Court of Session

“ In this way we are able to determine, as a court in session, whether the errors alleged are such as to justify us in bringing the case here for review.
We proceed, then, to consider what the questions are on which, if it exists at all, our jurisdiction depends. They are thus stated in the opening brief of counsel for petitioners: 'First. ”

“ Will any man say that the City Court exists as a matter of necesity, or that the duties of the officers do not belong to other authorities? If not, why not erect a court-room and not compel its presiding dignitary to lounge a hanger-on the Court of Sessions. ”

“ He further designates three individuals from amongst the whole body of justices, who form in each county what is called the Court of Sessions. The Justices take a personal share in public business; they are sometimes entrusted with administrative functions in conjunction with elected officers [19] ; they sometimes constitute a tribunal, before which the magistrates summarily prosecute a refractory citizen, or the citizens inform against the abuses of the magistrate. But it is in the Court of Sessions that they exercise their most important functions. ”

“ Here a special tribunal has been created for a special purpose. It has been clothed with power to compel the attendance of witnesses, 'and to finally determine the right of each claimant or occupant to purchase' from the United States, under the provisions of the act of congress, the ground he occupies or claims. The duties of the tribunal are judicial in their character, and their decisions evidently intended to be binding on the parties. ”

“ Sit days of every term of such district courts, or so much thereof as shall be necessary, are required by the act of Congress to be appropriated to the trial of causes arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States, which of itself is sufficient to show that, in the view of Congress, their jurisdiction extends to all such matters of controversy. ”

“ The right of having an appellate tribunal pass upon matters of law in all contests between parties, is regarded in some sort as a sacred right by our people. It is given in the broadest terms by the great Judiciary Act of 1789. ”

“ It is none the less the judgment of a judicial tribunal dealing with questions judicial in their nature, and presented in the customary forms of judicial proceedings, because its effect may be to aid an administrative or executive body in the performance of duties legally imposed upon it by congress in execution of a power granted by the constitution. ”

“ Congress is, after all, not a body of laymen unfamiliar with the commonplaces of our law. This legislation was the formulation of the two Judiciary Committees, all of whom are lawyers, and the Congress is predominately a lawyers' body. ”

“ Men eminently qualified to sit on Article I tribunals or agencies are not picked or confirmed in light of their qualifications to preside at jury trials or to process on appeal the myriad of constitutional and procedural problems involved in Article III 'cases' or 'controversies.' A President who sent a name to the Senate for the Interstate Commerce Commission or Federal Trade Commission might never dream of entrusting the nominee with the powers of an Article III judge. ”

“ The act of Congress proceeds upon an acknowledgment of the maxim, 'that a man should not be a judge in his own cause,' and requires a judge found in that predicament, on the motion of either party, to make an order for the removal of the cause to another competent jurisdiction. ”

“ The acts of Congress point out but one mode by which the judgments of State courts can be revised or annulled, and that is by this court, under the twenty-fifth section of the Judiciary Act. In certain cases, where one of the parties is a citizen of another State, he has the privilege of removing his suit to the courts of the United States. ”

“ And Congress have an equal right to apply a like provision to all other acts of all other officers done under color of office, and the trial by jury may, in suits at common law, be completely taken away in all such cases, and the right of final decision be exclusively vested in the executive, or in any other public functionary, at the pleasure of Congress. ”

“ The party who brings suit is 'master to decide what law he will rely upon,' and the allegations of his bill are the evidence, or the expression, of his decision, upon which the courts must act in determining the question of their jurisdiction. ”

“ An appeal to the supreme court of appeals is given of right to any party aggrieved, upon conditions not necessary to be stated, and that court, if it reverses what has been done, is to substitute such order as, in its opinion, the commission should have made. ”

“ The intention of congress is manifest, at least as to cases of which the courts of the several states have concurrent jurisdiction, and which involve a certain amount or value, to vest in the circuit courts of the United States full and effectual jurisdiction, as contemplated by the constitution, over each of the classes of controversies above mentioned ”

“ If an appeal will not lie, then the parties are concluded by what has been done. Congress alone has the power to determine whether the judgment of a court of the United States, of competent jurisdiction, shall be reviewed or not. ”

“ The basis relied upon to establish that we have jurisdiction is the action of the court upon certain motions concerning the qualifications of the jury commissioners, and an alleged failure of such commissioners, in making up the panel, to comply with the law of the United States. ”

“ The intention of congress in enacting that no judge before whom 'a cause or question may have been tried or heard' in a district or circuit court 'shall sit on the trial or hearing of such cause or question' in the circuit court of appeals, manifestly, was to require that court to be constituted of judges uncommitted and uninfluenced by having expressed or formed an opinion in the court of the first instance. ”

“ An examination of the acts of congress, in relation to process and proceedings, and the power of the Court to make and establish all necessary rules for conducting business in the courts, is gone into, and considered sufficient to authorize process and proceedings against a state ”

