Volume 263 — United States Reports

Held: that a decision of the state court, treating the objection to the jurisdiction as going to the venue of the cause and as. waived by the appearances, could not be sustained as a decision disposing of the case on a local ground independent of the federal question, raised. Id. 3. The Transportation Act; 1920, § 206, (a), (d), does not invalidate ■ ' a defense'good when it was passed. P. 25. 209 Mo.

Held: that he forfeited his right to the patent, within the meaning-of the special act of Congress authorizing this suit, and therefore ''compensation could not be recovered from the Goyernment even if it used the invention withir the period defined by that statute. Act of March 2, 1901, 31 Stat. 1788 . Pp. 56, 59. 55 Ct. Clms. 234, affirmed.

Held: that this case is controlled upon this point, as well as in respect to general defense of res judicata, by Friend v. Talcott, 228 U. S. 27 , and must be affirmed on the authority of. that case.

Held: not objectionable as depriving the corporation of property without due process of law or as regulating or burdening such commerce. Id. 188 Cal. 27 , affirmed. Error to a judgment of the Supreme Court of California which affirmed a- judgment given on the pleadings against the plaintiff in error in his suit to recover a tax, paid under protest. Mr. W. I. Brobeck and Mr. Herbert W. Clark for plaintiff in error.

Held: not ground for a writ of error under the Act of September 6, 1916, supra. P. 99. Writs of error to review 151 La. 134 , dismissed. Cross writs of error to a judgment of the Supreme Court of Louisiana in a petitory action for land. Mr. Charles Louque for New Orleans Land Company. Mr. William Winans Wall, with whom Mr. Charles Schneidau was on the brief, for Brott et al.

Held: that the ship was liable as for a deviation, could not' escape by reason of relieving clauses in the bill, and must pay damages measured by the value of the goods at destination. P. 124. 280 Fed. 553 , affirmed. Certiorari to a decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals which affirmed a decree of the District Court, in admiralty, awarding damages agaipst a ship for loss of cargo.

Held: that they had no standing to sue to set the order aside, *144 on the grounds that it exceeded the power of the Commission’ and violated the rights of carriers under the Fifth Amendment. Id. Affirmed. Appeal from a decree of the District Court dismissing the bill in a suit to set aside an order of The Interstate Commerce Commission.

Held: that admission of alienage,- which is not an element of the crime of sedition, would not have tended to incriminate him, and that the immigration officers might properly have inferred the fact of alienage from his silence. P. 154. 5. Deportation proceedings are civil in character and the person arrested may be compelled by legal process to testify whether he is an alien. P. 155. . 6.

Held: that the shovel-owner’s cause of action against the United States was either in tort, which could not be maintained under the Tucker Act, or upon the express contract, for payment as therein provided; but that a contract to pay the value of the shovel could not be implied. Id. 57 Ct. Clms. 160, affirmed.

Terrace v. Thompson, 263 U.S. 197 (1923), decided by U.S. Supreme Court on November 12, 1923, was a case challenging Washington Alien Land Law that is preventing aliens purchasing, using, or leasing the land. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the decision of state that Due Process and Equal Protection clause of Fourteenth Amendment and the treaty between the United States and Japan are not conflicted.

■ Error to a judgment of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma which reversed a judgment recovered by the present plaintiff in error in a trial court,.in his action to recover for wrongful use and occupation of his allotted land.

The order of discharge was made by a circuit judge, assigned to the District Court, who directed that, it be recorded in that court. I. The district court acted beyond its jurisdiction, because petitioner’s act was not “ misbehavior,” and did not, and could not, “ obstruct ” the administration of justice. II. The'circuit judge had jurisdiction to issue the writ of habeas corpus.

<p>1. Savings deposits, in a state banking, corporation having its place of business within the State of its creation, are intangible property subject, like tangible property, to the dominion of the State. P. 285.</p> <p>2. A state law requiring a bank, through appropriate procedure, to pay over such deposits, when long unclaimed, to the State as depositary or by way of escheat, violates no right of the bank under the contract clause of the Constitution or the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, since the bank’s contracts with the depositors merely give it the use of the money until called for by proper authority, and payment to the State in obedience to a valid law discharges its obligation to them. Id.</p> <p>3. The two essentials of jurisdiction in a proceeding by the State to effect an escheat of such unclaimed deposits, in order that the depositors may be boimd and the bank protected, are seizure of the res at the beginning of the suit and reasonable notice and opportunity to be heard accorded the depositors. P. 287.</p> <p>4. Under the California statutes here involved, seizure of the res is accomplished by personal service on the bank, in a suit brought by the Attorney General in Sacramento County, and due notice is given the depositors by publication in that county of a summons, with a notice, also, to all other persons to appear and show cause w'hy- the money should not be deposited with the State Treasurer. Id.</p> <p>5. Proof by affidavit that personal service on depositors is impossible or impracticable is not a constitutional prerequisite to service by publication in such an escheat proceeding, where the depositors impleaded are only those who are not known to the hank officials to be alive, whose accounts have not been added to or drawn upon for twenty years, and who have not filed with the bank, within that time, any notice or claim giving their then residences. P. 288.</p> <p>6. In view of other statutes requiring savings banks in California to publish at their several locations annual notices of deposits not added to or drawn upon during the preceding ten years, with the name, last known residence and other particulars concerning the depositor, this Court cannot say that the escheat statute, in providing for publication of summons in escheat proceedings at Sacramento County only, was unreasonable. P. 289.</p>

Held: where the trial judge, in a memorandum accompanying the ruling, indicated his opinion that the motion went to the jurisdiction, erroneously assuming that failure to allege facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action under a federal statute is a jurisdictional defect. P. 305. 3.

