Volume 186 — United States Reports

Pour libels in admiralty were filed in the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York against the steamship Styria, to recover damages for the failure duly to deliver at New York different lots of sulphur, owned by the libellants, shipped on board the Styria at Port Erapedocle, the port of the town of Girgenti, in Sicily, April 21-24, 1898, and shortly afterwards relanded at the port of shipment because -it. had become contraband of war.

This was an action brought by the St. Louis Mining and Milling Company of Montana against the Montana Mining Company in the Circuit Court of the United- States for the District of Montana, to recover damages for trespass on a vein of rock, having its apex entirely within-the described premises of plaintiff, and extracting therefrom and converting large quantities of valuable ore.

The certificate in this case is as follows : “ This suit was commenced by filing in the Circuit Court the -following bill and exhibit, filed November 13, 1899 : “‘Tothe honorable the Judges of the Circuit Court of the' United States for the Fifth Circuit and Eastern District of Louisiana, New Orleans division: “ ‘ Alphonse Emsheimer, of New Orleans, an alien and a subject of the Empire of Germany, brings this his bill against the city of New Orleans, a municipal corporation…

Held: in a very clear and satisfactory opinion, 113 Fed. Rep.- 639 , that the trial of Deming by a court-martial, all the members of which were officers of the Regular Army, was illegal, and that the objection could be taken on habeas corpus. The reasoning of the opinion leaves little to add further than to state our concurrence therein.

This was a writ of error to the Supreme Court of the State-of New York, to which court the record had.been remitted after a decision of the case by the Court of Appeals.

Held: also, that the act of 1890 which declared the territorial act of 1887 to be “subject to future territorial legislation,” was intended to authorize such new regulations concerning the funding act as future exigencies *96 might seem to require; but that it did not authorize the legislature to repeal the Congressional act of 1890.

<p>The agreement of parties to submit questions to a jury, the trial there, and a stipulation for returning the testimony for.consideration is a waiver of . objection to'jurisdiction.</p> <p>When the trial court and the appellate court agree as to the facts established, this court accepts their conclusion.</p> <p>Under the facts in this case the jury were hot warranted in finding that the execution of the will was procured by fraud or undue influence.</p> <p>It is the rule of the Federal courts that the will of a person found to be possessed of sound mind and memory, is not to be set aside on evidence tending to show only a possibility or suspicion of undue influence.</p>

This was a proceeding commenced in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of West Yirginia, seeking a forfeiture of certain tobacco. Attachment and monition were duly issued. The case was submitted upon an agreed statement of facts, and a judgment of forfeiture was entered.

The case is stated by the. District Court, in substance, as follows: On November 3, 1899, a libel was filed on behalf of the United States in .the District Court of the United States for the District of New Jersey against the schooner William H. Davenport, her tackle, apparel and furniture, and against all persons-intervening therein, in case of collision, civil and maritime, seeking to recover the sum of $5000 damages alleged to have been sustained by the light-house tender…

September 12, 1888, S. S. Hite and Mary L. Hite executed and delivered to one J. E. Ethell théir promissory notes in writing of that 'date, whereby for value received they promised to pay to the order of Ethell on September. 12, 1892, the principal sum named in each, with intérest thereon at the rate of seven per cent per annum, payable semi-annually, according to the tenor of eight interest coupons bearing interest and attached to each of the notes; and afterwards.and…

<p>APPEAL FROM THE COURT OF CLAIMS.</p> <p>The case is stated in the opinion of the court.</p>

This suit was brought by the petitioner as trustee of a mortgage made by the Gold Hill Mining Company, a corporation, of West Yirginia, upon certain mining ground in the State of California. Subsequently to the execution of the mortgage the corporation, in the conduct of its mining operations in the State of California, became indebted to the respondents for materials, labor and supplies.

Held: the said Li Tom Shi and Li A. Tsoi in his custody for deportation to the country from whence they came. The certificates were attached to the return, but as the only criticism of them is that they were not issued by the registrar general of Hong Kong, they are omitted.

<p>MOTION TO SUE OUT WRIT OF ERROR; WITHOUT GIVING BOND REQUIRED BY LAW.</p> <p>The case is stated in the opinion.</p>

<p>APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE DISTRICT OF WEST VIRGINIA.</p> <p>The case is stated in the opinion of the court.</p>

This was an action brought by the Hanover National Bank of New York against Max Moyses in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Tennessee, November 20, 1899, on a judgment recovered against him in the Circuit Court of Washington County, Mississippi, December 12, 1892.