“ It provides simply: 'and upon the final hearing of any suit brought to suspend or set aside, in whole or in part, any order of said commission the same requirement as to judges and the same procedure as to expedition and appeal shall apply.' Unlike § 266 of the Judicial Code, there is no reference here to 'such suit'-to a suit where an interlocutory injunction is sought and pressed. Rather there is an unambiguous reference to the final hearing of 'any suit' brought to enjoin the enforcement of a Commission order. ”

“ The appellants have the right to the execution of the order given by the district judge to the commissioner and clerk of the court, to ascertain the charges to be made against the respective parties to the suit, and to state an account between them ”

“ We say the hearing should have been had as just stated because it results from the text of the applicable section of the act that limitations are unequivocally imposed upon the power of the single justice or judge to act in the character of case to which the provision refers. They are (a) to receive an application for an interlocutory injunction in the character of case stated in the section ”

“ But while we find no support to the proposition of the counsel for plaintiffs in error in the special provisions of the statute relied on, it is not to be denied that the argument is much stronger when founded on the general doctrine that when the law has confided to a special tribunal the authority to hear and determine certain matters arising in the course of its duties, the decision of that tribunal, within the scope of its authority, is conclusive upon all others. ”

“ Legislative courts also may be created as special tribunals to examine and determine various matters, arising between the government and others, which from their nature do not require judicial determination and yet are susceptible of it. ”

“ If courts of first instance, or appellate courts, were at liberty, on application of a party, at any time to institute a summary inquiry for the purpose of modifying or nullifying a considered judgment, no reliance could be placed on that which has been adjudicated and citizens could not, with any confidence, act in the light of what has apparently been finally decided. ”

“ They also show that the decision or finding of such officer or board, even if the same be a court of other judicial tribunal, is not such a judicial act or judgment as can be reviewed by a supreme or appellate court possessing judicial powers only.' In these views we concur. ”

“ Judicial adherence to the doctrine of the separation of powers preserves the courts for the decision of issues, between litigants, capable of effective determination. Judicial exposition upon political proposals is permissible only when necessary to decide definite issues between litigants. ”

“ Even an appeal from an assessment, if referred to a court and jury, or merely to a court, to be proced ed in according to judicial methods, may become a suit within the act of congress. But the ordinary acts and doings of assessors, or of appellate boards of assessors, in passing upon matters of mere valuation, appraisement, or proportionate distribution of expense, belong to a different class of governmental functions, executive and administrative in their character, and not appertaining to the judicial department. ”

“ All the Chief Justice meant, and what the case has ever after been taken to establish, is that in the territories cases and controversies falling within the enumeration of Article III may be heard and decided in courts constituted without regard to the limitations of that article; [13] courts, that is, having judges of limited tenure and entertaining business beyond the range of conventional cases and controversies. ”

“ 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. ”

“ While it may be admitted that, in some senses, the writ of mandamus may properly be denominated a suit at law, it is still material to inquire whether it was intended to be embraced in the gift of power to hear and determine all suits at common law, of a civil nature, conferred by the Judiciary Act. ”

“ If any Chief Prosecutor objects to the issuance of a summons, or if the Tribunal is in session, the General Secretary shall submit the application to the Tribunal, which shall decide whether or not the summons shall issue. ”

“ A three-judge court must be convened for final hearings on applications for permanent injunctions against the enforcement of state statutes only where an interlocutory injunction has been sought and pressed to a hearing. ”

“ That in every instance in which a tribunal has decided upon a matter within its regular jurisdiction, its decision must be presumed proper, and is binding until it shall be regularly reversed by a superior authority ”

“ We lean to that interpretation of the act which enables the defeated party in such a case in the circuit court of appeals to have, as of right, upon writ of error to that court, a re-examination here of the judgment (the requisite amount being involved) if the correctness of the judgment depends in whole or in part upon the application or construction of the Constitution, or upon the constitutionality of any act of Congress drawn in question. ”

“ Darrow—I suppose that would be the regular way, wouldn't it?
The Court—That would be regular, by agreement. Under the law strictly, you would be entitled to a panel—each side is entitled to three challenges in this case—peremptory challenges—that would be six, and twelve men would be eighteen on the regular panel. The regular panel under the law would be eighteen men, and usually, to save time, we put in more names and proceed until we get the jury. ”

“ It is not deemed incompatible with the dignity of the United States itself to begin suit in a district court, have the litigation proceed to the circuit court of appeals, and only by our leave reach this Court. ”

“ Within five days after written notice of the decision, the prevailing party shall prepare a draft of the findings and, in an equity suit, of the conclusions of law, and deliver the same to the Clerk for the Judge and serve a copy thereof upon the adverse party, who may, within five days thereafter, deliver to the Clerk and serve upon the adverse party such proposed amendments or additions as he may desire. ”

“ Congress has long delegated to executive officers or executive agencies the determination of complicated questions of fact and of law. And where no judicial review was provided by Congress this Court has often refused to furnish one even where questions of law might be involved. ”

“ The Court of Appeals invoked against the Commission the familiar doctrine that a lower court is bound to respect the mandate of an appellate tribunal and cannot reconsider questions which the mandate has laid at rest. ”