Civil procedure

“ The whole life of the Commune is embraced in the statutes: the election and functions of political magistrates; public, civil, criminal, administrative, and commercial law. Public law is the subject most fully dealt with; while, for reasons already explained, civil law is left very incomplete. Nevertheless the statutes handle, with more or less detail, such matters as personal status, dowers, contracts, judicial procedure, succession, wills, rights arising in respect of contiguous lands or houses, and, above all, the family. ”

“ If you charge someone with having done you a wrong, it is not enough to prove your charge; you must also convince the court that common law, or statutory law, or equity gives you the right to redress. The first question in most important cases, both criminal and civil, is decided by a jury ”

“ Now, the question arises, What proceedings are meant by the phrase 'suits of a civil nature at common law or in equity,' in the latter section, conferring original jurisdiction, and the phrase 'a suit,' in the former section, giving the right of removal? ”

“ Certain provisions of the Civil Code and the Code of Practice, as well as a number of decisions of the supreme court of the state, are relied upon to support this view all which we shall now consider. ”

“ At common law jurisdiction over the estates of deceased persons vested in the ecclesiastical, common-law and chancery courts, and, in this country, courts of probate or orphans' courts have universally been created by statute for the general exercise of that jurisdiction, including the exercise of equitable, as well as common-law, powers and the pursuit of appropriate procedure. ”

“ Also, of all proceedings by quo warranto; and may issue writs of habeas corpus, mandamus, prohibition, and certiorari to all inferior tribunals; issue writs of mandamus in all matters arising from or appertaining to the action of the board of supervisors; determines the probate of wills and testamentary cases; may appoint guardians, curators, commissioners in chancery, etc.
Appellate jurisdiction of all cases, civil and criminal, where an appeal writ of error or supersedeas may be taken or allowed by said courts from or to the judgment or proceedings of an inferior tribunal. ”

“ The people in both reserved in a manner the office of judgment to themselves, and brought the decision of civil rights, or of criminal questions, to the tribunal of peers, who, in judging of their fellow citizens, prescribed a condition of life for themselves. ”

“ General Aspects.—The provisions of the Statuto respecting the administration of justice are brief and general. Justice, it is declared, emanates from the king and is administered in his name by the judges whom he appoints. These judges, after three years of service, are irremovable. Proceedings of courts in civil cases and hearings in criminal cases are required to be public. No one may be withdrawn from his ordinary legal jurisdiction; and no modification may be introduced in respect to courts, tribunals, or judges, save by law. ”

“ Administrative courts exist for the application of administrative law, and administrative law may be defined in brief as that body of legal principles by which are determined the status and liabilities of public officials, the rights and liabilities of private individuals in their dealings with the official representatives of the state, and the procedure by which these rights and liabilities may be enforced. ”

“ Whether I have a right to recover certain property is a question of substantive law, for the determination and the protection of such rights are among the ends of the administration of justice; but in what courts and within what time I must institute proceedings are questions of procedural law, for they relate merely to the modes in which the courts fulfil their functions. What facts constitute a wrong is determined by the substantive law; what facts constitute proof of a wrong is a question of procedure. ”

“ No person convicted of Catholicism may practice the common law as a counsellor, clerk, attorney, or solicitor, nor may practice civil law as advocate, or proctor, nor shall be justice, minister, clerk, or steward in any court, nor practice medicine, nor perform as apothecary, nor be officer in a town, in the army, or navy, or forfeit 100 pounds as punishment. ”

“ Whenever the law provides a remedy enforceable in the courts according to the regular course of legal procedure, and that remedy is pursued, there arises a case within the meaning of the Constitution, whether the subject of the litigation be property or status. ”

“ Bendix Home Appliances, D.C., 10 F.R.D. 73, 77, "* * * (T) he scheme of the statute is sharply to distinguish between Government suits, either criminal or civil, and private suits for injunctive relief or for treble damages. Different policy considerations govern each of these. They may proceed simultaneously or in disregard of each other." ”

“ Offenses of a lesser grade are called misdemeanors. The court has jurisdiction over all civil cases. The judge of the superior court has the power to issue various writs for the enforcement of the law, and grant charters to all corporations, except banking, insurance, railroad, canal, navigation, express, telephone, and telegraph companies. Cases appealed from justice courts, county courts, courts of ordinary, and certain city courts lie to the superior courts. ”

“ The Judiciary power of every Government looks beyond its own local or municipal laws, and in civil cases lays hold of all subjects of litigation between parties within its jurisdiction, though the causes of dispute are relative to the laws of the most distant part of the globe. ”

“ The same considerations which have been urged to show that an act alone, by itself, does not and ought not to impose either civil or criminal liability, apply, at least frequently, to a series of acts, or to conduct, although the series shows a further co-ordination and a further intent. ”

“ In the English courts, when it is made to appear that property of the government ought, in justice, to contribute to a general average, or to salvage, it seems to be the usual course of proceeding for the proper officer of the government to consent in court that it may take jurisdiction of the matter. ”

“ In the exercise of that power and to satisfy a public need, a state may choose the remedy best adapted, in the legislative judgment, to protect the interests concerned, provided its choice is not unreasonable or arbitrary, and the procedure it adopts satisfies the constitutional requirements of reasonable notice and opportunity to be heard. ”

