Court Opinion

ID: 9418936
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:43:30.631947+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:13.297508
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Cardozo,
dissenting.
I think the judgment should be affirmed.
Texas was not the owner of the oil in controversy when it came into the possession of the court of bankruptcy. If she had been such an owner, she could be heard in that court pro interesse suo, vindicating her title in reclamation proceedings like any other adverse claimant. By common consent ownership sufficient for such relief was not hers when the court of bankruptcy took the oil into its custody, and is not hers today. “It is not correct to say, that property forfeited is vested in the government *290at the very moment of forfeiture, and the title of the owner immediately devested. On the contrary, the established doctrine is, that, notwithstanding the forfeiture, the property remains in the owner, until it is actually seized by the government, and then by the seizure the title of the government relates back to the time of the forfeiture.” Clark v. Protection Insurance Co., 1 Story 109, 134; cf. United States v. Stowell, 133 U. S. 1. So far as I am aware there is no contention to the contrary. The oil “shall be forfeited to the State as hereinafter provided” (Texas Revised Civil Statutes, Art. 6066a, § 10), and not otherwise. The statute does not mean that without the aid of any judgment title is transferred at once on the commission of the offense. The judgment is to be in rem and imports control over the res. Pennoyer v. Neff, 96 U. S. 714, 734; Isaacs v. Hobbs Tie & T. Co., 282 U. S. 734.
With the oil in the possession of the federal court of bankruptcy — a possession lawfully acquired — leave to sue in the state court for a decree of forfeiture and sale will be an idle and empty form, productive of nothing except delay and vain expense, unless upon the pronouncement of the decree it will be the duty of the court of bankruptcy to surrender the oil to the court of another jurisdiction, and this for the sole purpose of making a forfeiture effective. I deny that any such duty will exist. Cf. Isaacs v. Hobbs Tie & T. Co., supra. I find no intimation of its existence in any case till this one. Certainly there is none in the cases now cited in the opinion of the court. True indeed it is that if possession of the res were to be acquired by the Texas court at the time of the decree of forfeiture or even at the time of a sale pursuant thereto, a title obtained thereunder would be recognized as valid everywhere. Wisconsin v. Pelican Ins. Co., 127 U. S. 265, 291; Rose v. Himely, 4 Cranch 241; Hudson v. Guestier, 4 Cranch 293; Dicey, Conflict of
*291Laws, 5th ed., pp. 484, 485. This is far from saying that a court of another jurisdiction which already holds the res upon a trust for general creditors will give its possession up in aid of a forfeiture otherwise impossible. “The courts of no country execute the penal laws of another.” The Antelope, 10 Wheat. 66, 123; Gwin v. Breedlove, 2 How. 29, 37; Wisconsin v. Pelican Ins. Co., supra; Huntington v. Attrill, 146 U. S. 657, 666; Loucks v. Standard Oil Co., 224 N. Y. 99, 102; Dicey, supra, p. 212. Cf. Bankruptcy Act, § 57 (j). Within the purview of that doctrine, the state and the federal courts are ranked as courts of separate sovereignties, quite as much as the courts of different states. Gwin v. Breedlove, supra;. Moore v. Mitchell, 281 U. S. 18, 23. If the oil in controversy had been removed to California and were in possession of the receivers of a California corporation after a decree of dissolution, would any one contend that the California court would order its receivers to return the property to Texas for the purpose by such return of making a forfeiture effective? A federal court of bankruptcy is subject to no greater duty. The prevailing opinion commits us to a holding that property in one jurisdiction may be diverted from the use of creditors and made to feed a forfeiture in another jurisdiction, a forfeiture brutum fulmen unless thus aided from afar. If that is done, the efficacy of penal laws will have taken on a new extension. Without a transfer of possession the forfeiture is dead at birth. A court of bankruptcy will not stir a hand to make it viable.
I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice Stone joins in this opinion.