This Court has not original jurisdiction of an action by a state
upon a judgment recovered by it in one of its own courts against a
citizen or a corporation of another state for a pecuniary penalty
for a violation of its municipal law.
This was an action of debt commenced in this Court by the State
of Wisconsin against a corporation of Louisiana. The declaration
was as follows:
"The plaintiff, The State of Wisconsin and one of the states of
the United States, now comes and complains of the defendant, The
Pelican Insurance Company of New Orleans, a corporation duly
organized and existing under the laws of the Louisiana, in a plea
of debt --"
"For that whereas the plaintiff, the said State of Wisconsin, on
the 16th day of September in the year 1886 at the County of Dane in
the said Wisconsin, and in and before the Dane County Circuit Court
in said state, such court being then and there a court of general
jurisdiction under the laws of said state, and by the consideration
and judgment of the said court, recovered against the said
defendant,
Page 127 U. S. 266
the said Pelican Insurance Company, a judgment in favor of the
said plaintiff for the sum of eight thousand five hundred dollars
damages, together with the further sum of forty-five dollars and
thirty-nine cents for costs and disbursements, amounting in all to
the sum of eight thousand five hundred and forty-five dollars and
thirty-nine cents, which said judgment still remains in that court
in full force and effect, and not in any wise modified, reversed,
set aside, appealed from, or otherwise vacated, and the said
plaintiff, the said State of Wisconsin, hath not obtained any
satisfaction upon the said judgment, but on the contrary the whole
thereof, together with interest thereon from said date of such
judgment, remains wholly unpaid and owing, whereby an action hath
accrued unto the said plaintiff, the said State of Wisconsin to
demand and have from and of the said defendant the said sum of
eight thousand five hundred and forty-five dollars and thirty-nine
cents, with interest."
"Wherefore the said plaintiff, the said State of Wisconsin,
saith that the plaintiff is injured and hath sustained damage to
the said amount of eight thousand five hundred and forty-five
dollars and thirty-nine cents, with interest, and therefore it
brings this suit."
Annexed to the declaration was a copy of the record of the
judgment therein described which showed that it was rendered on
default of the defendant, after service of summons on three
persons, each of whom was stated in the officer's return to be a
resident and citizen of Wisconsin and an agent of the defendant,
upon a complaint alleging that the defendant had done business in
the state for thirty months without having itself, or by any
officer, agent or other person in its behalf, prepared or deposited
in the office of the commissioner of insurance of the state annual
statements of its business, as required by the provision of § 1920
of the Revised Statutes of Wisconsin, and that the defendant had
thereby become indebted to the plaintiff in the sum of $15,000
according to that provision.
By that section of the Revised Statutes of Wisconsin it is
enacted that the president or vice-president and secretary of
Page 127 U. S. 267
each fire insurance corporation doing business in the state
shall annually within the month of January prepare and deposit in
the office of the commissioner of insurance a statement, verified
by their oaths, of the business of the corporation during the year,
and of the condition thereof on the 31st day of December then next
preceding, exhibiting various items, enumerated in the statute, as
to its capital stock, property or assets, liabilities, income and
expenditures, and any other items or facts which the commissioner
of insurance may require, and that
"for any failure to make and deposit such annual statement or to
promptly reply in writing to any inquiry addressed by the
commissioner of insurance in relation to the business of any such
corporation, or for willfully making any false statement therein,
every such corporation or officer so failing or making such false
statement shall forfeit five hundred dollars, and for neglecting to
file such annual statement an additional five hundred dollars for
every month that such corporation shall continue thereafter to
transact any insurance business in this state until such statement
be filed."
By the statute of Wisconsin of 1885, c. 395 (which took effect
April 12, 1885), § 1, it is
"made the duty of the commissioner of insurance to prosecute to
final judgment in the name of the state, or to compromise, settle
or compound, every forfeiture incurred by an insurance corporation
by its failure to comply with, or for its violation of, any law of
the state, of which he may be credibly informed,"
and by § 2,
"one-half of every sum collected, paid or received by virtue of
section 1 of this act shall be paid into the state treasury, and
the remainder shall belong to the commissioner of insurance, who
shall pay all expenses incurred in prosecuting all actions brought
to enforce the payment of such forfeitures, both in and out of the
state, and shall pay all expenses incident to the collection of
such forfeitures."