“ At the same time he sought to simplify and cheapen the operation of justice. By the Administration of Justice Acts (1873 and 1874) and the Judicature Acts of 1880 and 1881 he effectively assimilated the practice and procedure of the common law and equity courts. ”

“ Proclamation at four court terms of a levy of a fine shall be a final end to an issue of land, tenements, or other hereditaments and the decision shall bind persons and their heirs, whether they have knowledge or not of the decision, except for women in covert [under the protection of a husband] who were not parties, persons under the age of twenty-one, in prison, out of the nation, or not of whole mind, who are not parties. ”

“ Wherever, by either the common law or the statute law of a State, a right of action has become fixed and a legal liability incurred, that liability may be enforced and the right of action pursued in any court which has jurisdiction of such matters and can obtain jurisdiction of the parties. ”

“ All persons are charged with knowledge of the provisions of statutes and must take note of the procedure adopted by them and when that procedure is not unreasonable or arbitrary there are no constitutional limitations relieving them from conforming to it. ”

“ That where a state law, statutory or customary, gives to the citizens of the state, in an action or suit inter partes, the right to question at law the probate of a will or to assail probate in a suit in equity, the courts of the United States, in administering the rights of citizens of other states or aliens, will enforce such remedies. ”

“ It is a general principle, that when power or jurisdiction is delegated to any public officer or tribunal over a subject-matter, and its exercise is confided to his or their discretion, the acts so done are binding and valid as to the subject-matter. ”

“ Justice Field, in The Moses Taylor, said: 'That clause only saves to suitors 'the right of a common-law remedy, where the common law is competent to give it.' It is not a remedy in the common-law courts which is saved, but a common-law remedy. ”

“ Under any such circumstances, the wisdom of Congress has provided the means of protection to all persons sued or imprisoned for any act done or omitted to be done in pursuance of a law of the United States, or any order, process, or decree of any Federal judge or court of competent jurisdiction. ”

“ The subject, therefore, has a twofold aspect,-the power of Federal courts to entertain jurisdiction concerning the probate or the revocation of the probate of wills, where the requisite diversity of citizenship exists, and the power of those courts, where such diversity obtains, to adjudicate concerning rights against the estates of decedents. ”

“ When, therefore, in an ordinary trial in an action at law we speak of the common law we refer to the law of the state as it has been adopted by statute or recognized by the courts as the foundation of legal rights. It is in regard to decisions made by the state courts in reference to this law, and defining what is the law of the state as modified by the opinions of its own courts, by the statutes of the state, and the customs and habits of the people, that the trouble arises. ”

“ In the civil cases in which judgments are pronounced after examination and review by our said president and auditors, they are to be executed without any further appeal or petition, or other recourse, except when the case involves so large an amount that there may be ground for a further appeal to our royal person, in conformity with the provision and decree of our laws and ordinances. ”

“ Justice FIELD, 'it appears from the inspection of the record of a court of general jurisdiction that the defendant, against whom a personal judgment or decree is rendered, was at the time of the alleged service without the territorial limits of the court, and thus beyond the reach of its process, and that he never appeared in the action, the presumption of jurisdiction over his person ceases, and the burden of establishing the jurisdiction is cast upon the party who invokes the benefit or protection of the judgment or decree. ”

“ If a resort to a judicial proceeding to collect it is deemed expedient, there remains to the court all the ordinary means of enforcing its judgment-executions, sequestration, and any other appropriate remedy in chancery. ”

“ The tendency of modern decisions everywhere is to the doctrine that the jurisdiction of a court or other tribunal to render a judgment affecting individual rights, is always open to inquiry, when the judgment is relied on in any other proceeding. ”

“ Certainly, at the instance of the executive, through the medium of the judiciary, in whose custody and under whose control the property claimed already was. The questions incident to due and sufficient proof of property are clearly judicial questions; but when that property is already in the custody and under the jurisdiction of a court, they are so, from necessity, as it is desirable they always should be, from choice. ”

“ Higley to be the almost uniform rule, among the people who make the common law of England the basis of their jurisprudence, to have a distinct tribunal for the establishment of wills, and the administration of the estates of men dying either with or without wills, which tribunals are variously called 'prerogative courts,' 'probate courts,' 'surrogate courts,' 'orphans' courts,' etc. ”

“ It is the duty of the sovereign to provide a tribunal, under whose direction the just demands against the estate may be determined and paid, the succession decreed, and the estate devolved to those who are found to be entitled to it. Sometimes this duty is performed by conferring jurisdiction upon a single court and sometimes by dividing the jurisdiction among two or three courts. The courts may be termed ecclesiastical, probate, orphans', surrogate, or equity courts. ”

“ Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress. ”

“ The term 'process' shall be construed to mean and include any and every writ, rule, order, notice, or decree, including any process of execution that may issue in or upon any action, suit, or legal proceeding to which said company may be a party by themselves, or jointly with others, whether the same shall arise upon a policy of insurance or otherwise, by or in any other court of this commonwealth having jurisdiction of the subject-matter in controversy, . ”

“ Relevancy of certain judgments in probate etc., jurisdiction A final judgment, order or decree of a Competent Court, in exercise of probate, matrimonial, admiralty or insolvency jurisdiction, which confers upon or to take away from any person any legal character, or which declares any person to be entitled to any such character, or to be entitled to any specific thing not as against any specified person but absolutely, is relevant when the existence of any legal character, or the title of any such person to any such thing, is relevant. ”