Case Name: Alexander G. McNutt, Governor of Mississippi, who sues for the use of Leggett, Smith, and Lawrence, v. Richard J. Bland and Benjamin G. Humphreys
Court: Supreme Court of the United States
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1844-01
Citations: 2 How. 9
Docket Number: 
Parties: Alexander G. McNutt, Governor of Mississippi, who sues for the use of Leggett, Smith, and Lawrence, v. Richard J. Bland and Benjamin G. Humphreys.
Judges: 
Reporter: United States Reports
Volume: 43
Pages: 9–29

Head Matter:
Alexander G. McNutt, Governor of Mississippi, who sues for the use of Leggett, Smith, and Lawrence, v. Richard J. Bland and Benjamin G. Humphreys.
By a law of the state of Mississippi,'sheriffs are required to give bond to the governor for the faithful performance of their duty.
A citizen of another state has a right to sue upon this bond; the fact that the governor and' party sued. are citizens of the same state, will not oust the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court of the United States, provided the party, fpr whose use'the suit is brought, is a citizen of another state.
Under the resolution -passed by Congress in 1789, relating to the use of state jails, and the law of Mississippi passed in 1822, a sheriff has no right to discharge a prisoner in. custody by process from the Circuit Court, unless such discharge is .sanctioned by an act of Congress, or the mode of it adopted as a rule by the Circuit Court of the United States.
This case WasbrQught up by writ of error from tbe Circuit Coprt of the United States for the Southern District of Mississippi.
It was a suit upon a sheriff’s bond, given by Bland, sheriff of Claiborne county, dated 10th November, 1837, and in the penalty of $15,000.
At the May term, 1837, of the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of Mississippi, Leggett, Smith, and Lawrence, citizens of New- York, instituted a suit against George W. McNider, a- citizen of Mississippi, and in November following obtained a judgment for .$3910 78.
On the 30th December, 1837, Leggett,' Smith, and Lawrence sued out a writ of capias, ad satisfaciendum, against the body of the said George McNider, which was directed to the marshal of the state of Mississippi. The writ was executed, and McNider taken into custody. The marshal handed him over for safe keeping to Blahd, the sheriff of Claiborne county.
Whilst thus in custody, McNider applied to McDougall, a judge of 'probate, duly commissioned in and for the county of Claiborne, for the benefit of the insolvent law of the state of Mississippi, passed in June, 1822. The forms of that law being complied' with, the judge directed McNider to be discharged from imprisonment, and the sheriff accordingly discharged him'.
At May term, 1839, Leggett, Smith, and Lawrence brought suit against the sheriff and his securities, of whom Humphreys was one, using for this purpose the name of the governor of Mississippi, to whom the bond had been given. The breach assigned' was that the said Bland, in violation of his duty as sheriff, did discharge, release, and set at liberty his said prisoner, not by force or operation of law or in pursuance of any power or process emanating therefrom, but in violation thereof, and without the license or consent of said plaintiffs, or of their lawful agent or attorneys, and against their will, they the said plaintiffs being wholly unsatisfiéd and unpaid, and sáid judgment aforesaid being then and there in, full force and effect, and not in any respect reversed or annulled, paid off, or discharged.
The defendants pleaded two pleas:
1. That the act of June,. 1822, passed by the legislature of Mississippi, provided amongst other things that where an insolvent person should not be able to satisfy or pay his ordinaiy prison fees, if the creditor, upon -notice given to him or her, his or her attorney or agent, should, refuse to give security to the jailer or sheriff for the payment of such prison fees, or should fail to pay the same when c emanded, the sheriff or jailer should discharge such debtor out of prison; and it was further provided that whereas it Was unreasonable that sheriffs - should be obliged to go out of their counties to give notice to creditors at whose suit any person might be in custody of such sheriff, where any execution. should be delivered to the sheriff of any other county than that where any creditor resided, such creditor should name some person in the county where the execution was to be levied, to be his, her, or their‘agent for the particular purpose of giving to and receiving from the sheriff any notices which might be necessary relating thereto; and if any creditor should fail to appoint such agent, the sheriff should not be obliged ta give notice previous to the discharge of such prisoner for want of security for his prison feés, but such prisoner should be discharged without any notice to be given to the creditor so failing.
The defendants then averred that Leggett, Smith, and Lawrence, at the time of the commitment, were not residents of Claiborne county, nor were they' ever so afterwards, and that they failed to appoint any agent or attorney to receive a notice from the sheriff; that McNider was unable to pay his prison fees, and that the plaintiffs wholly failed to give security to the sheriff for the payment of the said prison fees.
2. That McNider was regularly, and according to the provisions of the acts of the legislature of Mississippi for the relief of insolvent debtors, brought before McDougall, a judge of probate, and then and there, by the order and warrant of the said judge, discharged' from the custody of the said sheriff.