In the present action in this Court, the defendant filed several
pleas, the first of which was as follows:
"The defendant is a civil corporation organized under the terms
of the Revised Statutes of the State of Louisiana, §§ 638 to 688,
both inclusive, and is authorized to effect fire
Page 127 U. S. 268
insurances, and is subject to suit and required to determine its
domicile in the city aforesaid, and to maintain and designate an
officer of that company to receive there citations and other
judicial writs and notices. This duty has been fulfilled from the
date of the organization, and the charter of the company has been
recorded and published, as those statutes require, in the office of
the recorder of mortgages and a city paper, for the time defined in
the statute. No other designation has been made or required of the
defendant. The section 687 of the Revised Statutes of the United
States defines the original jurisdiction of this Court, and
designates as subjects for the exercise of that jurisdiction, where
a state is the complainant, citizens of states other than of the
plaintiff or complainant, and, that there should be no error on the
subject, the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States exactly describes all of those
who are citizens. They are natural persons born or naturalized
within the limits of the United States and having a residence in
any state determines the state in which he may have privilege or
immunity as a citizen. Moreover, the complaint of the plaintiff
discloses that this defendant is a fire insurance company, without
political character or interstate relations, and had its origin and
domicil in New Orleans, and that the said corporation had offended
the State of Wisconsin by imputed and alleged disobedience or
inattention to her statute laws, and had incurred heavy forfeitures
and penalties by such offenses to the sum stated in the demand, and
for the collection of which fines and forfeitures this suit has
been commenced in this Court. But the defendant says that the
statute of the United States above cited further defines the cause
for the exercise of original jurisdiction that the controversy
should be of a civil nature. It excludes from cognizance of this
Court the punitive statutes and divers litigations arising out of
the internal and peculiar or peevish regulations, accompanied with
fines, forfeitures, and arbitrary exactions, which a state may
impose upon citizens or corporations of other states from a just
cause, or from caprice or captiousness. The controversy must be of
a civil nature, and not of
Page 127 U. S. 269
the punitive nature as shown by this record. Wherefore this
defendant submits to this Court that the complaint of this
plaintiff does not show a cause within the original jurisdiction of
the court, nor within the terms of the statutes of the United
States."
To this plea the plaintiff filed a general demurrer, upon which
the case was set down for argument.
Page 127 U. S. 286
MR. JUSTICE GRAY, after stating the facts as above, delivered
the opinion of the Court.
This action is brought upon a judgment recovered by the State of
Wisconsin in one of her own courts against the Pelican Insurance
Company, a Louisiana corporation, for penalties imposed by a
statute of Wisconsin for not making returns to
Page 127 U. S. 287
the insurance commissioner of the state as required by that
statute. The leading question argued at the bar is whether such an
action is within the original jurisdiction of this Court.
The ground on which the jurisdiction is invoked is not the
nature of the cause, but the character of the parties, the
plaintiff being one of the states of the union and the defendant a
corporation of another of those states.
The Constitution of the United States, as originally
established, ordains in Article III, Section 2, that the judicial
power of the United States shall extend
"to controversies between two or more states, between a state
and citizens of another state, between citizens of different states
between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants of
different states, and between a state, or the citizens thereof, the
foreign states, citizens, or subjects,"
and that in all cases "in which a state shall be party," this
Court shall have original jurisdiction. The Eleventh Article of
Amendment simply declares that
"The judicial power of the United States shall not be construed
to extend to any suit, in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted
against one of the United States by citizens of another state, or
by citizens or subjects of any foreign state."
By the Constitution, therefore, this Court has original
jurisdiction of suits brought by a state against citizens of
another state as well as of controversies between two states, and
it is well settled that a corporation created by a state is a
citizen of the state within the meaning of those provisions of the
Constitution and statutes of the United States which define the
jurisdiction of the federal courts.
Kansas Pacific Railroad v.
Atchison &c. Railroad, 112 U. S. 414;
Paul v.
Virginia, 8 Wall. 168,
75 U. S. 178;
Pennsylvania v. Wheeling
Bridge, 13 How. 518.
