The Toledo and Ann Arbor Railway Company, which connected with
the Michigan Southern Railway in the carrying on of interstate
commerce, filed a bill in the circuit court to restrain the
Michigan Southern from refusing to receive its cars used in such
commerce and discriminating against it on the ground that it
employed engineers who were not members of the Brotherhood of
Locomotive Engineers. An injunction was issued, and a few days
later the Lake Shore applied for an order of attachment against
some of its employees who had refused to haul cars and perform
service for them, thus hindering them from complying with the order
of the court in respect to the Toledo and Ann Arbor Company. A rule
to show cause was issued and such proceedings had thereunder that
one of the employer was adjudged guilty of contempt, was fined, and
was ordered to be committed until payment of the fine. This
employee applied to the circuit court for a writ of habeas corpus.
The petition, after setting the facts forth, claimed that the
circuit court had no jurisdiction of the cause in which the
original order of injunction had been issued for reasons stated,
and further that it had no jurisdiction of the petitioner's person
because he was no party to that suit and had not been served with
process. The application was denied and the petition dismissed,
from which judgment the petitioner appealed to this Court.
Held:
(1) That while the general right of appeal from the judgments of
circuit courts on habeas corpus directly to this Court is taken
away by the Act of March 8, 1891, 26 Stat. 826, c. 517,
nevertheless, that right still exists in the cases designated in §
5 of that act.
(2) That the jurisdiction of the circuit court over the petition
for habeas corpus was not in issue, and was not decided adversely
to the petitioner, and this appeal therefore did not come within
the. first of the classes named in § 5 of the act of 1891.
(3) That the construction or application of the Constitution was
not involved in the sense of the statute, and that the petition did
not proceed on that theory, but on the ground of want of
jurisdiction in the prior case over the subject matter, and in this
case over the person of the petitioner.
(4) That the appeal must be dismissed.
On March 11, 1893, the Toledo, Ann Arbor and North Michigan
Railway Company filed its bill of complaint in the
Page 150 U. S. 394
Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of
Ohio against the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway Company
and other railroad companies which connected with complainant in
the carrying on of interstate commerce, charging that it was the
duty of defendants, under the Act of Congress of February 4, 1887,
and the amendments thereto, regulating commerce between the states,
to afford equal and reasonable facilities for the interchange of
traffic with complainant, and to forward cars and freight in the
ordinary transaction of its business without discrimination. The
bill further averred that the defendant companies had threatened to
refuse to receive from complainant cars offered by it, and to
deliver to complainant cars billed over its road for transportation
to their destination, and that, because complainant had employed as
locomotive engineers men who were not members of the Brotherhood of
Locomotive Engineers, those in the employment of defendants had
refused to handle cars to be interchanged with complainant's
railroad; that the defendant companies offered to other companies
free interchange of traffic, but refused to transact business with
complainant, thereby discriminating illegally against it, and
complainant charged that irreparable damage would result if
defendants carried out their threats, and prayed for an
injunction.
On March 11, an injunction was granted restraining, among
others, the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Company, its officers,
servants, and employees from refusing to offer and extend to
complainant equal facilities for the interchange of traffic on
interstate business, and to receive from that company cars billed
from points in one state to points in another state, offered by
complainant to defendant companies, and to deliver in like manner
to complainant cars billed over complainant's line from points in
one state to points in other states. March 18, the Lake Shore and
Michigan Southern Company filed its application for an order of
attachment against certain engineers and firemen in its service,
and among them James Lennon, as being in contempt of the
restraining order by refusing to haul cars and perform
Page 150 U. S. 395
service, and thereby preventing compliance with that order by
the company. A rule to show cause was issued, and such proceedings
were thereafter had that Lennon was adjudged guilty of contempt and
ordered to pay a fine of fifty dollars and costs and stand
committed until they should be paid, and upon his refusal was
committed to the custody of the United States Marshal for the
Northern District of Ohio, whereupon an application for a writ of
habeas corpus to release him from such custody was made to the
Circuit Court for the Northern District of Ohio.
The petition represented that Lennon was unlawfully held in
custody and restrained of his liberty in violation of the
Constitution and laws of the United States, under the order of the
circuit court, which order was made in the cause heretofore
referred to, and copies of the bill, the restraining order, the
application of the railway company for the attachment, the order to
show cause, the order in the matter of contempt, and the evidence
on the application for the attachment in that cause were annexed as
exhibits. The petition then proceeded thus:
"Your petitioner further states and alleges, as he is advised,
that the said circuit court had no jurisdiction or lawful authority
to cause the arrest of your petitioner nor to proceed against him
in manner as aforesaid, and that the said pretended order and
judgment whereby your petitioner was committed to the custody of
the said marshal and whereby he is held in custody of the said
marshal and imprisoned and restrained of his liberty were and are
wholly without authority of law and void."
"Said order was issued in a suit whereof the said circuit court
had no jurisdiction because the complainant and one of the
defendants were at the time of the filing of the said bill of
complaint, and ever since have been, citizens of the same state,
to-wit, the State of Michigan, and which did not arise under the
Constitution or laws of the United States."
