Louisiana law

“ The form of action is the same in equity as at law; and if in all cases where a legal right could be prosecuted in other states, at the common law, they are to be donominated actions at law in Louisiana, the design of congress in adopting the Louisiana practice is defeated. The act of 1824 intended to relieve the parties to a suit in the district court in Louisiana from the forms of the common law, or the special regulations of the judiciary act of 1789, because they were not adapted to the modes of proceeding in that court. ”

“ While the federal constitution declares that it shall be the supreme law of the land, anything in the constitution of any state to the contrary notwithstanding, the supreme court of Louisiana holds that, in the matter of state contracts, her constitution is the exclusive mandate to, and absolutely binding upon, her officers, anything in the constitution of the United States to the contrary notwithstanding. ”

“ If it be said that the civil law and not the common law is the basis of the jurisprudence of Louisiana, I answer that the decree of Louis XVI, in 1776, abolished all monopolies of trades and all special privileges of corporations, guilds, and trading companies, and authorized every person to exercise, without restraint, his art, trade, or profession, and such has been the law of France and of her colonies ever since, and that law prevailed in Louisiana at the time of her cession to the United States. ”

“ There can be no constitutional barrier to this Louisiana law passed to protect persons injured within its borders. Consequently, unless Congress has specifically forbidden states to protect seamen this way, Louisiana's statute is valid and should be enforced.
The majority hold that the Limited Liability Act of 1851, as amended, bestows on the shipowner a right to collect all or part of the insurance money for his profit despite Louisiana's statute requiring insurance companies to make their payments directly to the families of persons injured or killed. ”

“ Congress has decided that the United States should have the benefit of the protection of its own courts in this type of litigation. We properly hold that the District Court, not the state court, has jurisdiction of the controversy. But we beat the devil around the bush when, having taken the litigation out of the state court, we send the parties back to the state court for its construction of Louisiana law which is the most significant issue in the case. ”

“ The Louisiana Supreme Court found-contrary to the trial judge that negroes had not been excluded from jury service on account of race, but that their exclusion was the result of a bona fide compliance by the Jury Commission with State laws prescribing jury qualifications. With this conclusion we cannot agree. Louisiana law requires the Commissioners to select names for the general venire from persons qualified to serve without distinction as to race or color. ”

“ By the law of Louisiana, as in states where the common law prevails, the regulation and control of markets for the sale of provisions, including the places and the distances from each other at which they may be kept, are maters of municipal police, and may be intrusted by the legislature to a city council, to be exercised as in its discretion the public health and convenience may require. ”

“ Louisiana, in disregard of the 'rules and forms which have been established for the protection of private rights.' Apart from every other consideration, the right to receive and enjoy the salary attached to such an office is a right of property. And a right of property should be deemed property, unless we mean to play with words, and regard form rather than substance.
I go farther. The liberty of which the 14th Amendment forbids a state from depriving anyone without due process of law is something more than freedom from the enslavement of the body or from physical restraint. ”

“ But when, as here, the foundation of the right claimed is a state law, the suit to assert it arises under the state law none the less that the state law has attached a condition that only alien legislation can fulfil. The state law is the sole determinant of the conditions supposed, and its reference elsewhere for their fulfilment is like the reference to a document that it adopts and makes part of itself. The suit is not maintained by virtue of the act of Congress, but by virtue of the Louisiana statute that allows itself to be satisfied by that act. ”

“ The rule of law that he who takes a note overdue and dishonored, takes it encumbered with all the equities between the prior parties to it, is the law of Louisiana as well as of those States which have adopted the common law. ”

“ It could, therefore, be held by the Republicans with a great show of truth that the public authorities of the reconstructed "State" government of Louisiana not only would not extend the equal protection of the laws to all persons, but would themselves deprive persons even of life without due process of law. ”

“ The law, says the court, may, not that it must, adopt the state practice. As the constituting gives a right to relief in equity, the law should be construed so as to enable a party to obtain that relief. In Louisiana, there are no courts of chancery; and, therefore, no rules can be invoked from the Louisiana courts to regulate proceedings in equity cases. ”

“ The Louisiana law against obstructing the streets and sidewalks, [2] while applied here so as to convict Negroes for assembling and picketing on streets and sidewalks for the purpose of publicly protesting racial discrimination, expressly provides that the statute shall not bar picketing and assembly by labor unions protesting unfair treatment of union members. I believe that the First and Fourteenth Amendments require that if the streets of a town are open to some views, they must be open to all. ”

“ And although suits against her, even then, may not be allowed, her officers can be compelled to do what she then contracts that they shall do. And, as to these consolidated bonds, Louisiana has declared in her organic law that they created a valid contract between her and each and every holder, which she 'shall by no means and in no wise impair,' and that no court 'shall enjoin the payment of the principal or interest thereof, or the levy and collection of the tax therefor,' but that, to secure them, her judicial power shall be exercised when necessary. ”

“ The state tax collector and the state auditor, through the assistant attorney general of the state, also answered, setting up defenses similar in character to those made by the board of assessors. By way of reconvention under the Louisiana law (Code Prac. arts. 374, 375) , these officials, averring the liability of the bank for the taxes assessed as above stated, prayed judgment against the bank for the entire sum of the taxes, with costs, penalties, and attorner's fees. ”