Yet notwithstanding the comprehensive words of the Constitution,
the mere fact that a state is the plaintiff is not a conclusive
test that the controversy is one in which this Court is authorized
to grant relief against another state or her citizens, and a
consideration of the cases in which it has heretofore had occasion
to pass upon the construction and effect of these provisions of the
Constitution may throw light on the determination of the question
before us.
Page 127 U. S. 288
As to "controversies between two or more states." The most
numerous class of which this Court has entertained jurisdiction is
that of controversies between two states as to the boundaries of
their territory, such as were determined before the Revolution by
the King in Council, and under the Articles of Confederation (while
there was no national judiciary) by committees or commissioners
appointed by Congress. 2 Story on the Constitution § 1681;
New Jersey v. New
York, 3 Pet. 461,
30 U. S. 5 Pet.
284, and
31 U. S. 6 Pet.
323;
Rhode Island v.
Massachusetts, 12 Pet. 657,
37 U. S. 724,
37 U. S. 736,
37 U. S. 754,
38 U. S. 13 Pet. 23,
39 U. S. 14 Pet.
210,
40 U. S. 15 Pet.
233, and
45 U. S. 4 How.
591,
45 U. S. 628;
Missouri v.
Iowa, 7 How. 660, and
51
U. S. 10 How. 1;
Florida v.
Georgia, 17 How. 478;
Alabama v.
Georgia, 23 How. 505;
Virginia v.
West Virginia, 11 Wall. 39;
Missouri
v. Kentucky, 11 Wall. 395.
See also Georgia v.
Stanton, 6 Wall. 50,
73 U. S. 72-73.
The books of reports contain but few other cases in which the aid
of this Court has been invoked in controversies between two states.
In
Fowler v. Lindsey and
Fowler v. Miller,
actions of ejectment were pending in the Circuit Court of the
United States for the District of Connecticut between private
citizens for lands over which the States of Connecticut and New
York both claimed jurisdiction, and a writ of certiorari to remove
those actions into this Court as belonging exclusively to its
jurisdiction was refused because a state was neither nominally nor
substantially a party to them.
3
U. S. 3 Dall. 411. Upon a bill in equity afterwards
filed in this Court by the State of New York against the State of
Connecticut to stay the actions of ejectment, this Court refused
the injunction prayed for because the State of New York was not a
party to them, and had no such interest in their decision as would
support the bill.
New York v.
Connecticut, 4 Dall. 1, 3 [argument of counsel --
omitted]. This Court has declined to take jurisdiction of suits
between states to compel the performance of obligations which, if
the states had been independent nations, could not have been
enforced judicially, but only through the political departments of
their governments. Thus, in
Kentucky v.
Dennison, 24 How. 66, where the State of Kentucky,
by her governor,
Page 127 U. S. 289
applied to this Court, in the exercise of its original
jurisdiction, for a writ of mandamus to the Governor of Ohio to
compel him to surrender a fugitive from justice, this Court, while
holding that the case was a controversy between two states, decided
that it had no authority to grant the writ. And in
New
Hampshire v. Louisiana and
New York v. Louisiana,
108 U. S. 76, it
was adjudged that a state to whom, pursuant to her statutes, some
of her citizens, holding bonds of another state, had assigned them
in order to enable her to sue on and collect them for the benefit
of the assignors, could not maintain a suit against the other state
in this Court.
See also Cherokee Nation v.
Georgia, 5 Pet. 1,
30 U. S. 20,
30 U. S. 28,
30 U. S. 51,
30 U. S. 75. In
South Carolina v. Georgia, 93 U. S.
4, this Court, speaking by Mr. Justice Strong, left the
question open whether
"a state, when suing in this Court for the prevention of a
nuisance in a navigable river of the United States, must not aver
and show that it will sustain some special and peculiar injury
therefrom, such as would enable a private person to maintain a
similar action in another court,"
and dismissed the bill because no unlawful obstruction of
navigation was proved.