Webb v. O'Brien, 263 U.S. 313 (1923), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States upheld a ban on cropping contracts, which technically dealt with labor rather than land and were used by many Issei to avoid the restrictions of California's alien land act. It overturned a lower court decision.

Held: that the act does • not conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment or with the treaty between the United States and Japan. In the case first mentioned, we held that the act prohibits the leasing of agricultural land by citizens of the United States to a Japanese alien, and in the latter that it prohibits the making of a cropping contract between a citizen and a Japanese alien.

Held: that the decree was not appealable directly to this Court under § 238, Jud. Code, but should be transferred to the Circuit Court of Appeals under § 238a. P. 340. Cause transferred to Circuit Court of Appeals. Appeal from a decree of the District Court which, on motion, dismissed the bill in a suit to restrain the appel-lees from enforcing rules adopted by them to regulate the employment Of seamen.

Held: and whose assets realized from the liquidation will be taken over, by the United States alone. P. 344. Thomson v. Pacific Railroad, 9 Wall. 579 , distinguished. Questions propounded by the Circuit Court of Appeals in á suit brought by the United States and the Spruce Production Corporation to set aside taxes on property held by the corporation.

<p>ON CERTIFICATE FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.</p> <p>Question propounded by the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia in a case coming to that court from the Supreme Court of the District.</p>

Held: that the contract was valid; arid that the claim of the second bank for money advanced in excess of the assets' was not created during the liquidation .but was .a debt arising under the contract for which the shareholders of the liquidated bank were liable under Rev. Stats., § 5151, as amended. P. 360. 276 Fed. 371 , affirmed.

Application by the United States for the writ of prohibition to restrain the District Court from entertaining further jurisdiction over a suit against federal officers, which was alleged to be in effect a suit against the United States and its property.

Held: not'violatiye of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment or the provision of the Constitution against ex post jacto laws, in the case of one who, having obtained such a certificate, sought to enjoin the board from hearing charges looking to its revocation, upon the ground that the statute conferred arbitrary power by not defining more specifically the cause for revocation and that the board had…

<p>APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS' FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT.</p> <p>Appeal from a decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals affirming a decree recovered by the defendant,, here appellee, in a suit brought by the appellants in the United States Court for the Canal Zone to confirm their title to a tract of land and-, later, to the money for which it was expropriated by the United States. •</p>

Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court enunciated a rule of civil procedure that would eventually become known as the Rooker-Feldman doctrine (also named for the later case of District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983). The doctrine holds that lower United States federal courts may not sit in direct review of state court decisions.[1]

Held: that imposition of liability on the employer for the benefit of the workman’s dependents by a state compensation law, was constitutional. P. 426. 60 Utah, 161 , affirmed. Error to a judgment of the Supreme Court of Utah affirming an award of workmen’s compensation by the Utah Industrial Commission.

Held: over the' defendant’s objection, that the principal cause should be tried first,. and that “if a breach of the bond was established’’ judgment. could then be rendered and other claimants permitted to assert their several claims “to. . share in- the fund thus created.” 3 .-. The case was then tried , upon the issues relating to the claim of Guimarin &.

Held: that federal courts, ■exercising jurisdiction based on diversé citizenship, to avoid injustice, but without invoking the contract clause, may decide and enforce the state law as laid down by decisions of the state court 'governing when a contract was made, rather than by its later decisions; and-those involving alleged impairment of contract by a *445 subsequent statute, in which the construction of the statute by…

Held: that the fact that the preferential rate was for the purpose of developing traffic oh the main carrier’s lines, or of securing competitive traffic, ' did not establish the innocence of .the discrimination as a matter of law, but was one only of several proven factors to be weighed by the Interstate Commerce Commission, and that the Commission’s finding of unjust' discrimination, based on a consideration of them all,…

Held: That the owner’s claims against the Railroad Administration, reserved in the requisition, for the difference between the price paid and the greater price then fixed generally by the Fuel Administration, were causes of action arising out of the possession, use and operation of the carriers by the President; within Transportation Act, § 206a, authorizing suit against the agent appointed by him. P. 539. (b) Under Jud.

Held: liable as general partners. . Section 16 of the Uniform (General) Partnership Act provides that: “ When a person . . . represents himself, or consents to another representing him to any one, *561 as a partner in an existing partnership , he is liable to any such person . . . who has, on the faith of such representation, given credit to the actual or apparent partnership, and if he has made such representation or…

Held: that a corporation sole, organized, in the Philippines, for those . purposes, and holding all its property therefor, was not taxable on income, used exclusively for those purposes, and derived mainly from 'rents from its lands, interest from its money lent, and dividends on stocks of private corporations in which its funds were invested, and in small part from occasional sales of such stocks and from sales of wine…

Held: that suit to collect the loan could not be maintained by the Mexican bank under the above statute, since the debt was not one that “ arose with reference to the money or other property held.” P. 599. 3. The fact that, under the law of New York, the debt, when due, • might have been collected by attachment of the property, had this not been seized under the statute, did not alter the case. P. 602. 4.

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

<p>Appeal from the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.</p>

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

<p>On w*it of certiorari to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.</p>

<p>Appeal from the Circuit Court of Appeals -for the Ninth Circuit.</p>

<p>Appeal from the'District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Louisiana.</p>

<p>Appeal from the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.</p>

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

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

<p>Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of Illinois.</p>

<p>Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of Illinois.</p>

<p>Error to: the Supreme Court pf-the State of Mississippi.</p>

<p>Error to the District Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, Division 1, of the State of California.</p>

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

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

<p>On petition for a writ of certiorari to the Court ,of Civil Appeals for the Third Supreme Judicial District of the State of Texas.</p>

<p>On petitions for writs of certiorari to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.</p>

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