“ This change reconciled the House, not very cheerfully, to recede, and March 23 the Bill, as it passed the Senate, became law by a vote of fifty-one to forty-five. With the passage of this Act and its twin statute for collecting duties in the ceded territory, the precedent was complete. Louisiana received a government in which its people, who had been solemnly promised all the rights of American citizens, were set apart, not as citizens, but as subjects lower in the political scale than the meanest tribes of Indians, whose right to self-government was never questioned. ”

“ There remains to be considered the objection that the law is forbidden by paragraph 6 of section 9 of the first article of the constitution, which declares that 'no preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one state over those of another.' It is not readily perceived how this quarantine statute of Louisiana, and particularly the fees of the quarantine officers, do give such a preference. Are the ports of Louisiana given a preference over ports of other states? Are the ports of any other state given a preference over those of Louisiana? ”

“ Here the evidence introduced was clearly sufficient to block out those elements essential to a conviction under the laws of Louisiana of the crime of obtaining property by false pretenses. The law of Louisiana could not, and does not attempt to, require more. It is true that the procedure to be followed in hearings on commitment is determined by the law of the state in which they are held. ”

“ No one disputes the fact that petitioners congregated in a public building and refused to move on when ordered to do so by authorized persons. The only factual question which can possibly arise regarding the application of the statute here is whether under Louisiana law petitioners either intended to breach the peace or created circumstances under which a breach might have been occasioned. The record shows that petitioners, as part of a plan, entered the library and once there stayed despite the librarians' protests until its normal activity was completely disrupted. ”

“ Release of Obligations to State, Parish, or Municipality Section 15. The legislature shall have no power to release, extinguish, or authorize the releasing or extinguishing of any indebtedness, liability, or obligation of a corporation or individual to the state, a parish, or a municipality. However, the legislature, by law, may establish a system under which claims by the state or a political subdivision may be compromised, and may provide for the release of heirs to confiscated property from taxes due thereon at the date of its reversion to them. ”

“ The only question before the court below, and which was decided negatively, was whether the bonds were sold by the governor of the state within the authority vested in him by the law under which they were issued, by being exchanged for sugar, and were therefore valid obligations of the state, which could be funded under its statute. There is, in the consideration and determination of this question, no resort to any federal law. It is purely a question of the construction of a state statute, and of the power which was conferred by it upon her agents; nothing more not less. ”

“ Though there may have been no state law or municipal ordinance that in terms required segregation of the races in restaurants, it is plain that the proprietors in the instant cases were segregating blacks from whites pursuant to Louisiana's custom. Segregation is basic to the structure of Louisiana as a community; the custom that maintains it is at least as powerful as any law. ”

“ But although the law which you have established over us can be revoked by the same power that has dictated it, if through respect for ancient institutions, if through attachment for a plan of government which was successively applied to your several territories, you should persist in requiring, as a condition of our incorporation, that our population should amount to sixty thousand free inhabitants, then we might abandon the hope ever to see the change which is the object of our wishes, Our Territory, though vast, cannot admit of any large increase of population. ”

“ This Ordinance was passed 19 years before the charter to Louisiana, and consequently was comprehended among the edicts and ordinances originally established as the law of the Province.
Mr. Livingston and his advocates have asserted that the right to the beds and increments of rivers, is a gift of the feudal system to the sovereign, that is, to the nation, and is a peculiarity of that system: and further, that that system was never introduced into Louisiana. ”

“ It is also said by my brethren that plaintiffs are not deprived of their property in these judgments because at the time they are unable to collect them. No state shall 'deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law,' is the mandate of the constitution. Could a state law depriving a person of his liberty be sustained upon the ground that such deprivation was only for a time? ”

“ The conflicting views between two members and the rest of this Court on the law of Louisiana relevant to the issue in this case prove once more what a precarious business it is for us to adjudicate a federal issue dependent on what the Court finds to be state law, when the highest court of a State has not given us authoritative guidance regarding its law. ”

“ In the pleadings there is nothing which justified the decree, or to which it was responsive, except the exemption of the bank. And this conclusion results by an overwhelming implication when the state of the statute law of Louisiana is considered. By that law, as is shown by the assessment here assailed, wherever a tax is excessive in amount, it is not to be avoided, but is reduced; and the board of assessors are entitled, when property is omitted for any reason, to immediately make up a supplemental roll correcting the error. ”

“ The Louisiana Recovery District shall not levy a new tax or increase any existing tax of the district.: (B) The legislature shall not grant any power of taxation or power to incur debt or issue bonds to any one or more political subdivisions, special districts, agencies, boards, commissions, or other authorities created by the legislature for the purpose of generating revenue for the state whose boundaryor combined boundaries are coterminous with the state, except by law enacted by a favorable record vote of two-thirds of the elected members of each house of the legislature. ”

“ Except as otherwise authorized by this constitution or except as heretofore or hereafter provided by law for administrative agency determinations in worker's compensation matters, a district court shall have original jurisdiction of all civil and criminal matters.
(2) It shall have exclusive original jurisdiction of felony cases and of cases involving title to immovable property, except as provided in (3) below; the right to office or other public position; civil or political right ”