Id., 93
U. S. 14.
As to "controversies between a state and the citizens of another
state." The object of vesting in the courts of the United States
jurisdiction of suits by one state against the citizens of another
was to enable such controversies to be determined by a national
tribunal, and thereby to avoid she partiality, or suspicion of
partiality, which might exist if the plaintiff state were compelled
to resort to the courts of the State of which the defendants were
citizens. Federalist, No. 80; Chief Justice Jay, in
Chisholm v.
Georgia, 2 Dall. 419,
2 U. S. 475; 2
Story on the Constitution §§ 1638, 1682. The grant is of "judicial
power," and was not intended to confer upon the courts of the
United States jurisdiction of a suit or prosecution by the one
state of such a nature that it could not, on the settled principles
of public and international law, be entertained by the judiciary of
the other state at all.
By the law of England and of the United States, the penal laws
of a country do not reach beyond its own territory
Page 127 U. S. 290
except when extended by express treaty or statute to offenses
committed abroad by its own citizens, and they must be administered
in its own courts only, and cannot be enforced by the courts of
another country. Wheaton's International Law (8th ed.) §§ 113,
121.
Chief Justice Marshall stated the rule in the most condensed
form, as an incontrovertible maxim: "the courts of no country
execute the penal laws of another."
The
Antelope, 10 Wheat. 66,
23 U. S. 123.
The only cases in which the courts of the United States have
entertained suits by a foreign state have been to enforce demands
of a strictly civil nature.
The Sapphire,
11 Wall. 164;
King of Spain v. Oliver, 2 Wash.C.C. 429,
and Pet.C.C. 217, 276.
The case of
The Sapphire was a libel in admiralty,
filed by the late Emperor of the French and prosecuted by the
French Republic after his deposition, to recover damages for a
collision between an American ship and a French transport, and MR.
JUSTICE BRADLEY, delivering the judgment of this Court sustaining
the suit, said: "A foreign sovereign, as well as any other foreign
person, who has a demand of a civil nature against any person here,
may prosecute it in our courts." 11 Wall.
78 U. S. 167.
The case of
The King of Spain v. Oliver, although a suit
to recover duties imposed by the revenue laws of Spain, was not
founded upon those laws or brought against a person who had broken
them, but was in the nature of an action of assumpsit against other
persons alleged to be bound by their own contract to pay the
duties, and the action failed because no express or implied
contract of the defendants was proved. Pet.C.C. 286-290. The rule
that the courts of no country execute the penal laws of another
applies not only to prosecutions and sentences for crimes and
misdemeanors, but to all suits in favor of the state for the
recovery of pecuniary penalties for any violation of statutes for
the protection of its revenue or other municipal laws, and to all
judgments for such penalties. If this were not so, all that would
be necessary to give ubiquitous effect to a penal law would be to
put the claim for a penalty into the shape of a judgment. Wharton's
Conflict of Laws § 833;
Page 127 U. S. 291
Westlake's International Law (1st ed.) § 388; Piggott on Foreign
Judgments 209, 210.
Lord Kames, in his Principles of Equity, cited and approved by
Mr. Justice Story in his Commentaries on the Conflict of Laws,
after having said: "The proper place for punishment is where the
crime is committed, and no society takes concern in any crime but
what is hurtful to itself," and recognizing the duty to enforce
foreign judgments or decrees for civil debts or damages, adds
"But this includes not a decree decerning for a penalty, because
no court reckons itself bound to punish, or to concur in punishing,
any delict committed
extra territorium."
2 Kames on Equity (3d ed.) 326, 366; Story's Conflict of Laws,
§§ 600, 622.
It is true that if the prosecution in the courts of one country
for a violation of its municipal law is
in rem, to obtain
a forfeiture of specific property within its jurisdiction, a
judgment of forfeiture, rendered after due notice and vesting the
title of the property in the state, will be recognized and upheld
in the courts of any other country in which the title to the
property is brought in issue.
Rose v. Himely,
4 Cranch 241;
Hudson v.
Guestier, 4 Cranch 293;
Bradstreet v. Neptune
Ins. Co., 3 Sum. 600, 605; Piggott on Foreign Judgments 264.
But the recognition of a vested title in property is quite
different from the enforcement of a claim for a pecuniary penalty.
