Court Opinion

ID: 96955
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2010-04-28 16:41:46+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:03:34.595434
License: Public Domain

212 U.S. 291 (1909)
LAUREL OIL AND GAS COMPANY
v.
MORRISON.
No. 198.
Supreme Court of United States.
Argued October 14, 1908.
Decided February 23, 1909.
APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT.
*294 Mr. George A. Murphey, with whom Mr. William T. Hutchings and Mr. Wm. P.Z. German were on the brief, for appellant.
Mr. William J. Breene and Mr. John J. Shea, with whom Mr. Edmond C. Breene was on the brief, for appellees.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER, after making the foregoing statement, delivered the opinion of the court.
By the act of Congress, approved March 1, 1889, c. 333, 25 Stat. 783, there was established a United States court for the Indian Territory. The act conferred no jurisdiction over felonies, but by the fifth section exclusive original jurisdiction was conferred over all offenses against the laws of the United States committed within the Indian Territory, not punishable by death or by imprisonment at hard labor. Jurisdiction was conferred in all civil cases between citizens of the United States who are residents of the Indian Territory where the value of the thing in controversy amounted to one hundred dollars or more. The final judgment or decree of the court, where the value of the matter in dispute, exclusive of costs, exceeded one thousand dollars, might be reviewed and reversed or affirmed in the Supreme Court of the United States upon writ of error or appeal, in the same manner and under the same regulations as the final judgments and decrees of a Circuit Court.
By section five of the Judiciary Act of March 3, 1891, c. 517, 26 Stat. 826, as amended, appeals or writs of error might be taken from the District and Circuit Courts directly to this court in cases in which the jurisdiction of the court was in issue; of conviction of a capital crime; involving the construction or application of the Constitution of the United States; and in which the constitutionality of any law of the United States, or the validity or construction of any treaty made under its authority, was drawn in question.
*295 By section six, the Circuit Courts of Appeals established by the act were invested with appellate jurisdiction in all other cases.
The thirteenth section read: "Appeals and writs of error may be taken and prosecuted from the decisions of the United States Court in the Indian Territory to the Supreme Court of the United States, or to the Circuit Court of Appeals in the Eighth Circuit, in the same manner and under the same regulations as from the Circuit or District Courts of the United States, under this act."
The act of March 1, 1895, c. 145, 28 Stat. 693, provided for the appointment of additional judges of the United States court in the Indian Territory, and created a Court of Appeals with such superintending control over the courts in the Indian Territory as the Supreme Court of Arkansas possessed over the courts of that State by the laws thereof; and the act also provided, § 11, that "writs of error and appeals from the final decisions of said appellate court shall be allowed, and may be taken to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Judicial Circuit in the same manner and under the same regulations as appeals are taken from the Circuit Courts of the United States," which thus in terms deprived that court of jurisdiction of appeals from the Indian Territory trial court, under § 13 of the act of 1891.
In Harless v. United States, 88 Fed. Rep. 97, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in a careful opinion by District Judge Shiras, held that in the act of March 1, 1895, creating the Court of Appeals for the Indian Territory and giving it full jurisdiction, civil and criminal, the provision of § 11, that "writs of error and appeals from the final decisions of said appellate court shall be allowed and may be taken to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Judicial Circuit in the same manner and under the same regulations as appeals are taken from the Circuit Courts of the United States," conferred upon that court full appellate jurisdiction over the final decisions of the territorial appellate court, which jurisdiction was not in any way measured or limited by the jurisdiction on appeal *296 from or error to the District or Circuit Courts. And we concur in that view.
The rule was laid down by this court in Brown v. United States, 171 U.S. 631, that where a statute provides for a writ of error to a specific court of appeals it must be regarded as a repeal of any previous statute which provided for a writ of error to another and different court, and that the decisions of the Court of Appeals of the United States for the Indian Territory are final, except so far as they are made subject to review by some express provision of law. It was furthermore there ruled that the Court of Appeals in the Indian Territory was analogous to the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, and bore the same relation to the trial court in the Indian Territory as the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia bore to the trial court in the District, and Ex parte Bigelow, 113 U.S. 328; In re Heath, 144 U.S. 92; Cross v. Burke, 146 U.S. 82, 84, were cited to the point that no appeal could be taken from or writ of error sued out to the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia where not specifically provided for.
Section 12 of the act of March 3, 1905, 33 Stat. 1081, c. 1479, in force when the proceedings in the present case were had, provides:
"That hereafter all appeals and writs of error shall be taken from the United States courts in the Indian Territory to the United States Court of Appeals in the Indian Territory, and from the United States Court of Appeals in the Indian Territory to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in the same manner as is now provided for in cases taken by appeal or writ of error from the Circuit Courts of the United States to the Circuit Court of Appeals of the United States for the Eighth Circuit."
We find no statute giving an appeal from that Circuit Court of Appeals to this court, and perceive no reason for concluding that Congress intended that parties in such cases should be entitled to three appeals.
Appeal dismissed.