<p>The ruling in United States v. Lee Yen-Tal, 185 U. S. 213, affirmed.</p> <p>The legislation considered, the act of May 5, 1892, is satisfied by proceedings before a United States commissioner.</p> <p>It was competent for Congress to empower a United States commissioner to determine the various facts on which citizenship depends under the decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U. S. 649.</p> <p>The same reasoning with respect to the authority to exclude applies to the authority to expel, and the policy of the legislation in respect to exclusion and expulsion is opposed to numerous appeals.</p>

Held: That no appeal lies to this court from that decree. Mr. Charles J. Creene and Mr. B. W. Breekenridge for appellants. Mr. John F. Shafroth for appellees.

On May 20, 1899, Monroe D. Herington, the defendant in error, recovered a judgment in the District Court of Labette County, Kansas, against Lee Clark, for the sum of $3032.28, which' judgment was affirmed by the Supreme Court of that State on November 10, 1900. Thereupon the case was brought here on writ of error.

Held: and on its report the city took possession of the property and filed á bill against the treasurer of the appellant to compel him to carry out the arbitration and purchase. The Circuit Court, however, held the arbitration illegal, and dismissed the bill. On February 21, 1899, appellant brought in the Circuit Court of the United States a suit in equity against the city.

<p>ERROR TO THE DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF ALASKA.</p> <p>The case is stated in the opinion of the court.</p>

This case is before us on a writ of error to the Supreme Court of the State of New York, and is brought to review a final order of that court affirming an assessment of the shares of stock in the First National Bank of Brooklyn.

On July 14,1898, the.appellees commenced this suit in the. Supreme Court of the District of Coliimbia, to restrain the defendant from discontinuing its telephone service to them. ■ Their bill alleged that the defendant was a corporation organized under the laws of the State of New York, and for -a long time past engaged in the business of furnishing telephone exchange service in the District of Columbia; that with the assent and under the direction of- the Congress of the…

This was a petition for a mandamus filed in the District Court of Ramsey County by the State, upon the relation of the Railroad and Warehouse Commission, against the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railroad Company and several other railroad companies, (the first of which alone answered and sued out this writ of error,) to compel such companies to adopt and publish a joint through rate fixed by the Commission upon shipments of hard' coal in carload lots, from the city of Duluth to…

<p>Without deciding that the briefs of counsel may be resorted to for the purpose of determining whether a Federal question was raised in the state court, it is sufficient to say that a general claim made that a particular act of the legislature is violative of the state and Federal Constitution, is not sufficient to show that a Federal right was specially set up and claimed or the validity of a statute was drawn in question in the state court, when no Such question was noticed in the opinion of the state court and the case was disposed of upon a ground wholly independent of a Federal question.</p>

<p>APPEAL FROM THE COURT OF CLAIMS.</p> <p>This was a petition of J. Henrietta Hoffeld, executrix of the estate of Budolph Hoffeld, deceased, for the repayment to her by the United States, under the act of June 16,1880, 21 Stat. 287, of the purchase money for one hundred and sixty acres of coal lands, the entry of which had been canceled by the Commissioner of the General Land Office on January 27,1895, over eight years after the purchase was made, and more than seven years after Hoffeld had bought the land.</p> <p>- . The purchase from the United States was originally made by , other parties tor a consideration of thirty-two hundred dollars. These parties had conveyed the lands to the Ohio Creek Anthracite Coal Company, against which company a judgment had been obtained, and a sale made November 10,'1887, to Rudolph Hof-feld, purchaser under the execution. Petitioner was his executrix. Several years after the sale the Commissioner of the General Land Office found' that an error had been committed, in the allowance of the original entry upon the affidavit of an ..attorney, in the absence of the original- entrymen. He thereupon exacted an affidavit of these entrymen, but as two out of the four were dead, and the other two could not be found, it was impossible to comply with .the requirement of the Commissioner,' who canceled the purchase, as aboye stated.</p> <p>The Court of Claims made a finding of facts substantially as above stated, and decided, as a conclusion of law upon such facts, that the claimant had no right to recover, and the petition was therefore dismissed.</p>

Held: That as to such excess both the Indians and the defendants were trespassers. The objection that the several defendants were not responsible for the acts of each other is one which should be taken at the trial, and if not so taken, cannot be made available upon writ of error from this court.

