The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-06-25

/ lltdL a. part VI the JUDICIAL OdtH II lIldL
you will do it, If the case involves a fed
| eral question 1t may be taken from the
! highest Appellate Court of any State to the
/ Supreme Court at Washington. No state
court ever did or ever can send a mandate
| to a United States court but it is familiar
| practice that the Supreme Court of the
| United States by its mandate directs the
! Supreme Court of a State to reverse It's
| Judgment. When any federal ques-
! ton is involved there is primary JuriSdic-
| ton in the United States court and the
| final jurisdiction is with the supreme Court
/ OF the United States, and that whether the
action Is begun in state court or in the
| United States Court.
AS bearing upon this proposition General
| Harrison read from an argument made in
| the United States Supreme Court by
| Matthew Carpenter.
Referring to a suggestion by Mr.. Kern
| that unless a federal question was involved
| the United States courts always followed
| the decisions of the State Supreme Court,
1T is not so. There is a further limita-
ton. Why did the Constitution Of the
United States give to this citizen Of New
York power to come into this court? The
learned attorney general says we evaded
the state courts A citizen of New York
who comes into this federal jurisdiction,
where the Constitution of the United States
invites him. to be told that he is evading
the jurisdiction of the state courts! L
might, with more force, say that the attor-
ney general was trying To eYade the just
jurisdiction Of this court. The very mo-
ment your Honor's decision is rendered
case is got up and railroaded to the Su-
preme Court of Indiana, and its decision
brought here to control this courts action.
Evading the jurisdiction OF the state court!
This is to us a court access to which for
the decision of every question that we nave
to litigate with a citizen of Indiana is given
us by the Constitution. This was
because it was recognized that the courts of
state would not be, or might not Pc
impartial tribunals for the trial of ques-
lions in which a citizen of ANOTHER state
was involved. Your Honor will
presently see as | cite the cases. that
where a citizen of New York asserts in
this State a contract right, and where there
was not at the time that right o,s aG,
in the State upon the question
the United States courts will pro
coed on their own opinions IN enforcing i nor or
essential that a federal question should be
involved If a question of contract is IN
volved, and if, when that contract right
accrued the State had not a settled line of
decisions as to that contract right they
cannot afterwards-and especially AFTER the
United States Court has acquired jurisdic-
ton to determine that rightly decision
control it.
Mr. Kern omitted the latest and most
whole question. He could not have cited 1t
in support of his views, but / thought pos
and TO discredit 1T. This case is al the
more instructive because it was a decision
Of the Circuit Court of Appeals for the
Sixth district of which his Honor Judge
Taft, who had heard the Sanford-Poe tax
case is a member. This case which is re-
ported in the seventy-sixth Federal Re
porter by the Circuit Court of Appeals
Judge Taft sitting as one of the three
judges-is Disseminated from the Sanford
case upon the ground that it involved con-
tract rights, and not question of a general
tax law of the State. 1t was very like the
upon street-railway property In Cincin-
nati-the trustee being a citizen of Ken
tucky-brOught suit in the United States
Court to restrain the State and the city
from certain construction of their con-
tract rights. The Supreme Court of the
State of Ohio had decided against the
CT o.
dinances of the city of Cincinnati and the
laws of the State of Ohio, and holding that
the streets had expired. And yet the Cir
cult Court of Appeals-Judge Taft sitting
Observation-Disclosures this case from the
Sanford case. In the case of Sanford VS..
Poe the constitutionality of the Nichols
tax law was involved. 1t laid a tax upon
telegraph and express companies and other
being a resident of Ohio, and who had ac-
cess to the United States Court, raised
question under provision of the Consti-
tuition which requires taxes to be equally
assessed. Judge Taft held--the courts of
the State not having passed upon it-that
the law was unconstitutional. Subse-
quently the Supreme Court of the State
held that it was constitutional, and Judge
Taft reversed his previous ruling. In de-
Gliding it in the Supreme Court Justice
Fuller said that the decision of the Ohio
Supreme Court was not within any recog-
nized exception to the general rule that the
construction of the state court of last
sort of state constitutions and statutes will
Court. In that case there was no contract
right of any kind asserted; there was no
federal question presented. The jurisdic
ton was wholly on the question of citizen
law and how it should be construed. The
party bringing the suit had no other right
or interest in that question than had any
citizen of Ohio. He simply sought to re-
strain the tax gatherer from forcing him
to pay a certain tax"
THE CINCINNATI CASE
General Harrison quoted at length from
the case just referred to-The Louisville
Trust Company VS.. Cincinnati, 76 Federal
Reporter, in which Judges Lurton, Taft
and Hammond sat-calling especial atten-
ton to the discrimination made between
that case and the Sanford case, and to the
reasons given for overrulng the State Su-
preme Court. Continuing, he said: Before
this mortgage trustee invoked the jurs-
diction of the United States Court for the
Sixth circuit there had been litigation in
the state courts-not as here, afterwards:
not case got up to be brought here
not a case by some party who is fined; not
case unreal or moot, but an actual bona
fde litigation between the city of Cincin-
natl and the street-railway corporation
claiming its rights in the streets, and it
had been decided against the street-railway
company by the Supreme Court of the
State of Ohio. And yet the United States
court OVerruled the state court upon the
ground that contracts and obligations have
been entered into before the courts of Ohio
had judicially determined the nonvalidity
of certain ordinances upon which those
contracts rested, or construed the mean
ing of the law under which the mortgageor
corporation was organized or the later act
charging its powers, holding that while
the State Supreme Court was entitled to
the highest respect as a tribunal of ex-
allied ability it could be given no greater
weight or respect than it's reasoning shall
demand, where the contract rights of a
citizen of another State are involved who
was neither party nor privy to the suit in
which that opinion was delivered
This opinion, If your Honor please. is
and it is statement of the law that we
think is controlling in this case Here are
contract rights founded upon the ordi-
nanceS of the city of Indianapolis and upon
the general street-railway law of the State
Those rights accrued before any decision
was rendered by the Supreme Court of In
diana, and those rights were adjudicated
in favor of the complainant before a case
was started to a Supreme Court of the
State of Indiana"
General Harrison referred briefly to the
Forsythe case, in which the United States
supreme Court had overruled the United
States Circuit Court and followed the deci-
Indiana, for the reason that the Supreme
Court found that not only had there been
a decision of the Supreme Court of the
State contrary to the opinion of the Cir
cult Court of Appeals at Chicago, but that
the question had become res adjudicata
between the parties"
In the case of Burgess VS.. Seligman''
continued General Harrison, the Supreme
Court of Missouri, after the United States
Court had decided the question made