The replication of the plaintiffs to the first plea was, that at the time of the discharge of McNider, they had an agent residing within the state of Mississippi, to wit, in the county of Warren, and that no application whatever was made to the plaintiffs or their agent, for the payment of jail fees, or to give security for the same; nor was any notice whatever given to the plaintifts or their agent or attorney of an intention to discharge the prisoner, or of his application to be discharged, either for that cause or any other.
The. replication to the second plea was, that the prisoner was, by virtue of process legally issuing from the Circuit Court of the United States, taken into custody by the marshal of the district, and by him, was delivered to the defendant, Bland, for safe keeping, who was then sheriff of the' county in which the prisoner was taken. That the prisoner was not discharged from custody aforesaid by virtue of any process emanating from any court of the United States or judge thereof, nor by virtue of any law of the United' States, but that he was discharged contrary to the provisions, of the several acts of Congress made and provided, prescribing the mode and manner of discharging prisoners confined under process from the courts of the United States.
To both these replications the defendant demurred. There, was a joinder in demurrer as to the first; what was done with the second, the record did not show. •
The court below sustained both demurrers.
Jones, for the plaintiffs in error.
Walker, for the defendants.
Jones contended
1. .That the laws of the United States and of Mississippi, and the bond of the sheriff, bound the defendant to receive and hold McNider as a prisoner, under the laws and jurisdiction of the United States, -not of the state of Mississippi.
2. That the pleas of the defendant were insufficient, and whether the replications were good or not, the court would look to the first error in the pleadings, the insufficiency of the pleas.
3. That the United States and Mississippi have each separate systems for insolvent debtors; that they cannot be reconciled with each other.
4. That the courts of the United States and of the states can each look only to their respective systems and act upon them.
5. That the state courts cannot discharge a debtor in confinement under execution from a court of the United States, either under the laws of insolvency, or by any other state authority.
He considered this, case as coming fully within the principle established by this court in Duncan v. Darst, 1 Howard, 301. No state can change the laws of the United States. The insolvent law of Mississippi is confined to cases where persons are under execution by process issued by any court of record within the state. 1 Howard and Hutchinson, 637. It provides also, that no creditor shall receive any thing-unless he shall have obtained a judgment. The discharge by the sheriff in consequence of not being indemnified is also a branch of the state system. ' The .marshal- could not have discharged the prisoner, and the sheriff was pro hac vice the marshal. The latter, was responsible to the former for the fees.
Walker contended
that the equity of the case was with the defendants, inasmuch as the discharge had been ordered by a court of competent jurisdiction, which would have enforced its order by an attachment. The first replication averred that the plaintiffs had an agent in an 'adjoining county, which wás tendering'an immaterial' issue. The demurrer to this was therefore properly sustained . There was no question raised below as to the power of the state. But the court below had no jurisdiction in the case., as it was between citizens of the same state. Although this court hqs decided that where' the real, party is out of the State, he may use. the name of a nominal' plaintiff within’it, yet it has also decided that where the assignment is by operation of law, such a plaintiff cannot sue. The law of Mississippi gives no right of action on a sheriff’s bond, but provides other remedies. Howard and Hutchinson,. 625 et seq. They are by motion against the sheriff and his securities.
- Jones, in reply.
The replication must be overlooked, if the plea itself is bad, which is the case here. It is settled that .the real party, to a suit is the party for whose use it is brought. The governor’s name is only used proforma. If the argument on the other side be. sound, there is no remedy on the bond at all; for an escape could not be tried upon motion. The object of requiring a bond was to secure the interest of all the citizéns of the state, and yet the bond would become of no use in cases of escape. The law of Mississippi accepting the Resolutions of 1789, gives a remedy-to all parties concerned. How,ard and Hutchinson, 49.

Opinion:
Mr. Justice BALDWIN
delivered the opinion of the court.
As the judgment- below was rendered on a general demurrer, it is necessary to ascertain in what part of the pleadings the first demurrable- defect occurred, which the defendant here alleges was in the declaration, inasmuch as it appears that the plaintiffs and defendants were citizens of Mississippi, and consequently the court below had not. jurisdiction of the case.
By the law of that state, How. and Hut. 290, 291, all sheriffs must give a bond to the governor of the state for the time being, and his successors, conditioned for the faithful performance of .the duties of his office; which bond may be put in suit and prosecuted from time to time at the costs and charges of any party injured, until the whole amount of the penalty thereof be recovered. This suit was accordingly brought in the name of the governor, for the use of Leg-get, Smith, and Lawrence, citizens of New York.
