the chancellor for leave.
[
Footnote 12]
Different rules upon the subject prevail in different
jurisdictions, but the act of Congress provides that appeals in the
federal courts shall be subject to the same rules, regulations,
Page 77 U. S. 297
and restrictions as are prescribed in law in case of writs of
error. [
Footnote 13]
Appeals do not lie from a state court to this Court in any case,
as the act of Congress gives no such remedy. Rules and regulations
prescribed by law of course control and furnish the rule of
decision, but it seems to be well settled everywhere, in suits in
equity, that an appeal from the decision of the court denying an
application for an injunction does not operate as an injunction or
stay of the proceedings pending the appeal. Neither does an appeal
from an order dissolving an injunction suspend the operation of the
order so as to entitle the appellant to stay the proceedings
pending the appeal, as matter of right, either in a suit at law or
in equity. [
Footnote 14]
Separate examination of the several cases before the Court as
respects the effect of the writs of error upon the judgments
removed into this Court may well be omitted, as the plaintiffs were
the losing party in all the appeals from the courts of original
jurisdiction to the supreme court. They prevailed in three of the
suits in the district courts, but they were defeated in the supreme
court in all the cases.
Viewed in any light, it is clear that a writ of error to a state
court cannot have any greater effect than if the judgment or decree
had been rendered or passed in a circuit court, and it is quite
certain that neither an injunction nor a decree dissolving an
injunction passed in a circuit court is reversed or nullified by an
appeal or writ of error before the cause is heard in this
Court.
Judgments and decrees of the circuit court are brought here for
reexamination, and so are the judgments and decrees of a state
court, and the only effect of the supersedeas is to prevent all
further proceedings in the subordinate court
Page 77 U. S. 298
except such as are necessary to preserve the rights of the
parties.
Reference is also made to the fifth section of the Act of the
second of March, 1793, as conferring power upon this Court to
enjoin the proceedings in the Eighth District Court, but the
conclusive answer to that suggestion is that there is no appellate
relation between a subordinate state court and the Supreme Court of
the United States, and where no such relation is established by law
the prohibition of that section -- "nor shall a writ of injunction
be granted to stay proceedings in any court of a state" -- applies
to the supreme court as well as to the circuit court. [
Footnote 15]
Final judgments or decrees in any suit in the highest court of
law or equity of a state in which a decision in the suit could be
had may be removed here for reexamination if they involve someone
or more of the questions specified in the section conferring the
jurisdiction and otherwise come within the rules which regulate
that jurisdiction. Appeals lie, it is conceded, from the district
courts of that state to the supreme court, as fully appears also
from the records in these suits, which shows to a demonstration
that this Court possesses no power to grant any relief to the
plaintiffs under the act of Congress on which these motions are
founded.
Motions denied.
[
Footnote 1]
43 U. S. 2 How.
238.
[
Footnote 2]
Rubber Co. v.
Goodyear, 6 Wall. 155.
[
Footnote 3]
Ib.
[
Footnote 4]
1 Stat. at Large 85.
[
Footnote 5]
Cohens v.
Virginia, 6 Wheat. 410;
Suydam
v. Williamson, 20 How. 437;
Barton
v. Forsyth, 5 Wall. 192.
[
Footnote 6]
McGuire v.
Commonwealth, 3 Wall. 386;
Gelston v.
Hoyt, 3 Wheat. 246;
Green
v. Van Buskerk, 3 Wall. 450.
[
Footnote 7]
Hogan v.
Ross, 11 How. 296;
United
States v. Addison, 22 How. 183;
Hudgins v.
Kemp, 18 How. 535;
Adams
v. Law, 16 How. 148.
[
Footnote 8]
Hogan v.
Ross, 11 How. 296;
Ex Parte
Milwaukee Railroad Co., 5 Wall. 188;
Stockton v.
Bishop, 2 How. 74;
Wallen v.
Williams, 7 Cranch 279;
Saltmarsh v.
Tuthill, 12 How. 389;
Hardeman
v. Anderson, 4 How. 640.
[
Footnote 9]
Stockton v.
Bishop, 2 How. 75.
[
Footnote 10]
Railroad Co. v.
Bradleys, 7 Wall. 575.
[
Footnote 11]
General Order, 15 Vesey 184;
Waldo v. Caly, 16
id. 209;
Willan v. Willan, 16
id. 216; 2
Daniels's Chancery Practice 1547.
[
Footnote 12]
Green v. Winter, 1 Johnson's Chancery 80.
[
Footnote 13]
2 Stat. at Large 244.
[
Footnote 14]
Hart v. Mayor, 3 Paige 381;
Graves v. Maguire,
6
id. 380;
Merced Mining Co. v. Fremont, 7 Cal.
131;
McGarrahan v. Maxwell, 28
id. 91; Louisiana
Code of Practice, art. 307;
Delacroix v. Villere, 11
La.Ann. 39;
White v. Cazenave, 14
id. 57;
Knabe v. Fernot, 14
id. 847.
[
Footnote 15]
1 Stat. at Large 335.
MR. JUSTICE BRADLEY, dissenting.
I dissent, with some diffidence, from the opinion of the Court
on the following grounds:
1st. That notwithstanding the act of Congress declares that a
writ of error shall be a supersedeas if certain conditions are
performed, the judgment of the court has the effect of leaving many
classes of decrees and judgments in equity, though appealed from,
entirely effective and operative between the parties, whereas the
writ of error ought to suspend
Page 77 U. S. 299
the effect and operation thereof until the case is heard in this
Court.
2d. That the judgment of this Court will have the effect to
allow subordinate state courts to evade the supersedeas of a writ
of error in all cases where the court of last resort remits the
record to them for execution. The judgment of this Court disclaims
all jurisdiction over the acts of the subordinate state courts, and
thereby, in my judgment, surrenders a very important power
necessary to the effective support of its appellate
jurisdiction.
3d. That the judgment of the court remits the practice on this
subject substantially back to the practice of the English courts of
equity, in which it is conceded that an appeal does not suspend
proceedings nor act as a supersedeas on the proceedings in the
court appealed from, and in effect departs from the act of Congress
which declares that a writ of error or an appeal in the federal
courts shall be a supersedeas.
4th. That the effect of the judgment of the Court is to disclaim
its just control over the parties to the record.