In the one case, a complete title in the property has been acquired
by the foreign judgment; in the other, further judicial action is
sought to compel the payment by the defendant to the plaintiff of
money in which the plaintiff has not as yet acquired any specific
right. The application of the rule to the courts of the several
states and of the United States is not affected by the provisions
of the Constitution and of the act of Congress by which the
judgments of the courts of any state are to have such faith and
credit given to them in every court within the United States as
they have by law or usage in the state in which they were rendered.
Constitution, Article IV, Section 1; Act of May 26, 1790, c. 11, 1
Stat. 122; Rev.Stat. § 905.
Those provisions establish a rule of evidence, rather than
of
Page 127 U. S. 292
jurisdiction. While they make the record of a judgment, rendered
after due notice in one state, conclusive evidence in the courts of
another state, or of the United States, of the matter adjudged,
they do not affect the jurisdiction either of the court in which
the judgment is rendered or of the court in which it is offered in
evidence. Judgments recovered in one State of the union, when
proved in the courts of another government, whether state or
national, within the United States, differ from judgments recovered
in a foreign country in no other respect than in not being
reexaminable on their merits nor impeachable for fraud in obtaining
them if rendered by a court having jurisdiction of the cause and of
the parties.
Hanley v. Donoghue, 116 U. S.
1,
116 U. S. 4. In
the words of Mr. Justice Story, cited and approved by MR. JUSTICE
BRADLEY speaking for this Court:
"The Constitution did not mean to confer any new power upon the
states, but simply to regulate the effect of their acknowledged
jurisdiction over persons and things within their territory. It did
not make the judgments of other states domestic judgments to all
intents and purposes, but only gave a general validity, faith, and
credit to them as evidence. No execution can issue upon such
judgments without a new suit in the tribunals of other states. And
they enjoy not the right of priority or lien which they have in the
state where they are pronounced, but that only which the
lex
fori gives to them by its own laws in their character of
foreign judgments."
Story's Conflict of Laws § 609;
Thompson
v. Whitman, 18 Wall. 457,
85 U. S.
462-463.
A judgment recovered in one state, as was said by Mr. Justice
Wayne, delivering an earlier judgment of this Court,
"does not carry with it into another state the efficacy of a
judgment upon property or persons, to be enforced by execution. To
give it the force of a judgment in another state, it must be made a
judgment there, and can only be executed in the latter as its laws
may permit."
McElmoyle v.
Cohen, 13 Pet. 312,
38 U. S. 325.
The essential nature and real foundation of a cause of action are
not changed by recovering judgment upon it, and the
Page 127 U. S. 293
technical rules which regard the original claim as merged in the
judgment, and the judgment as implying a promise by the defendant
to pay it, do not preclude a court to which a judgment is presented
for affirmative action (while it cannot go behind the judgment for
the purpose of examining into the validity of the claim) from
ascertaining whether the claim is really one of such a nature that
the court is authorized to enforce it.
Louisiana v. New
Orleans, 109 U. S. 285,
109 U. S. 288,
109 U. S. 291;
Louisiana v. St. Martin's Parish, 111 U.
S. 716;
Chase v. Curtis, 113 U.
S. 452,
113 U. S. 464;
Boynton v. Ball, 121 U. S. 457,
121 U. S.
466.
The only cases cited in the learned argument for the plaintiff
which tend to support the view that the courts of one state will
maintain an action upon a judgment rendered in another state for a
penalty incurred by a violation of her municipal laws are
Spencer v. Brockway, 1 Ohio 259, in which an action was
sustained in Ohio upon a judgment rendered in Connecticut upon a
forfeited recognizance to answer for a violation of the penal laws
of that state;
Healy v. Root, 11 Pick. 389, in which an
action was sustained in Massachusetts upon a judgment rendered in
Pennsylvania in a
qui tam action on a penal statute for
usury, and
Indiana v. Helmer, 21 Ia. 370, in which an
action by the State of Indiana was sustained in the courts of Iowa
upon a judgment rendered in Indiana in a prosecution for the
maintenance of a bastard child. The decision in each of those cases
appears to have been mainly based upon the supposed effect of the
provisions of the Constitution and the act of Congress as to the
faith and credit due to a judgment rendered in another state, which
had not then received a full exposition from this Court, and the
other reasons assigned are not such as to induce us to accept those
decisions as satisfactory precedents to guide our judgment in the
present case. From the first organization of the courts of the
United States nearly a century ago, it has always been assumed that
the original jurisdiction of this Court over controversies between
a state and citizens of another state or of a foreign
Page 127 U. S. 294
country does not extend to a suit by a state to recover
penalties for a breach of her own municipal law. This is shown both
by the nature of the cases in which relief has been granted or
sought and by acts of Congress and opinions of this Court more
directly bearing upon the question.
