Howell Edmunds Jackson

“ It is well settled that a writ of error will not lie except to review a final judgment or decree of the highest court of the state, and that it will not lie to an order overruling a motion to quash an execution, because a decision upon the rule or motion is not such a final judgment or decree in any suit as is contemplated by the judiciary acts of the general government. Refusal to quash a writ is not a final judgment. ”

“ Can the agreement to furnish information as to bargains in real estate, and give copartners the option of taking benefit of such bargains, be considered a so enlarging the scope of the partnership business as to include therein the purchase and sale of real estate on joint account? It would be a perversion of language and a confusion of ideas to treat such a stipulation, if it were clearly established, as creating a partnership in future options to buy what did not already, by the terms of the copartnership, come within the scope and characted of the partnership business. ”

“ Justice Miller, speaking for the court, that, 'where a specified thing is to be done by one party as the consideration of the thing to be done by the other, it is undeniably the general rule that the covenants are mutual, and are dependent, if they are to be performed at the same time; and if, by the terms or the nature of the contract, one is first to be performed as the condition of the obligation of the other, that which is first to be performed must be done or tendered before that party can sustain a suit against the other. ”

“ On the record before us, Pennsylvania has not challenged the implied immunity of the Federal Government from taxation nor has she sought to tax that which Congress has said should be free from taxation. Pennsylvania has not taxed property owned by the Government. Pennsylvania has not used her otherwise unquestioned power of taxation to discriminate against one dealing with the Government. ”

“ In denouncing unlawful search by federal officers as a misdemeanor, Congress provided that it should not apply to one 'arresting or attempting to arrest any person committing or attempting to commit an offense in the presence of such officer, agent or employee, or who has committed, or who is suspected on reasonable grounds of having committed, a felony.' [12] Thus the legislative sources, while yielding some common provisions, also contain many inconsistencies. No act of Congress lays down a general federal rule for arrest without warrant for federal offenses. ”

“ Why we should hesitate to hold that federal citizenship implies rights to enter and abide in any state of the Union at least equal to those possessed by aliens passes my understanding. The world is even more upside down than I had supposed it to be, if California must accept aliens in deference to their federal privileges but is free to turn back citizens of the United States unless we treat them as subjects of commerce. ”

“ Louis Company for the benefit of a stranger, and then be left to either lose its valid claim for damages, or follow its nonresident insolvent debtor into another jurisdiction, in the effort, more or less experimental and expensive, to collect such claim? If the St. Louis Company was the beneficial plaintiff in the judgment at law, or the case stood alone between it and the Chicago Company, there could be little or no doubt that a court of equity would, under the facts stated, afford the latter relief, by way of equitable set-off. ”

“ It merely provides a means for the county to apply to railroad property its own rate of taxation and collect the tax for county purposes. The vital thing is the rate, and the state has nothing to do with fixing it in any county beyond general regulations restricting its amount and the like. It is entirely immaterial whether mere ministerial acts and calculations, which, when correctly done and made, can have but one possible result, are the work of the comptroller general or of the county authorities. ”

“ At common law the general rule undoubtedly was that where an erroneous judgment was entered by a trial court, or an erroneous sentence imposed, on a valid indictment, the appellate court, on error, could not itself render such a judgment as the trial court should have rendered, or remit the case to the trial court with directions for it to do so, but the only thing it could do was to reverse the judgment and discharge the defendant. ”

“ If, in closing out the contracts of sale, profits had been realized on the transactions, whether by reason of decline in the price of cotton, or by the purchases 'to cover' the cotton sold, the brokers would, upon well-settled principles, have been liable to their principal for the same. They could not have set up or interposed as a valid defense to such liability that the contracts of sale out of which the profits were realized were not enforceable under the statute of frauds, or were voidable by the agents or the purchaser with whom they contracted. ”

“ Consideration of the nature of club activity is a necessary preliminary to the formulation of a test of what constitutes a 'due or membership fee.' So far as finances go, the fundamental notion of Club activity is that operating expenses are shared without insistence upon equivalence between the proportion of an individual's contributions and the proportion of the benefits he receives. [16] Thus, on the one hand, payment of the price of an individual dinner at the club dining room or of a single round of golf lacks the element of making common cause inherent in the idea of club activity. ”

