Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/275/70.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 13:13:54+00:00

Document:
[275 U.S. 70, 71] Mr. Clifford L. Hilton, of St. Paul, Minn., for defendant in error.
Messrs. Eugene J. Hainer and Leonard A. Flansburg, both of Lincoln, Nob., for plaintiff in error.
A clause in a final judgment affecting costs has been held to be substantial, and not within the court's power to change after the term. Jourolman v. East Tennessee Land Co. (C. C. A.) 85 F. 251; Staude Manufacturing Co. v. Labombarde (C. C. A.) 247 F. 879. The distinction between cases, in which provisions as to interest or costs may be changed after the term and those in which they cannot be, lies in the nature and source of the alleged error. If it is made by the clerk in following or not following a rule of court, or for some other reason, the error may be remedied; but, if the action complained of was approved by the court, it is beyond recall. Here the judgment as to costs was the action of the court. See St. Louis and San Francisco R. R. Co. v. Spiller, 275 U.S. 156 , 48 S. Ct. 96, No. 577, October term, 1926, opinion announced to-day.
But we are not content to dispose of the motion on this ground alone, even though it be adequate, for the main question is one of much importance in the everyday practice before us, and ought to be decided now. The argument for the state is that this is a criminal case, that costs in criminal proceedings are only a creature of statute, and that this court has no power to award them against a state, unless legislation of the state has conferred it. This is the rule as to the state court in Minnesota. State v. Buckman, 95 Minn. 272, 278, 104 N. W. 240, 289. At common law the public pays no costs; in England the king does not; and the state here. it is said, stands in the place of the king. So it is insisted that, when the state is brought into this court as a defendant in error in a criminal proceeding, and the judgment of the court goes against it, costs cannot be awarded against the state, because it is a sovereign.
'The sovereignty of the government not only protects it against suits directly, but against judgments even for cost, when it fails in prosecutions.' The Antelope, 12 Wheat. 546, 550; United States v. McLemore, 4 How. 286, 288; United States v. Boyd, 5 How. 29, 51.
See, also, Nabb v. United States, 1 Ct. Cl. 173; Henry v. United States, 15 Ct. Cl. 162.
But is the state to be regarded as the sovereign here? This court is not a court created by the State of Minnesota. The case is brought by a writ of error issued under the authority of the United States by virtue of the Constitution of the United States. It is not here by the state's consent but by virtue of a law, to which it is subject. Though a sovereign, in many respects, the state when a party to litigation in this court loses some of its character as such.
For many years, costs have been awarded by this court against states. Under the judicial article of the Constitution, the original jurisdiction of this court includes suits to which a state is a party. There have been many boundary and other cases brought here by one state against another in which costs have been awarded against one of them and often against both. Usually they have been divided, but if the case proves to be a 'litigious case,' so called, all the costs have been assessed against the defeated party. State of North Dakota v. State of Minnesota, 263 U.S. 583 , 44 S. Ct. 208. State of Missouri v. State of Iowa, 7 How. 660, 681, shows that this has been the practice since 1849. A rule of this court as to the awarding and division of costs is, of course, not a statute, but such a rule seems to us to be within the inherent authority of the court in the orderly administration of justice as between all parties litigant, properly within its jurisdic- [275 U.S. 70, 75] tion, except the sovereign government. This view is supported by the history of rule No. 37 of this court in the January term of 1831, 5 Pet. 724. That shows that, against the dissent of Mr. Justice Baldwin, this court adopted a rule imposing costs against a defendant for a transcript of record in cases of reversal. The dissent was based on the ground that no costs could be imposed by this court by rule without specific authority of a statute.
He pointed out that this was the rule in the state of Tennessee, Mooneys v. State, 2 Yerg. (Tenn.) 578, but referred to an act of 1813 of that state, in which it was provided that in all criminal cases above the grade of petit larceny, where the defendant was acquitted, costs should be paid out of the treasury of the state. There were certain statutory prerequisites before they could be paid by the comptroller. The judgment of this court turned on the fact that such prerequisites had not been complied with. The language of the court indicated that costs could only be awarded in accordance with the statute of the state of Tennessee. We do not think that the case on its facts is an authority here. There was a peculiar and exceptional situation. The case was a prosecution by the state of Tennessee, and its trial by the state was bodily transferred to the environment of the Circuit Court of the United States. All incidents of a trial of the case in the state court were regarded as following the case in the federal court. The question of costs was, therefore, thought to be governed by the same rule as it would have been in the state court.
Without reconsidering the correctness of that ruling, we think the case here to be different. The costs here incurred are in a litigation brought by writ of error into [275 U.S. 70, 77] this court to test the validity under the federal Constitution of a statute of the state. The incidents of the hearing are those which attach to the regular jurisdiction of this court. We have had our clerk make an examination of our records reaching back to 1860. There were 129 cases examined, which do not include the boundary cases between states on the original docket already referred to. It thus appears that since that date the invariable practice has been when the judgment has been against a state in both civil and criminal cases to adjudge costs against it, under the rule which is not section 3, rule 29, of our present rules. That rule in different forms, and under a different number, has been in force since the February term, 1810. Dewhurst, Rules of Practice in the U. S. Courts ( 2d Ed.) 153. It has been in its present form since the January term, 1858. See St. Louis & San Francisco R. R. Co. v. Spiller, supra, opinion announced this day. We think that the rule construed by long practice justifies us in treating the state just as any other litigant, and in imposing costs upon it as such, without regard to the inferences sought to be drawn from United States ex rel. Phillips v. Gaines, supra.
If specific statutory authority is needed, it is found in section 254 of the Judicial Code, which first appeared in the Act of March 3, 1877, c. 105, 19 Stat. 344, and was re-enacted March 3, 1911 (chapter 231, 36 Stat. 1087, 1160 (28 USCA 352; Comp. St. 1231)). It provides that there shall be 'taxed against the losing party in each and every cause pending in the Supreme Court' the cost of printing the record, except when the judgment is against the United States. This exception of the United States in the section with its emphatic inclusion of every other litigant shows that a state as litigant must pay the costs of printing, if it loses, in every case, civil or criminal. These costs constitute a large part of all the costs. The section certainly constitutes pro tanto statutory authority to impose costs generally against a state if defeated.

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