The parties in interest, therefore, had a right to sue the defendants in the Circuit Court in their own names, by a bill, in equity in an appropriate use, or by an action of debt, or for an escape against the sheriff himself, as in Darst v. Duncan, 1 How. 301, if he made out a cause of action in either form, and we can perceive no sound reason for denying the right of prosecuting the same cause of action against the sheriff and his sureties in the bond, by and in the name of the governor, who is a purely naked trustee for any party injured. He is a mere conduit through whom the Jaw affords a remedy to the person injured by the acts or omissions of the sheriff; the governor cannot prevent the institution or prosecution of the suit, nor has he any control o.ver it. The real and only plaintiffs are the plaintiffs in the execution, who have a legal right to make the bond available for their indemnity, which right could not be contested in a suit in a state.court of Mississippi, nor in a Circuit Court of the United States, in any other mode of proceeding than on the sheriff's bond.
It would be a glaring defect in the jurisprudence of the United States, if aliens or citizens of other states should be deprived of the right of suit on sheriffs' bonds in the-federal courts sitting in Mississippi, merely because they were taken in the name of the governor for the use of the plaintiffs in mesne or final process, who are in law and equity the beneficiary obligees; we think this defect does not exist. The constitution éxtends the judicial power to controversies between citizens of different states; the 11th section of the Judiciary act gives jurisdiction td the Circuit Courts, of suits between a citizen of the state where the suit is brought, and a citizen of another state. In this case there is a controversy and suit between citizens of New York and Mississippi; there is neither between the governor and the defendants: as' the instrument of the state law to afford a remedy against the sheriff and his sureties, his name is in the bond and to the suit upon it, but in no just'view of the constitution or law can he. be. considered as a litigant party: both look to things not names— to the actors in controversies and suits, not to the mere forms or inactive instruments used in conducting them, in virtue of some positive law.
This court must have acted on these principles in Browne et al. v. Strode, 5 Cranch, 303, which was a suit on an administration bond of an executor, for .the faithful execution of the testator's will, in conformity with a law of Virginia, 5 Hen. st. 461, which requires all such bonds to be payable to the justices of the county court, where administration is granted, but may be put in suit and prosecuted by, and at the costs of the party injured. ' Th.e object of that suit was to recover a debt due by the testator to a British subject; the defendant was a citizen of Virginia; • the persons named in the declaration as plaintiffs were the justices of the-county, who were also citizens of'Virginia, yet it was held that the Circuit Court of that state had jurisdiction. We are aware of no subsequent decision of this court, which in the least impairs the authority of that case, or contravenes the principle on which it was decided; that where the real and only controversy is between.citizens of different states, or an- alien and a citizen, and the plaintiff is by some positive law compelled to use the name of a public officer who has not, or ever had any interest in, or control over it, the courts of the United States will not consider any others as parties to the suit, than the persons between whom the litigation before them exists.
Executors and administrators are not. in this position, they are the actors in suits brought by them; the personal property of the decedent is vested in them; the persons to whom they are accountable, for whose benefit they act, can bring-no suit to assert their rights against third persons, be the cause of action what it may; nor can they interfere with the conducting of the suit to assert their rights to the property of the decedent, which do not vest in them. The personal representative is, therefore, the real party in interest before the court, 12 Pet. 171, and succeeds to all the rights of those they represent, by operation of law; and no other persons are capable, as representatives of the personalty, of suing or being sued. They are contradistinguished, -therefore, from ássignees who claim by the act of the parties, and may sue in the federal courts in cases where the decedent could not. 8 Wheat. 668; 4 Cranch, 308, S. P. By the 11th section of the Judiciary act, assignees cannot sue where the assignor could not, nor can they sue in their own names if the assignor could, unless the assignees were aliens or citizens of another state than that of the defendant, and the instrument sued on was so assigned as to vest the right of action in the assignees, in which latter case, the suit must be by the party originally entitled to sue. Thus where the payee of a promissory note, which was -neither negotiable nor assignable, so as to sustain an action by the assignees, sued for the use of a corporation incapable of suing in the federal courts, this court held that the Circuit Court had jurisdiction, on the ground that the suit was on a contract between the plaintiff and defendant. The legal right of acting being in the plaintiff,-it mattered not for whose use the suit was brought, the parties being citizens of different states. Irvine v. Lowry, 14 Pet. 298. In that case the decision in 5 Cranch was reviewed and affirmed; and as it is in all respects analogous to,-it must govern this and similar cases, where the cause of action is not founded on a contract between the parties or their legal reptesentatives.
The objection to the jurisdiction cannot, therefore, be sustained.
The next- question arises bn the defendants' first plea in bar, which sets up a discharge of the prisoner by the sheriff, in default of the plaintiff in "the execution paying.the prison fees due, pursuant to the act of 22d June, 1822, sects. 35, 47; Hut. and How. 640—644.
