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Timestamp: 2017-12-11 18:48:05
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Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 5', '§ 6', '§ 2', '§ 3', '§ 2', '§ 5', '§ 6', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 80']

UNITED STATES V. RICE, 327 U. S. 742 (1946) - US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE
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(b) Section 3 of the Act of April 12, 1926, does not confer upon the Government any right of review of an order remanding a cause chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Following the service upon the Superintendent of the Five Civilized Tribes of notice of the pendency of the suit in the county court, the United States timely filed its chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
But the only manner in which we, as an appellate court, can decide a controversy brought here by writ of error or appeal is by affirming, reversing, or modifying the order or judgment before us for review. It may be doubted whether the statute contemplates our going beyond the certified question to decide a case or controversy not within our original jurisdiction, and which, since no inferior court has decided it, could not be brought here on appeal. But we need not resolve the doubt as to our power here, for, as will presently appear, the answer which we give to the question certified is dispositive of the whole case before the Circuit Court of Appeals, making it unnecessary to express an opinion on any other issue which the record might present, or to order the record to be filed here. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Before the Judiciary Act of March 3, 1875, 18 Stat. 470, 472, an order of remand was deemed to be not reviewable by appeal or writ of error, because the order was not final. Railroad Co. v. Wiswall, 23 Wall. 507; In re Pennsylvania Co., 137 U. S. 451. But § 5 of the Act of 1875 expressly authorized the review of an order of remand by appeal or writ of error "in any suit" removed from a state court. This provision was repealed by § 6 of the Act of 1887, supra, and to make doubly certain, § 2, supra, specifically chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The enactment of § 3 of the 1926 Act, without more, did not confer upon the Government any right of appeal from an order remanding a cause removed under that Act. We cannot say that, under the Act of 1926, standing alone, the right of appeal from an order of remand stands on any different footing than it did under any other statute authorizing removal before the enactment of the 1875 Act, or that the order of remand is any less final in the case of the Government than in the case of an individual. Each loses, by the order, such right as there may be to litigate the case in the federal courts on removal, but both retain such rights as they may have to continue the litigation in the state court or to bring an independent suit in the federal courts. To whatever extent the Government may be excluded from the operation of a statute in which it is not named, cf. United States v. Stevenson, 215 U. S. 190, 215 U. S. 197, with United States v. California, 297 U. S. 175, 297 U. S. 186, it is clear that the United States cannot assert, by virtue of its sovereignty, a right of appeal which no statute has conferred, or which, if conferred, has been abolished. Not only was no such right of appeal conferred by the Act of 1926, but, we think, as will presently appear, that the provisions of § 2 of the Act of 1887 denying an appeal from an order remanding a case removed under the Act of 1926 denied the right to review by mandamus as well.
Before the enactment of the Act of 1875, it had been suggested that, although orders of remand were not appealable, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
because nonfinal, they might be reviewed by mandamus. 90 U. S. 453; Employers Reinsurance Corp. v. Bryant, 299 U. S. 374, 299 U. S. 378. After the right of appeal from such an order was conferred in all removal cases by § 5 of the Act of 1875, the question arose whether there could be review by mandamus of an order denying a motion to remand. This was answered in the negative on the ground that the right to appeal given by the 1875 Act was limited to orders of remand. Hence, resort could not be had to mandamus to perform the office of a writ of error which Congress had withheld in the case of an order denying remand. Ex parte Hoard, 105 U. S. 578; Ex parte Harding, 219 U. S. 363, 219 U. S. 364; Ex parte Roe,@ 234 U. S. 70. In all these cases, it was pointed out that the mode of review of an order denying remand is by appeal from the final judgment in the suit in which the remand is denied.
Section 5 of the Judiciary Act of 1875 which, for the first time, authorized review of an order of remand by writ of error or appeal was, by its terms, made applicable generally to "any suit" removed from a state court to a federal circuit (now district) court. It authorized the circuit court to remand the cause for want of jurisdiction, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
and provided that the order of remand should be reviewable by appeal. This section was repealed by § 6 of the 1887 Act, and § 2 of that Act substituted for the repealed provision governing appeals a new provision which was, in terms, likewise extended to orders of remand "whenever any cause shall be removed from any State court." Section 6, together with this substituted provision, explicitly withdrew the right of appeal and writ of error in all cases in which it had been previously allowed by Section 5 -- that is, in all cases removed from state courts under any statute authorizing removal. See Employers Reinsurance Corp. v. Bryant, supra, 299 U. S. 380-381.