This case came before the Court of Appeals upon appeal from a decision of the Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York, reversing a decision of the board of general appraisers, which affirmed the action of the collector of the port of New York regarding the assessment of duty upon certain imported merchandise.

<p>ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEBRASKA.</p> <p>The case is stated in the opinion of the court.</p>

<p>A surety on a contractor’s bond, conditioned for the performance of a contract to construct a dry dock, is released by subsequent changes in the work, made by the principals without his consent.</p> <p>The obligation of a surety does not extend beyond the terms of his undertaking, and when this undertaking is to secure the performance of an existing contract, if any change is made in the requirements of such contract in matters of substance without his consent, his liability is extinguished.</p> <p>If the government’s pleader had evidence of facts showing such knowledge and consent, he should have asked leave to amend the declaration by adding the averment necessary to state it.</p>

Held: as to the right of the .carrier to make a terminal-charge, under the circumstances disclosed by the record, that the case was controlled by .the ruling of the Circuit Court of Appeals in the case to which we have previously referred, Walker v. Keenan, 73 Fed. Eep. 755, and the reasoning in that case was expressly approved.

' CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT. The action below was brought, on February 5, 1898, by. Courtney, as receiver of the German National Bank of Louisville, appointed by the Comptroller of the Currency on January 22,1897, four days after the closing of the bank. Becovery was sought upon a bond of indemnity for ten thousand dollars and renewals thereof, taking effect respectively on June 1,1894, June 1, 1895, and June 1, 1896.

On September 1, 1896, Lily Alys Godfrey, appellee herein, filed a bill in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, sitting in equity, to establish her title to five lots of land situated in the city of Washington, of which it was asserted she had been defrauded by one Stephen A. Dutton. The defendants to the bill were Dutton and wife, Louis W. Richardson, Fred M. Ozaki and Mary Alice Godfrey (mother of .complainant).

Compagnie Francaise de Navigation a Vapeur v. Louisiana Board of Health, 186 U.S. 380 (1902), was a United States Supreme Court case which held constitutional state laws requiring the involuntary quarantine of individuals to prevent the spread of disease. Louisiana's quarantine laws, Justice Edward White said, were a reasonable exercise of the state's police power that conflicted with neither the Dormant Commerce Clause nor the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In dissent, Justice Henry Billings Brown, joined by John Marshall Harlan, agreed that while quarantine laws were constitutional, Louisiana's went beyond the scope of the state's authority over interstate commerce, even violating several treaties between the United States and other nations.

. The plaintiff -in error, being the plaintiff below, brings this case here by writ of error to the Supreme Court of the State of Florida for the purpose of reviewing a judgment of that court, affirming the judgment of the circuit court of the second judicial district of that State, dismissing plaintiff’s bill of complaint against the defendant with costs.

Hotema v. United States, 186 U.S. 413 (1902), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the jury instruction regarding the defendant's potential insanity plea satisfied the M'Naghten rule.

■ This was a libel in admiralty by the petitioners,' Peter Hagan agd Edward F. Martin, on a policy of insurance issued by the Scottish Union and National Insurance Company, November 19, 1897, against loss or damage by fire to an amount, not exceeding j$2000j on the tug boat Senator Penrose. The District Court made a decree for the libellants, i 98 Fed. Rep. 129. This decree was reversed by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. 102 Fed. Eep. 919.

This is a suit in equity, brought by the petitioner, in the United States Circuit Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, and the case comes here on certiorari to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

This suit was brought in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern Division of Ohio, Eastern District, to restrain the collection- of certain taxes levied by the officers of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, upon the appellee bank.

<p>Error to the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Nebraska.</p>

<p>Error to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.</p>

<p>Error to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of Illinois.</p>

<p>Error to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.</p>

<p>Appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.</p>

<p>Appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Colorado.</p>

<p>Error to the Court of Appeals of the State of Maryland. Motions to dismiss or affirm.</p>

<p>On writ of certiorari to the United States Circuit Odurt of Appeals for the Second Circuit.</p>

<p>Error to the Supreme Court of the State of California.</p>