“ In the tariff legislation of the government, congress has generally adopted means and methods for a speedy and equitable adjustment of the question as to the market value of imported articles, without allowing an appeal to the courts to review the decision reached. If dissatisfied importers, after exhausting the remedies provided by the statute to ascertain and determine the fair dutiable value of imported merchandise, could apply to the courts to have a review of that subject, the prompt and regular collection of the government's revenues would be seriously obstructed and interfered with. ”

“ Where a contract is void at law for want of power to make it, a court of equity has no jurisdiction to enforce such contract, or in the absence of fraud, accident, or mistake to so modify it as to make it legal, and then enforce it. ”

“ No errors alleged to exist in the estimate, resulting from any cause, can be shown in a judicial proceeding to affect the rights of the government or individuals. There is no value, and can be none, in such coins, except as thus ascertained; and the duty of ascertaining and declaring their value, case upon the treasury department, is the performance of an executive function, requiring skill, and the exercise of judgment and discretion, which precludes judicial inquiry into the correctness of the decision. ”

“ It is undoubtedly true that a court of equity will not ordinarily entertain a bill solely for the purpose of establishing the title of a party to real estate, or for the recovery of possession thereof, as these objects can generally be accomplished by an action of ejectment at law. ”

“ How then could we say that the right to search a car without a warrant confers greater latitude to search occupants than a search by warrant would permit?
We see no ground for expanding the ruling in the Carroll case to justify this arrest and search as incident to the search of a car. We are not convinced that a person, by mere presence in a suspected car, loses immunities from search of his person to which he would otherwise be entitled. ”

“ A state may tax personal property and might well tax it to one in whose possession it was found, but it could hardly tax one of its citizens because of moneys of the United States which were in his possession as Collector of Internal Revenue, Postmaster, Clerk of the United States Court, or other federal officer, agent, or contractor. We hold that Government-owned property, to the full extent of the Government's interest therein, is immune from taxation, either as against the Government itself or as against one who holds it as a bailee. ”

“ Congress cannot have intended that it should be within the power of a state by its statutes to prevent a defendant sued in a circuit court of the United States, in a district in which congress has said that he shall not be compelled to answer, from obtaining a determination of that matter by that court in the first instance, and by this court on writ of error. ”

“ A tax is laid by the general government on all the money on hand or on deposit of every citizen of the government at a given date. Such taxation prevails in many of the states. The government has, under its taxing power, the right to lay such a tax. ”

“ We are unable to agree to an interpretation of the federal statute by which a case is not 'commenced' for its purposes unless instituted in a court with power to proceed to final judgment. An action is 'commenced' for these purposes as a matter of federal law when instituted by service of process issued out of a state court, even if one which itself is unable to proceed to judgment, if the state law or practice directs or permits the transfer through change of venue or otherwise to a court which does have jurisdiction to her, try, and otherwise determine that cause. ”

“ A decision that the statute lays a tax only on those with an affirmative intent to remain here the rest of their days would be at odds with the prevailing concept of domicile, and would give the statute scope far narrower than the Congress must have intended.
Cases falling clearly within such broad rules aside, the question of domicile is a difficult one of fact to be settled only by a realistic and conscientious review of the many relevant (and frequently conflicting) indicia of where a man's home [10] is and according to the established modes of proof. ”

“ In respect to the question of testamentary power of disposition over real estate, the Missouri act adopted by the territorial government, and re-enacted by the state of Oregon, was unquestionably intended to be as broad and comprehensive as the Virginia act of 1785, which conferred the testamentary power to devise after-acquired land, and was more comprehensive than the prior act of 1844, taken from the Iowa statute. As already stated, the language of the statute makes no distinction between personalty and realty. It confers the power to dispose of the realty as broadly as the personalty. ”

“ Does 'indigence' as defined by the application of the California statute constitute a basis for restricting the freedom of a citizen, as crime or contagion warrants its restriction' We should say now, and in no uncertain terms, that a man's mere property status, without more, cannot be used by a state to test, qualify, or limit his rights as a citizen of the United States. 'Indigence' in itself is neither a source of rights nor a basis for denying them. ”

