Source: https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/88329/oxley-stave-co-vs-butler-county
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 14:52:43+00:00

Document:
should not extend to rights denied by the final judgment of the highest court of a state, unless the party claiming such rights plainly and distinctly indicated, before the state court disposed of the case, that they were claimed under the Constitution, treaties, or statutes of the United States. The words "specially set up or claimed" imply that, if a party intends to invoke for the protection of his rights the Constitution of the United States, or some treaty, statute, commission, or authority of the United States, he must so declare, and unless he does so declare "specially" (that is, unmistakably), this Court is without authority to reexamine the final judgment of the state court. This statutory requirement is not met if such declaration is so general in its character that the purpose of the party to assert a federal right is left to mere inference. It is the settled doctrine of this Court that the jurisdiction of the circuit courts of the United States must appear affirmatively from the record, and that it is not sufficient that it may be inferred argumentatively from the facts stated. Hence, the averment that a party resides in a particular state does not import that he is a citizen of that state. Brown v. Keene, 8 Pet. 115; Robertson v. Cease, 97 U. S. 646 , 97 U. S. 649 . Upon like grounds, the jurisdiction of this Court to reexamine the final judgment of a state court cannot arise from mere inference, but only from averments so distinct and positive as to place it beyond question that the party bringing a case here from such court intended to assert a federal right.
"But, in order to give this Court the power to revise the judgment of the state court on that ground, it must appear upon the transcript filed by the plaintiff in error that the point on which he relies was made in the New York court, and decided against him, and that this section of the Constitution was brought to the notice of the state court, and the right which he now claims here claimed under it. The rule upon this subject is clearly and fully stated in 59 U. S. 18 How. 511, 59 U. S. 515 , Maxwell v. Newbold, as well as in many other cases to which it is unnecessary to refer. This provision of the Constitution is not referred to in the plaintiff's bill of complaint in the state court, nor in any of the proceedings there had. It is true, he set out the act of the Legislature of New Jersey, the proceedings and decree of the Chancery Court of that state under it, and the sale of the property in dispute by the authority of the court, which he alleges transferred the title to the vendee under whom he claims, and charges that the assignment set up by the defendants was fraudulent and void for the reasons stated in his bill. But all of the matters put in issue by the bill and answers, and decided by the state court, were questions which depended for their decision upon principles of law and equity, as recognized and administered in the State of New York, and without reference to the construction or effect of any provision in the Constitution, or any act of Congress. This Court has no appellate power over the judgment of a state court pronounced in such a controversy, and this writ of error must therefore be dismissed for want of jurisdiction."
Our attention is called by the plaintiffs in error to Armstrong v. Treasurer, 16 Pet. 281; Bridge Proprietors v. Hoboken Co., 1 Wall. 116, 140 [argument of counsel -- omitted]; Chicago Ins. Co. v. Needles, 113 U. S. 574 , and Des Moines Navigation Co. v. Iowa Homestead Co., 123 U. S. 552 , as establishing the jurisdiction of this Court in the present case. Interpreting the general language in the opinions in some of these cases in the light of the facts presented by them, it is clear that no one of them supports our jurisdiction to reexamine the judgment now before us.

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