Circuit court

“ No extraordinary powers were brought into operation. We cannot say that a district court, performing the appropriate duty of a district court, is sitting as a circuit court, because it possesses the powers of a circuit court also. ”

“ Power, it is true, is vested in the circuit courts in certain cases to revise the doings of the district courts, and in certain other cases an appeal is allowed from the District Court to the Circuit Court; but it is a sufficient answer to every suggestion of that sort that no attempt was made in the case to seek a revision of the decree in any other tribunal. ”

“ Circuit courts for each district of their respective circuits have a general superintendence and jurisdiction of all cases and questions arising in the district court for such district, when sitting as a court of bankruptcy, which may be exercised by the court in term time or in vacation by the circuit justice or by the circuit judge of the circuit ”

“ Conflicts within a circuit will be avoided. Finality of decision in the circuit courts of appeal will be promoted. Those considerations are especially important in view of the fact that in our federal judicial system these courts are the courts of last resort in the run of ordinary cases. Such considerations are, of course, not for us to weigh in case Congress has devised a system where the judges of a court are prohibited from sitting en banc. ”

“ The circuit court truly says, in its opinion: 'Manifestly the complainant received a consideration for devising and consenting to the use of an invention which was designed to be a complete, permanent structure, which was to cost a large sum of money, and which he knew would not meet the expectation of those who had employed him, unless it should prove to be in all respects a practically operative and reasonable durable one. ”

“ If a circuit court could find as a fact that a collision was due to the falt of one vessel, an appeal to this court would be useless; and, unless the findings set forth all the material facts, the ultimate finding of fault becomes more or less a finding of a fact, when it should be a legal inference from other facts. ”

“ I have always regarded the patent of the complainant void upon its face. I moreover consider the decree of the Circuit Court inconsistent with the claim of the complainant, unwarranted by any evidence in the cause, and most unjust and oppressive in its operation. ”

“ Much argument is addressed to us on the construction of the act of March 3d, 1873, concerning the District and Circuit Courts of Alabama, especially whether by that act the Circuit Court sitting at Mobile has circuit court jurisdiction over the whole State or not. ”