"Said circuit court had no jurisdiction of the person of your
petitioner, because he was not a party to the said suit, nor was he
served with any process of subpoena notifying him
Page 150 U. S. 396
of the same, nor did he have notice of the application made by
the complainant for the mandatory injunction, nor was he served by
the officers of the court with the said order of injunction, nor
did he have any notice whatever of the issuing of the said order of
injunction by the circuit court, nor of the contents of said order,
before the doing of the acts alleged to have been in contempt of
said order."
"Said circuit court was also without jurisdiction to make the
order aforesaid, because it was beyond the jurisdiction of a court
of equity to compel the performance of a personal contract for
service and to interfere by mandatory injunction with the contract
by which the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway Company hired
your petitioner as its servant."
And the petition concluded with the usual prayer for the
writ.
Upon hearing, the application was denied and the petition
dismissed, from which order an appeal was prayed, allowed, and
perfected to this Court, and the circuit court then made the
following certificate:
"The questions certified to the supreme court for its decision
are the questions of jurisdiction presented by the petition herein
filed, to-wit:"
"1. Is the suit in which the order was made one arising under
the Constitution or laws of the United States?"
"2. Did the court have jurisdiction of the person of the
petitioner by reason of his having had sufficient notice of the
proceedings and orders set out in the petition?"
"3. Was it beyond the jurisdiction of a court of equity to issue
the orders made in said case?"
The opinions of the circuit court upon the motion for an
injunction and upon the application for the attachment will be
found reported in 54 F. 730, 746.
Page 150 U. S. 397
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER delivered the opinion of the Court.
We had occasion in
Cross v. Burke, 146 U. S.
82, to examine the various statutes in reference to
appeals to this Court from judgments of circuit courts on habeas
corpus. The question there was whether this Court had jurisdiction
to review judgments of the Supreme Court of the District of
Columbia on habeas corpus by reason of section 846 of the Revised
Statutes of the District, which provided that final judgments,
orders, or decrees of the Supreme Court of the District might be
reexamined or reversed or affirmed by this Court upon writ of error
or appeal
"in the same cases and in like manner as provided by law in
reference to the final judgments, orders or decrees of the circuit
courts of the United States,"
and we held that such an appeal would not lie in view of the
provisions of the Act of Congress of March 3, 1885, entitled "An
act regulating appeals from the Supreme Court of the District of
Columbia and the supreme courts of the several territories." 23
Stat. 443, c. 355. That act did not apply to criminal cases, but
was applicable to all judgments or decrees in suits at law or in
equity in which there was a pecuniary matter in dispute, and
inhibited any appeal or writ of error therefrom, except as therein
stated, and as a proceeding in habeas corpus is a civil, and not a
criminal, proceeding, and the matter in dispute had no money value
which could be calculated and ascertained, the conclusion was that
we could not entertain jurisdiction. But inasmuch as the final
judgments of the Supreme Court of the District could not be
reexamined here except in the same cases and in like manner as the
final judgments of the circuit courts of the United States, we
added that
"it may also be noted that under the Judiciary Act of March 3,
1891, 26 Stat. 826, 828, c. 417, § 5, appeals from decrees of
circuit courts on habeas corpus can no longer be taken directly to
this Court in cases like that at bar, but only in the classes
mentioned in the fifth section of that act."
This observation indicated another ground upon which the case
might have been disposed of, and was not made without
consideration.
Page 150 U. S. 398
By the fourth section of the Judiciary Act of March 3, 1891, it
was provided that
"A review, by appeal, by writ of error, or otherwise, from the
existing circuit courts shall be had only to the Supreme Court of
the United States or in the circuit courts of appeals hereby
established, according to the provisions of this act regulating the
same."
Section 5 defined the cases in which appeals or writs of error
might be taken from the circuit courts directly to this Court, and
by the sixth section, the circuit courts of appeals were vested
with appellate jurisdiction to review final decisions in the
circuit courts "in all cases other than those provided for in the
preceding section of this act, unless otherwise provided by law."
Section 14 expressly repealed all acts and parts of acts relating
to appeals or writs of error inconsistent with sections 5 and 6,
and we remarked in
Lau Ow Bew v. United States,
144 U. S. 47, that
the words, "unless otherwise provided by law" were manifestly
inserted in the sixth section
"out of abundant caution in order that any qualification of the
jurisdiction by contemporaneous or subsequent acts should not be
construed as taking it away except when expressly so provided.
Implied repeals were thereby intended to be guarded against. To
hold that the words referred to prior laws would defeat the purpose
of the act and be inconsistent with its context and its repealing
clause."