This law, by its own forcé, cannot apply to persons committed on •executions from the courts of the United States, it must first be adopted byact of Congress, or some rule of court under the authority conferred on the courts of the United States by law. It is a peculiar municipal regulation, applicable and intended to apply only to persons committed.under state process, as clearly appears by the 62 section of the saíne law, in the revised code, as to process of the United States. How. and Hut. 649, 650. After reciting in full the resolution of Congress relating to* jails, passed in 1789, 1 Story, 70, it proceeds, "And whereas it is just and reasonable to aid the United States therein, on the terms aforesaid, until other provisions shall be made in the premises, it is enacted,. That all sheriffs, &c., -within this state, to whom any person or persons shall be sent' or committed by virtue of. legal process, issued by or under-the authority of the. United States, shall be, and are hereby required to receive such prisoners into custody, and to keep the same safely until they shall be discharged by due .course of law, and be liable to the same pains and penalties, and the parties aggrieved be entitled' to the same remediés, as if such prisoners had been committed under the authority of tire state. The sheriff may, require of the marshal the fillfilment of the proposals of the general government, with regard to rent and sustenance, at least.quarter yearly; and on the discharge, of the prisoner shall make a statement of charges, &c., to enable him to make his return to the. proper department of the general government."
'
Taking this section of the law in connection with the resolution of. 1789, there appears an evident intention in the legislature, that the law .should cover the whole resolution, so as to carry it- into effect in all its parts and . provisions. Hence the terms in each must .be made to harmonize; whereby the phrase in the 62d section,. " and tb keep the same safely until they shall be discharged, by due course; of law," will be referred to the corresponding phrase in the-resolution, " until they shall be discharged by due course of the law thereof," (the United States,) so as to authorize no discharge, by virtue of any state law, incompatible with the resolution. If any doubt could arise on these words in the resolution, " all prisoners committed under the authority of the United States," whether they applied to cases between individuals, it is removed by the explicit language of the law, "any person or.persons who shall be sent or committed by virtue of legal process, issued by, or under the authority of the United States," &c., " and the parties aggrieved shall be entitled to the 'samé remedies," &c;, which necessarily embrace all cases, civil or criminall
As it would be wholly inconsistent with this view of the resolution.and law, for the legislature to authorize the sheriff to discharge any. person from custody, otherwise than by the due course of the laws of the United States; we cannot attribute such an .intention to them, unless the words of their act clearly indicate it; but there is nothing in the act to that effect, or any words, which admit of such construction. On the contrary, as the resolution of Congress positively requires .it, aS the preamble to the- state law declares it to be "just.and reasonable to.aid the United States therein," the enacting part must be. taken-accordingly; otherwise the laW would conflict with the resolution.
The act of Congress passed in 1800 provides for the mode of discharging .insolvent debtors, committed under process from the courts of the United States, and the cases- in which -it may be done; it is obligatory on the sheriffs' in every county of the states who have acceded to the resolution of 1789, and no- discharge under any state law not adopted by Congress, or a rule Of court, can exonerate the officer. Vide 1 Story, 715; 3 Story, 1932, 1939; Suydam v. Broadnax, 14 Pet. 75; 10 Wheat. 36, 37. From the time of Palmer and Allen, 7 Cranch, 554, to Darst v. Duncan, the language and decisions of this court have been uniform for more than forty years, that a state law, which is "'a. peculiar municipal regulation, not having any immediate relation to the progress of a suit, but imposing a restraint on state Officers in the execution of the process of their courts, is altogether inoperative upon the officers of the United States-ini the éxecution of the mandates which issue to them. By the process acts of 1789, 1792, and 1828, Congress haye adopted such state laws as prescribe the modes of process and proceedings insuits at common law, as are not in. conflict .with the laws of the United States, which can be executed by the courts of the United States; which impose no restraint on, or obstruction of their process from its inceptioirtill ultimate satisfaction from the defendant, or the marshal, sheriff, or other officer, intrusted with its execution." 2 Pet. 525; 10 Wheat. 40, 56, &c. "Congress, however, did not intend to defeat the .execution of judgments rendered in the courts of the United States, but meant they should have full effect by force of the state laws adopted, and therefore all state laws regulating proceedings affecting insolvent persons," or that are addressed to state courts or magistrates in other respects, which confer peculiar powers on such courts and magistrates, do not bind' the federal courts, because they have no power to execute such laws. 1 How. 306; 14 Pet. 74, S. P. For these reasons we are of opinion that the defendants' first plea is defective, in not setting .forth a case which justifies the discharge of the person committed on the execution.
The second plea sets up a discharge .of the prisoner pursuant to the laws of Mississippi, as an insolvent debtor', by order of a judge of probate; which presents a ease covered by the decision of this court in Darst v. Duncan, that such a discharge by a sheriff was no defence to an action of debt for an escape. 1 How. 304. The judgment of the court below .must therefore be reversed, and judgment rendered for the plaintiff. . .