1. A party to an action who has received his discharge in
bankruptcy pending the action has no further interest in the suit,
and therefore cannot bring a writ of error to a judgment rendered
against him before receiving such discharge.
2. The assignee of the bankrupt is the proper party to bring
error in such case.
3. This Court cannot entertain jurisdiction of a case from a
state court, because the judgment of that court impairs or fails to
give effect to a contract.
4. The judgment must give effect to some state statute or state
constitution which impairs the obligation of a contract, or is
alleged to do so by the plaintiff in error, or the case for review
here does not arise.
5. It is not sufficient in such case that the party in his
pleading or the counsel in argument assailed such statute on that
ground. And it must appear that the state court rested its judgment
on the validity of the statute, either expressly or by necessary
intendments.
6. Hence, if the judgment of the court would have been the same
without the aid of the special statutory provisions assailed by the
plaintiff in error, there is no case for review in this Court.
The Exchange Bank of Virginia was, by its charter, authorized to
issue notes of circulation, which were made a valid tender to the
bank in payment of any debt due to it. After the war of the
rebellion was over, a law was passed, February 12, 1866,
authorizing the insolvent banks of the state to make general
assignments for the benefit of their creditors. The Exchange Bank,
being in that condition, made such an assignment, and the assignee
sued Knox & Brothers, and also J. S. Knox, upon a negotiable
note. The pleas were
nil debet, tender and offset, and
these were the issues. In the progress of the case, the defendants
brought into court and tendered notes of the bank sufficient to
cover the debt, interest, and costs to that date, which they
pleaded in payment.
The Court of Appeals of Virginia, in the judgment which the
present writ was designed to bring before this Court,
Page 79 U. S. 380
held that this could not be done, and gave judgment accordingly.
From that judgment the case was brought here under an assumption
that it was within the 25th section of the Judiciary Act, which
provides that a final judgment of the highest court of a state,
"where is drawn in question the validity of
a statute .
. . of any state on the ground of its being repugnant to the
Constitution of the United States, and the decision is in favor of
such, its validity may be reexamined and reversed"
in this Court.
Page 79 U. S. 382
MR. JUSTICE MILLER delivered the opinion of the Court.
In the case of
Herndon v. Howard, it was decided that
the proper course when a party to a writ of error had been declared
bankrupt and an assignee duly appointed was for the assignee in
bankruptcy to make application to reinstate it and to be
substituted for the bankrupt as plaintiff in error. The
application, here, being made during the term, while the matter is
still within our control, we see no objection to the substitution
asked for, if the case is one which ought to be reinstated.
The motion on which the writ of error was dismissed last spring
was based on the allegation that no question is found in the record
which would give this Court jurisdiction to review the judgment of
the state court. As it would be useless to set aside the order of
dismissal merely to try that question again, on which the parties
were fully heard, we must now inquire if that objection is well
taken.
It is now argued by the plaintiff in error that the original
provision in the charter of the bank making its notes receivable
for debts due to it was a contract, and that the obligation of that
contract has been impaired. We have decided in the case of
Furman v. Nichol, that such a law does constitute a
contract, which attaches to the notes in the hands of anyone to
whom they may come, and we agree that if the
Page 79 U. S. 383
trustee of the bank is to be considered as occupying, for the
purposes of this suit, the place of the bank, that the judgment of
the Court of Appeals was erroneous.
But we are not authorized by the Judiciary Act to review the
judgments of the state courts, because their judgments refuse to
give effect to valid contracts, or because those judgments, in
their effect, impair the obligation of contracts. If we did, every
case decided in a state court could be brought here, when the party
setting up a contract alleged that the court had taken a different
view of its obligation to that which he held. As this Court said in
Railroad Company v. Rock, * it must be the
constitution, or statute, of the state which impairs the obligation
of a contract, or the case does not come within our
jurisdiction.
What statute of Virginia is supposed to affect unfavorably the
contract under which these notes were issued?
It is rather insinuated than fully declared, that the court gave
such effect to the act of February, 1866, under which the bank made
its assignment. But nothing in the record shows that the court
based its judgment on any such proposition. Nor is there anything
in that statute which by any possibility can be said to impair the
force given to those notes by the charter of the bank. The latter
statute merely authorized, in general terms, the insolvent banks to
make assignments of all their effects for the benefit of all their
creditors. This is a right which they probably had before. But
whether they did or not the statute contains no expression from
which the intent to affect the value of the notes of the bank as
payment for its debts can be inferred.
In the case of
Nichol v. Furman, the State of Tennessee
passed a law by which the notes of the bank receivable by its
charter for taxes were no longer to be so received, and this Court
held that this latter statute impaired the obligation of the
contract found in the charter. But there it was the statute which
worked the injury and it was the judgment of
Page 79 U. S. 384
the state court holding the statute valid which gave this Court
jurisdiction.
So in the case of
Bridge Proprietors v. Hoboken
Company. The Legislature of New Jersey had passed a law
authorizing the company to erect a railroad bridge at a certain
point where the complainants alleged that they had an exclusive
privilege for bridging the stream under a statute passed many years
before. If the first statute gave this exclusive right, it was
clear that the second statute impaired that right, and so impaired
the obligation of the contract. This we held to be a proper subject
of inquiry by this Court. But in the present case there can be no
pretense that the statute which authorized the assignment by the
bank impaired the obligation of the contract to receive its notes
for its debts, nor does the right or claim of the trustee to refuse
the notes in payment rest on this statute or on any construction
given to it by the court.
We are of opinion that nothing in the record before us shows
jurisdiction in this Court, and the motion to reinstate is, for
this reason,
Overruled.
*
71 U. S. 4
Wall. 181;
See also Railroad Company v.
McClure, 10 Wall. 511.