By section 763 of the Revised Statutes, it was provided that an
appeal to the circuit court might be taken from decisions on habeas
corpus in the case of any person alleged to be restrained of his
liberty in violation of the Constitution or of any law or treaty of
the United States, and in the case of the subjects or citizens of
foreign states, committed, confined, or in custody as therein set
forth, and by section 764, as amended by Act of Congress of March
3, 1885, 23 Stat. 437, c. 353, an appeal to this Court from the
circuit court was provided for. Section 765 referred to the terms,
regulations, and orders on and under which appeals should be taken,
and section 766 prescribed that, pending the proceedings or appeal
"in the cases mentioned in the three preceding section," and until
final judgment therein, and after final judgment of discharge,
Page 150 U. S. 399
there could be no valid state proceedings in interference with
the same matter. By Act of Congress of March 3, 1893, 27 Stat. 751,
c. 226, section 766 was amended by adding thereto the following
words: "
Provided that no such appeal shall be had or
allowed after six months from the date of the judgment or order
complained of." And it is argued that if sections 763, 764, and 765
had been repealed by the Judiciary Act of March 3, 1891, this
amendment would have been meaningless, and that if it had been
intended that under that act appeals in habeas corpus were to be
taken from the circuit court to the circuit court of appeals, the
limitation of six months prescribed by the amendment would have
been unnecessary because that limitation was already provided for
in section 12 of the act, and that therefore it must be concluded
from the amendment that Congress regarded the sections specially
providing for appeals on habeas corpus as unrepealed by the Act of
March 3, 1891. We do not concur in this view. While the right of
appeal from the judgments of circuit courts on habeas corpus
directly to this Court in all cases is taken away by the Act of
March 3, 1891, that right still exists in the cases designated in
section 5 of that act, and upon such appeals the amendment may
operate.
In
Nishimura Ekiu v. United States, 142 U.
S. 651, jurisdiction of an appeal on habeas corpus
directly from the circuit court was taken, as it was in
Horner
v. United States (No. 2), 143 U. S. 570,
upon the ground that the constitutionality of a law of the United
States was drawn in question, and this would be so in any case that
involves, within the intent and meaning of the statute, the
construction or application of the Constitution of the United
States or where the constitution or law of a state was claimed to
be in contravention of the Constitution and the disposition of the
case turned upon such Constitution or law. These would be cases
within the classes enumerated in section 5, but the only one of
those classes within which it seems to have been contended, when
this appeal was taken, that this case fell is the first class,
which is composed of those cases
"in which the jurisdiction of the court is in issue; in such
case the question of jurisdiction
Page 150 U. S. 400
alone shall be certified from the court below to the Supreme
Court for decision."
And, allowing the appeal to this Court on that ground, the
circuit court certified certain questions to this Court "as
questions of jurisdiction presented by the petition herein filed."
But these questions relate not to the question of the jurisdiction
of the circuit court in this matter of habeas corpus, but to the
jurisdiction of that court in the case of the Toledo, Ann Arbor and
North Michigan Railroad Company against the Lake Shore and Michigan
Southern Railway Company and others, in which the writ of
injunction was issued and the order fining Lennon for contempt was
made.
This is not an application to us to issue the writ of habeas
corpus in the exercise of appellate jurisdiction, accompanied by a
writ of certiorari to bring up the record and proceedings of the
court below, though even then the writ is not to be used to perform
the office of a writ of error or appeal.
In re Tyler,
149 U. S. 164. It
is a direct appeal from the judgment of the circuit court on habeas
corpus, in reaching which that court considered the questions
certified; but the jurisdiction of the circuit court over the
petition for habeas corpus was not in issue, and a decision in
respect thereof was not rendered against appellant, but, on the
contrary, jurisdiction was entertained.
Granted, as contended, that the jurisdiction to discharge the
prisoner in this case depended upon a want of jurisdiction to
commit him in the other, yet the jurisdiction invoked by the
petitioner was the jurisdiction to remand as well as to discharge,
or, in other words, the power to hear and to determine whether he
was lawfully held in custody or not.
This appeal therefore as ruled in
Carey v. Texas &
Houston Central Railway, ante, and for the reasons therein
given, does not come within the first of the classes specified in
the fifth section.
Nor can the attempt be successfully made to bring the case
within the class of cases in which the construction or application
of the Constitution is involved, in the sense of the statute, on
the contention that the petitioner was deprived of his liberty
Page 150 U. S. 401
without due process of law. The petition does not proceed on any
such theory, but entirely on the ground of want of jurisdiction in
the prior case over the subject matter and over the person of
petitioner, in respect of inquiry into which the jurisdiction of
the circuit court was sought. If, in the opinion of that court, the
restraining order had been absolutely void, or the petitioner were
not bound by it, he would have been discharged, not because he
would otherwise be deprived of due process, but because of the
invalidity of the proceedings for want of jurisdiction. The opinion
of the circuit court was that jurisdiction in the prior suit and
proceedings existed, and the discharge was refused, but an appeal
from that judgment directly to this Court would not, therefore, lie
on the ground that the application of the Constitution was involved
as a consequence of an alleged erroneous determination of the
questions actually put in issue by the petitioner.
Appeal dismissed.