Congress, by the adoption of these provisions, as thus construed, established the policy of not permitting interrupting of the litigation of the merits of a removed cause by prolonged litigation of questions of jurisdiction of the district court to which the cause is removed. This was accomplished by denying any form of review of an order of remand, and, before final judgment, of an order denying remand. In the former case, Congress has directed that, upon the remand, the litigation should proceed in the state chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
court from which the cause was removed. It may be arguable as a matter of policy that, in giving the Government the right to intervene and remove a cause from a state court, it should also have been given the right, not allowed to private litigants, to have orders of remand reviewed in the appellate courts. But the Congressional policy of avoiding interruption of the litigation of the merits of removed causes, properly begun in state courts, is as pertinent to those removed by the United States as by any other suitor, see United States v. California, supra, 297 U. S. 186, and we think it plain that the Act of 1926 did not confer any such right of review, and that the Act of 1887 intended to withhold it in all cases of removal from state courts.
As we have already indicated, and as the legislative history shows, these provisions of the Act of 1887 were intended to be applicable not only to remand orders made in suits removed under the Act of 1887, but to orders of remand made in cases removed under any other statutes as well. Cole v. Garland, 107 F.7d 9, dismissed on appeal, 183 U.S. 693, approved in Gay v. Ruff, 292 U. S. 25, 292 U. S. 29, note 5; see also Employers Reinsurance Corp. v. Bryant, supra, 299 U. S. 380-381. It was so held with respect to the Act of 1926 in United States v. Fixico, 115 F.2d 389.
Nothing in the Act of 1926 purports to impair or restrict the application of § 2 of the 1887 Act, thus construed, to orders of remand made under 28 U.S.C. § 80, in cases removed under the 1926 Act. Congress, in enacting the 1926 Act, not only failed to include in it any provision modifying what had been for forty years the established practice of denying review of orders remanding causes removed from state courts, but it must be taken to have been aware of the universality of that practice, and to have been content that, as established by the 1887 Act, it should apply to cases removed under the 1926 Act. Statutory chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
language and objective, thus appearing with reasonable clarity, are not to be overcome by resort to a mechanical rule of construction, whose function is not to create doubts, but to resolve them when the real issue or statutory purpose is otherwise obscure. United States v. California, supra, 297 U. S. 186.
The Act of April 10, 1926, 44 Stat. 239, has two main purposes. It provides the machinery for bringing in the United States where the property interests of a restricted Indian of the Five Civilized Tribes are being litigated in either the federal or the state courts. This was done so that all interested parties might be concluded by one proceeding and titles to these Indian lands stabilized. * H.Rep. No.322, 69th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 2. In case the proceeding is brought in a state court, the United States is given "the right to remove" the suit to the federal court by filing in the state court a petition for removal. The Act provides that, when such petition is filed it shall be "the duty of the State court to accept such petition and proceed no further in said suit." The right to remove is unqualified. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
"Section 3 provides, only where the interest of a restricted Indian of the Five Civilized Tribes is being litigated in the State courts, that service may be had upon the Government, and the Government is given the right to chose [sic] the forum in which the suit may be tried, and may transfer such case to the United States district court upon motion in the event that the Government chooses to do so."
(2) The 1926 Act is an independent statute dealing with a highly specialized problem and limited as to parties and subject matter. The mischief at which the general removal acts were aimed is not present here. They were concerned with eliminating litigious interruptions of private litigation by prolonged disputes over the jurisdiction of the court to which the cause was removed. But the United States is not in a position of a private litigant. The United States has a special function to perform in these Indian cases. It represents the public interest. Heckman v. United States, 224 U. S. 413, 224 U. S. 437-444. It alone is given the "right to remove." If the cause is remanded, it alone can seek review. It should be remembered that the 1926 Act provides a procedure whereby the United States can be bound by a suit instituted by another. It is fair to infer that, when the United States was subjected to that risk, Congress intended that it should have a right, if it so elected, to have the cause heard and determined chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
by its own courts. The "right to chose [sic] the forum in which the suit may be tried" (H.Rep., supra,) can hardly have any other meaning.
Stanley v. Schwalby, 162 U. S. 255, 162 U. S. 270. It seems clear, then, that the prohibition against review of orders of remand contained in the 1887 Act was not aimed at the United States. I think, therefore, that it should require an explicit provision in the 1926 Act to conclude that the United States was now to be bound by an Act heretofore inapplicable to it. It has long been held that, if the United States is to be deprived of a right or a remedy by the general terms of a statute, "the language must be clear and specific to that effect." United States v. Stevenson, 215 U. S. 190, 215 U. S. 197; United States v. American Bell Tel. Co., 159 U. S. 548, 159 U. S. 554; 87 U. S. 263; 86 U. S. 239. This seems to me to be a clear case for the application of that rule.
If Congress had said that orders of remand under the 1926 Act should not be reviewed, mandamus, of course, would not lie. But, since there is no such prohibition, mandamus is available to compel the District Court to preform its duty. @ 90 U. S. 453.
* Prior to the 1926 Act, the United States could not be bound by a proceeding affecting restricted Indian lands. After the matter had been litigated, the United States could still institute an independent suit and annul the prior decree entered in the suit to which it was not a party. Sunderland v. United States, 266 U. S. 226.