Appellate court

“ But the appellate power of this court is broader than its original, and generally-that is, in most cases-it may be said that the issue of a writ of habeas corpus by us, when it is directed to one of our inferior courts, is an exercise of our appellate jurisdiction. Without going at large into a discussion of its extent, it is sufficient for the present to notice the fact that the exercise of the appellate power is not limited by the Constitution to any particular form or mode. It is not alone by appeal or by writ of error that it may be invoked. ”

“ Section 2106 merely deals with the general power of appellate courts and indicates no congressional purpose to overcome the long-standing and established practice, recognized by this Court's decisions and Rule 50, that the discretion to decide whether a new trial should be granted, when the appellate court finds a gap in the supporting evidence, rests with the trial judge and not with the appellate court. ”

“ That decree was vacated by the appeal, and the Circuit Court acquired full jurisdiction of the cause. It might, in its discretion, make orders for further proof, and was fully authorized to proceed to final hearing and decree, in all respects, as if the cause had been originally instituted in that court. Nor can it be doubted that, under the Constitution, this court can exercise, in prize causes, appellate jurisdiction only. An appellate jurisdiction necessarily implies some judicial determination, some judgment, decree, or order of an inferior tribunal, from which an appeal has been taken. ”

“ In all proceedings in the territorial courts in the nature of suits in equity, therefore, as well as in those proceedings in the nature of actions at common law, in which no trial by jury is had, either because a jury has been duly waived or because the issues tried are issues of law only, the appellate jurisdiction of this court must be invoked by appeal, and not by writ of error. ”

“ By the practice in equity, as administered in the court of chancery and the house of lords in England, and in the courts of chancery and courts of errors in the states of New York and New Jersey, appeals lay from interlocutory, as well as from final, orders or decrees; and upon an appeal from an interlocutory order or decree the appellate court had the power of examining the merits of the case, and, upon deciding them in favor of the defendant, of dismissing the bill, and thus saving to both parties the needless expense of a further prosecution of the suit. ”

“ Where the appeal statutes establish the conditions of appellate review an appellate court cannot rightly exercise its discretion to issue a writ whose only effect would be to avoid those conditions and thwart the Congressional policy against piecemeal appeals in criminal cases. ”

“ Under the act of 1895, as under the previous acts of congress, where the matter in controversy exceeds $5 in value, an appeal lies to a court of record from any judgment of a justice of the peace, whether rendered upon a verdict or not, and either party may have a trial by a common-law jury in the appellate court; and the trial by jury in that court is, and the trial before a justice of the peace is not, a trial by jury, within the meaning of the seventh amendment to the constitution. ”

“ And respondent, in urging decision here of the constitutional questions not pressed in the state court, relies on the familiar rule of appellate court procedure in federal courts that, without a cross-petition or appeal, a respondent or appellee may support the judgment in his favor upon grounds different from those upon which the court below rested its decision. ”

“ Rep. 107:
'An appeal cannot be said to be 'taken' any more than a writ of error can be said to be 'brought' until it is, in some way, presented to the court which made the decree appealed from, thereby putting an end to its jurisdiction over the cause, and making it its duty to send it to the appellate court.' There the appeal was allowed by Mr. Justice Miller on the last day on which an appeal could be taken (Rev. Stat. § 1008) , but was not presented to the court below nor filed with the clerk until five days after the prescribed time had expired. ”

“ Matters resting in the discretion of a subordinate court cannot be assigned for error in an appellate court. [6] Exceptions do not lie to the granting or refusing a new trial in a suit at law, nor will an appeal lie from the Circuit Court to this court from an order of the Circuit Court in granting or refusing a petition for rehearing in an equity suit for the same reason, which is that the motion in the one case, or the petition or motion in the other, is alike addressed to the discretion of the court, as shown by all the decisions in the Federal courts. ”

“ Usually where a court has no jurisdiction of a case, the correct practice is to dismiss the suit, but a different rule necessarily prevails in an appellate court in cases where the subordinate court was without jurisdiction and has given judgment or decree for the plaintiff or improperly decreed affirmative relief to a claimant. ”

“ Appealability here turns on whether the District Court's refusal to stay this trial for arbitration was the refusal of an 'injunction' under § 1292.
The provision for interlocutory appeals was first introduced in 1891 when the circuit courts of appeals were established as intermediate appellate courts. 26 Stat. 826. Section 7 of that Act allowed appeals from interlocutory orders in equity 'granting or continuing' injunctions, but from those only. Additions to the class of appealable interlocutory orders were made from time to time until the enactment of § 1292 in its present form. ”

“ It is not enough that an appellant could have launched his attack upon the validity of the statute itself as applied; if he has failed to do so we are without jurisdiction over the appeal. The Judicial Code was intended to restrict our obligatory appellate jurisdiction to a narrow class of cases, and to foreclose an appeal as of right whenever the prescribed conditions have not been rigorously fulfilled. ”

“ These considerations seem to require the construction that the right of appeal attaches equally to all judgments of the Circuit Court, unless there be something in the clause defining the appellate jurisdiction which demands the restricted interpretation. ”

“ Clearly, the contention of the plaintiffs is not sustainable. When a case is presented to an appellate court it is not obliged to consider and decide all the questions then suggested or which may be supposed likely to arise in the further progress of the litigation. ”

“ While a litigant has no constitutional right of appellate review, Congress has seen fit to grant it. And, until 1891, this court was, with negligible exceptions, the only instrument of such review. The increasing volume of our appellate work bade fair to render the court incompetent to give needed consideration to important cases which the public interest required that it decide. To preserve the privilege of appellate review, and to provide an appellate tribunal where most federal litigation should end without resort of this court, Congress created the Circuit Courts of Appeals. ”

“ Considerations of importance to our answer here are that the trial court, in striking the pleas in abatement, acted within its jurisdiction as a district court; that no action or omission on its part has thwarted or tends to thwart appellate review of the ruling; and that while a function of mandamus in aid of appellate jurisdiction is to remove obstacles to appeal, it may not appropriately be used merely as a substitute for the appeal procedure prescribed by the statute. ”

“ Moreover, in a limited sense, form is substance with respect to ascertaining the existence of appellate jurisdiction. While it is always necessary to categorize a situation realistically, to place a given order according to its real effect, it remains true that the categories themselves were defined by the Congress in terms of form. Many interlocutory decisions of a trial court may be of grave importance to a litigant, yet are not amenable to appeal at the time entered, and some are never satisfactorily reviewable. ”

“ It is the special obligation of this Court strictly to observe the limits of its jurisdiction. No matter how tempting the appeal of a particular situation, we should not indulge in disregard of the bounds by which Congress has defined our power of appellate review. There will be time enough to enforce the constitutional right, if right it be, which the Court now finds the petitioner to possess when it is duly presented for judicial determination here, and there are ample modes open to the petitioner for assertion of such a claim in a way to require our adjudication. ”

“ If relief on equitable grounds is to be obtained it is right that it should be sought by a formal suit upon adequate pleadings and should be granted only after a trial of issues according to the usual course of the trial of questions of fact. A court of first instance is the appropriate tribunal, and the only tribunal, equipped for such a trial. Appellate courts have neither the power nor the means to that end. ”