The earliest controversy in this Court, so far as appears by the
reports of its decisions, in which a state was the plaintiff, is
that of
Georgia v. Brailsford.
At February term, 1792, the State of Georgia filed in this Court
a bill in equity against Brailsford, Powell, and Hopton, British
merchants and co-partners, alleging that on August 4, 1782, during
the Revolutionary War, the State of Georgia enacted a law
confiscating to the state all the property within it (including
debts due to British merchants or others residing in Great Britain)
of persons who had been declared guilty or convicted, in one or
other of the United States, of offenses which induced a like
confiscation of their property within the states of which they were
citizens, and also sequestering, and directing to be collected for
the benefit of the state, all debts due to merchants or others
residing in Great Britain, and confiscating to the state all the
property belonging and debts due to subjects of Great Britain, and
that by the operation of this law, all the debts due from citizens
of Georgia to persons who had been subjected to the penalties of
confiscation in other states, and of British merchants and others
residing in Great Britain, and of all other British subjects, were
vested in the State of Georgia. The bill further alleged that one
Spalding, a citizen of Georgia, was indebted to the defendants upon
a bond, which by virtue of this law was transferred from the
obligees and vested in the state; that Brailsford was a citizen of
Great Britain, and resided there from 1767 till after the passing
of the law, and that Hopton's and Powell's property (debts
excepted) had been confiscated by acts of the Legislature of South
Carolina; that Brailsford, Hopton, and Powell had brought an action
and recovered judgment against Spalding upon this bond, and had
taken out execution against him, in the Circuit Court of the United
States for the District of Georgia, and that the parties to
that
Page 127 U. S. 295
action had confederated together to defraud the state. Upon the
filing of the bill, this Court, without expressing any opinion upon
the merits of the case, granted a temporary injunction to stay the
money in the hands of the marshal of the circuit court until the
title to the bond as between the State of Georgia and the
defendants could be tried. 2 Dall.
2
U. S. 402.
At February term, 1793, upon a motion to dissolve that
injunction, this Court held that if the State of Georgia had the
title in the debt (upon which no opinion was then expressed), she
had an adequate remedy at law by action upon the bond, but in order
that the money might be kept for the party to whom it belonged,
ordered the injunction to be continued till the next term, and if
Georgia should not then have instituted her action at common law,
to be dissolved. 2 Dall.
2 U. S. 415.
Such an action was brought accordingly, and was tried by a jury
at the bar of this Court at February term, 1794, when the Court was
of opinion, and so charged the jury, that the act of the State of
Georgia did not vest the title in the debt in the state at the time
of passing it, and that by the terms of the act the debt was not
confiscated, but only sequestered, and the right of the obligees to
recover it revived on the treaty of peace, and the jury returned a
verdict for the defendants.
3 U.
S. 3 Dall. 1.
It thus appears that in
Georgia v. Brailsford, the
state did not sue for a penalty or upon a judgment for a penalty
imposed by her municipal law, but to assert a title, claimed to
have absolutely vested in her not under an ordinary act of
municipal legislation, but by an act of war done by the State of
Georgia as one of the United States (the Congress of which had not
then been vested with the power of legislating to that effect) to
assist them against their common enemy by confiscating the property
of his subjects, and that the only point decided by this Court,
except as to matters of procedure, was that the title had not
vested in the State of Georgia by the act in question.
In
Pennsylvania v. Wheeling
Bridge Co., 13 How. 518, this Court, upon a bill in
equity by the State of Pennsylvania against a corporation of
Virginia, ordered the taking down or
Page 127 U. S. 296
heightening of a bridge built by the defendant over the Ohio
River under a statute of Virginia which the court held to have
obstructed the navigation of the river in violation of a compact of
the state, confirmed by act of Congress. 13 How.