“ Again, it is well established that equity will entertain jurisdiction, and afford relief against the collection of a judgment, where, in justice and good conscience, it ought not to be enforced, as where there is a meritorious, equitable defense thereto, which could not have been set up at law, or which the party was, without fault or negligence, prevented from interposing. ”

“ To hold that a partner can never derive any personal benefits from information which he obtains as a partner would be manifestly absurd.' And it was said by Lord Justice Bowen that the character of information acquired from the partnership transaction, or from connection with the firm, which the partner might not use for his private advantage, is such information as belongs to the partnership in the sense of property which is valuable to the partnership, and in which it has a vested right. ”

“ Being a civil process, it cannot be converted into a remedy for the correction of mere errors of judgment or of procedure in the court having cognizance of the criminal offense. Under the writ of habeas corpus this court can exercise no appellate jurisdiction over the proceedings of the trial court or courts of the state, nor review their conclusions of law or fact, and pronounce them erroneous. The writ of habeas corpus is not a proceeding for the correction of errors. ”

“ It was there said by the supreme court of Tennessee. 'The property of a railroad company for purposes of taxation consists of its realty, its local personalty, its rolling stock, its choses in action, and its franchises. The franchise is the privilege conferred by the charter of incorporation, namely, the right to exercise all the powers granted in the mode prescribed for the purpose of profit. It is a unit, not confined to any one county in which it may be exercised. ”

“ Courts of equity can no more disregard statutory and constitutional requirements and provisions than can courts of law. They are bound by positive provisions of a statute equally with courts of law, and where the transaction or the contract is declared void because not in compliance with express statutory or constitutional provision, a court of equity cannot interpose to give validity to such transaction or contract, or any part thereof. ”

“ The reason given for the distinction between real and personal estate was that a devise of land was regarded in the same light as a conveyance, and, as a conveyance at common law would not vest for want of seisin, it was therefore held to be operative only on such real estate as the testator might have at the time of the making of the will,-that is to say, that a devise was in the nature of a conveyance or appointment of real estate then owned, to take effect at a future date, and could not, therefore, operate on future acquisitions. ”

“ But renunciation of any lien on Government property itself, which could not be sustained in any event, hardly establishes that it is not being taxed. The fact is that the lien on the underlying land is increased because of and in proportion to the assessment of the machinery. If the tax is collected by selling the land out from under the machinery, the effect on its usefulness to the Government would be almost as disastrous as to sell the machinery itself. ”

“ The most natural and practical test by which to determine what is a direct tax in the sense of the constitution is to ascertain whether the tax can be apportioned among the several states according to their respective number, with reasonable approximation to justice, fairness, and equality to all the citizens and inhabitants of the country who may be subject to the operation of the law. ”

“ We believe, however, that in absence of an applicable federal statute the law of the state where an arrest without warrant takes place determines its validity. By one of the earliest acts of Congress, the principle of which is still retained, the arrest by judicial process for a federal offense must be 'agreeably to the usual mode of process against offenders in such State.' [8] There is no reason to believe that state law is not an equally appropriate standard by which to test arrests without warrant, except in those cases where Congress has enacted a federal rule. ”

“ The question is all the more free from difficulty because under our system each taxpayer values his own property for taxation, and makes his own returns. So under the present law the railroad can and does make returns to the comptroller general, which serve the same purpose as if it made separate returns to the tax receivers. It fixes the amounts on which it must pay taxes, and each county fixes its own rate. Hence, under this law, a railroad would not have to pay more tax than if each county by its own officials attended to the whole business. ”

“ No rule of construction is better settled than that this court will not declare invalid a statute passed by a co-ordinate branch of the government, in whose favor every presumption should be made, unless its repugnancy to the constitution is clear beyond a reasonable doubt. ”

“ Any measure which would divide our citizenry on the basis of property into one class free to move from state to state and another class that is poverty-bound to the place where it has suffered misfortune is not only at war with the habit and custom by which our country has expanded, but is also a short-sighted blow at the security of property itself. ”