54 U. S. 561.
See also Willamette Bridge v. Hatch, 125 U. S.
1,
125 U. S. 15-16.
All the judges who took part in the decision in the
Wheeling
Bridge case treated the suit as brought to protect the
property of the State of Pennsylvania. Mr. Justice McLean,
delivering the opinion of the majority of the Court, said:
"In the present case, the State of Pennsylvania claims nothing
connected with the exercise of its sovereignty. It asks from the
court a protection of its property on the same ground and to the
same extent as a corporation or individual may ask it."
13 How.
54 U. S.
560-561. So, Chief Justice Taney, who dissented from the
judgment, said: "She proceeds, and is entitled to proceed, only for
the private and particular injury to her property which this public
nuisance has occasioned." 13 How.
54 U. S. 589.
And Mr. Justice Daniel, the other dissenting judge, took the same
view. 13 How.
54 U. S.
596.
Mississippi v.
Johnson, 4 Wall. 475, and
Georgia v.
Stanton, 6 Wall. 50, were cases of unsuccessful
attempts by a state, by a bill in equity against the President or
the Secretary of War, described as a citizen of another state, to
induce this Court to restrain the defendant from executing, in the
course of his official duty, an act of Congress alleged to
unconstitutionally affect the political rights of the state.
Texas v.
White, 7 Wall. 700,
Florida v. Anderson,
91 U. S. 667, and
Alabama v. Burr, 115 U. S. 413,
were suits to protect rights of property of the state. In
Texas
v. White, the bill was maintained to assert the title of the
State of Texas to bonds belonging to her and held by the
defendants, citizens of other states, under an unlawful negotiation
and transfer of the bonds. In
Florida v. Anderson, the
suit concerned the title to a railroad, and was maintained because
the State of Florida was the holder of bonds secured by a statutory
lien upon the road, and had an interest in an internal improvement
fund pledged to secure the payment of those bonds. In
Alabama
v. Burr, the object of the suit was to indemnify the
Page 127 U. S. 297
State of Alabama against a pecuniary liability which she alleged
that she had incurred by reason of fraudulent acts of the
defendants, and upon the facts of the case the bill was not
maintained.
In
Pennsylvania v. Quicksilver
Co., 10 Wall. 553, an action brought in this Court
by the State of Pennsylvania was dismissed for want of jurisdiction
without considering the nature of the claim, because the record did
not show that the defendant was a corporation created by another
state.
In
Wisconsin v. Duluth, 96 U. S.
379, the bill sought to restrain the improvement of a
harbor on Lake Superior according to a system adopted and put in
execution under authority of Congress, and was for that reason
dismissed without considering the general question whether a state,
in order to maintain a suit in this Court, must have some
proprietary interest that has been affected by the defendant.
The cases heretofore decided by this Court in the exercise of
its original jurisdiction have been referred to not as fixing the
outermost limit of that jurisdiction, but as showing that the
jurisdiction has never been exercised or even invoked in any case
resembling the case at bar.
The position that the jurisdiction conferred by the Constitution
upon this Court in cases to which a state is a party is limited to
controversies of a civil nature, does not depend upon mere
inference from the want of any precedent to the contrary, but has
express legislative and judicial sanction. By the Judiciary Act of
September 24, 1789, c. 20, § 13, it was enacted that
"The supreme court shall have exclusive jurisdiction of
controversies of a civil nature where a state is a party, except
between a state and its citizens, and except also between a state
and citizens of other states or aliens, in which latter case it
shall have original but not exclusive jurisdiction."
1 Stat. 80. That act, which has continued in force ever since,
and is embodied in § 687 of the Revised Statutes, was passed by the
first Congress assembled under the Constitution, many of whose
members had taken part in framing that instrument, and is
contemporaneous and weighty evidence of its true meaning.
Ames
v. Kansas, 111 U. S. 449,
111 U. S.
463-464.
Page 127 U. S. 298
In
Chisholm v.
Georgia, 2 Dall. 419, decided at August term, 1793,
in which the judges delivered their opinions
seriatim, Mr.
Justice Iredell, who spoke first, after citing the provisions of
the original Constitution, and of § 13 of the Judiciary Act of
1789, said:
"The Constitution is particular in expressing the parties who
may be the objects of the jurisdiction in any of these cases, but,
in respect to the subject matter upon which such jurisdiction is to
be exercised, uses the word 'controversies' only. The act of
Congress more particularly mentions civil controversies, a
qualification of the general word in the Constitution, which I do
not doubt every reasonable man will think was well warranted, for
it cannot be presumed that the general word 'controversies' was
intended to include any proceedings that relate to criminal cases,
which, in all instances that respect the same government only are
uniformly considered of a local nature, and to be decided by its
particular laws."
2 Dall.
2 U. S. 431-432.
None of the other judges suggested any doubt upon this point, and
Chief Justice Jay, in summing up the various classes of cases to
which the judicial power of the United States extends, used
"demands" (a word quite inappropriate to designate criminal or
penal proceedings) as including everything that a state could
prosecute against citizens of another state in a national court. 2
Dall.
2 U. S. 475.
In
Cohens v.
Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, decided at October term,
1821, Chief Justice Marshall, after showing that the Constitution
had given jurisdiction to the courts of the union in two classes of
cases, in one of which, comprehending cases arising under the
Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States, the
jurisdiction depended on the character of the cause, and in the
other comprehending controversies between two or more states or
between a state and citizens of another state, the jurisdiction
depended entirely on the character of the parties, said:
"The original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in cases where a
state is a party refers to those cases in which, according to the
grant of power made in the preceding clause, jurisdiction might be
exercised in consequence of the character of the party, and an
original suit might be
Page 127 U. S. 299
instituted in any of the federal courts, not to those cases in
which an original suit might not be instituted in a federal court.
Of the last description is every case between a state and its
citizens, and perhaps every case in which a state is enforcing its
penal laws. In such cases, therefore, the Supreme Court cannot take
original jurisdiction."
6 Wheat.
19 U. S.
398-399.
The soundness of the definition given in the Judiciary Act of
1789 of the cases coming within the original jurisdiction of this
Court by reason of a state being a party as "controversies of a
civil nature" was again recognized by this Court in
Rhode Island v.
Massachusetts, 12 Pet. 657,
37 U. S. 722,
37 U. S. 731,
decided at January term, 1838.
The statute of Wisconsin under which the state recovered in one
of her own courts the judgment now and here sued on was, in the
strictest sense, a penal statute imposing a penalty upon any
insurance company of another state doing business in the State of
Wisconsin without having deposited with the proper officer of the
state a full statement of its property and business during the
previous year. Wisconsin Rev.Stat. § 1920. The cause of action was
not any private injury, but solely the offense committed against
the state by violating her law. The prosecution was in the name of
the state, and the whole penalty, when recovered, would accrue to
the state and be paid one-half into her treasury and the other half
to her insurance commissioner, who pays all expenses of prosecuting
for and collecting such forfeitures. Wisconsin Stat. 1885, c. 395.
The real nature of the case is not affected by the forms provided
by the law of the state for the punishment of the offense. It is
immaterial whether, by the law of Wisconsin, the prosecution must
be by indictment or by action or whether under that law a judgment
there obtained for the penalty might be enforced by execution, by
scire facias, or by a new suit. In whatever form the state
pursues her right to punish the offense against her sovereignty,
every step of the proceeding tends to one end -- the compelling the
offender to pay a pecuniary fine by way of punishment for the
offense.
Page 127 U. S. 300
This Court therefore cannot entertain an original action to
compel the defendant to pay to the State of Wisconsin a sum of
money in satisfaction of the judgment for that fine. The original
jurisdiction of this Court is conferred by the Constitution without
limit of the amount in controversy, and Congress has never imposed
-- if, indeed, it could impose -- any such limit. If this Court has
original jurisdiction of the present case, it must follow that any
action upon a judgment obtained by a state in her own courts
against a citizen of another state for the recovery of any sum of
money, however small, by way of a fine for any offense, however
petty, against her laws could be brought in the first instance in
the Supreme Court of the United States. That cannot have been the
intention of the convention in framing, or of the people in
adopting, the federal Constitution.
Judgment for the defendant on the demurrer.