Legal cause

“ Any person, who, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage of any State, shall subject, or cause to be subjected, any person within the jurisdiction of the United States, to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities, secured by the Constitution of [Pg 126] the United States, shall, any such law, statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage of the State to the contrary, notwithstanding, be liable to the party injured in any action at law, suit in equity, or other proceeding for redress ”

“ But that section applies to cases where the cause of action is the doing of something made unlawful by some provision of the act, or the omission to do something required by the act, and there is a recovery 'of damages sustained in consequence of any such violation of this act,' etc. ”

“ In view of the fact that the question in the case was regarded below, both by the courts and by counsel, as one of 'general' or 'federal' law, the interest of justice requires that the judgment be vacated and the cause remanded for the enforcement of the applicable principles of state law. ”

“ The former gives to the plaintiff, the latter to the defendant, that which he deserves.
A wrong regarded as the subject-matter of civil proceedings is called a civil wrong; one regarded as the subject-matter of criminal proceedings is termed a criminal wrong or a crime. The position of a person who has, by actual or threatened wrongdoing, exposed himself to legal proceedings, is termed liability or responsibility, and it is either civil or criminal according to the nature of the proceedings to which the wrongdoer is exposed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Remedial statutes are those which are made to supply such defects, and abridge such superfluities, in the common law, as arise either from the general imperfection of all human laws, from change of time and circumstances, from the mistakes and unadvised determinations of unlearned judges, or from any other cause whatsoever. ”

“ It is in this tendency that we find the key to much that is otherwise unaccountably harsh, technical, or absurd in early judicial remedies and procedure. Whenever any recognized legal right came to be regarded as unconscionable or otherwise objectionable, rules adapted to hamper or imperil the complainant in the pursuit of his remedy were sure to spring up. ”

“ That the dispute turns upon questions of fact does not withdraw it, as the respondent seems to contend, from judicial cognizance. The legal consequences flow from the facts and it is the province of the courts to ascertain and find the facts in order to determine the legal consequences. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As a matter of principle, no doubt, if intentional violation of the right of property is treated as penal equally with the violation of the right of life, the negligent violation should be treated as penal in the one case as much as in the other. ”

“ Although 'controversy' and 'cause of action' are treated as synonymous by the courts in situations where the present considerations are absent, [7] here it is obvious different concepts are involved. [8] We are not unmindful that the phrase 'cause of action' has many meanings. [9] To accomplish its purpose of limiting and simplifying removal, Congress used the phrase 'cause of action' in an accepted meaning to obtain that result. By interpretation we should not defeat that purpose.
In a suit turning on the meaning of 'cause of action,' this Court announced an accepted description. ”

“ Present activity constitutes an operative element to which the statute attaches legal consequences, not merely a point of reference for the ascertainment of particular persons ineluctably designated by the legislature. ”

“ As we have said on more than one occasion, it may be difficult, if not impossible, to give to the terms ‘due process of law’ a definition which will embrace every permissible exertion of power affecting private rights and exclude such as are forbidden. ”

“ The violation of a federal right that has been found to be implicit in a statute's language and structure is as much a 'direct violation' of a right as is the violation of a right that is clearly set forth in the text of the statute. ”

“ The means which the state has provided for the protection of rights, are the operations of government generally. All acts, therefore, meet for punishment, are acts which disturb, either individuals in the enjoyment of their rights, or the operations required for the protection of those rights. The latter, though mediately, and not immediately hurtful, are apt to be more extensively mischievous than the former. An act which infringes a right immediately, is commonly injurious only to one individual, or a small number of individuals ”

“ It is plain that such court has jurisdiction to render a particular judgment only when the offense charged is within the class of offenses placed by the law under its jurisdiction, and when, in taking custody of the accused, and in its modes of procedure to the determination of the question of his guilt or innocence, and in rendering judgment, the court keeps within the limitations prescribed by the law, customary or statutory. When the court goes out of these limitations, its action, to the extent of such excess, is void. ”

“ And although counsel for the plaintiff in error concede, in the first sentence of their brief, that the only Federal question is, whether the judgment is not in violation of that provision of the Constitution which declares that 'no State shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, the argument seems to suppose that this court can correct any other error which may be found in the record. ”

“ I will state what laws I consider ex post facto laws, within the words and the intent of the prohibition. 1st. Every law that makes an action done before the passing of the law, and which was innocent when done, criminal; and punishes such action. 2d. Every law that aggravates a crime, makes it greater than it was, when committed. 3d. Every law that changes the punishment, and inflicts a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the crime, when committed. ”

“ Evidence of the kind may be admitted for the purpose of defining what is uncertain, but it is never properly admitted to alter a general rule of law, nor to make the legal rights or liabilities of the parties other or different from what they are by the common law. ”

“ Let me now give an example to show the practical importance, for the decision of actual cases, of understanding the reasons of the law, by taking an example from rules which, so far as I know, never have been explained or theorized about in any adequate way. I refer to statutes of limitation and the law of prescription. The end of such rules is obvious, but what is the justification for depriving a man of his rights, a pure evil as far as it goes, in consequence of the lapse of time? ”

“ But this depends upon facts which are not before us and besides involves a question within the competency of the court to decide concerning which therefore there is no basis for granting the writ of prohibition or sanctioning a resort to any other extraordinary legal remedy. ”

“ Motives sufficient to that end can only be found in the painful class; and the act by which they are applied is denominated punishment. The definition, therefore, of offences or of the acts by which rights are violated and which it is expedient to punish, and the definition of the penalties by which they are prevented, are equally necessary with the definition of rights themselves. The reasons which demonstrate this necessity are so nearly the same with those which demonstrate the necessity of the definition of rights, that we deem it superfluous to repeat them. ”

“ The justice of a claim, and its assignable properties, are totally distinct, both from the question of its present or future character, and from the nature and even existence of a remedy. The assignable character of a thing depends on nothing technical, or choses in action would not pass. But upon the existence of right, abstracted from the consideration of present or future enforcement, or the susceptibility of enforcement at all, from the possible want of a precise remedy. ”

“ It is only where rights, in themselves appropriate subjects of judicial cognizance, are being, or about to be, affected prejudicially by the application or enforcement of a statute that its validity may be called in question by a suitor and determined by an exertion of the judicial power. ”

“ Abuses of civil jurisprudence The penal statutes form a very small proportion of the sixty-two books of the Code and Pandects; and, in all judicial proceeding, the life or death of a citizen is determined with less caution and delay than the most ordinary question of covenant or inheritance. This singular distinction, though something may be allowed for the urgent necessity of defending the peace of society, is derived from the nature of criminal and civil jurisprudence. ”

“ In order to maintain an action for an injury to the person or to movable property, some courts have held that the wrong must be one which would be actionable by the law of the place where the redress is sought, as well as by the law of the place where the wrong was done. ”

“ Remedies of a statutory character, where the right to be enforced was unknown at the common law, are to be followed with strictness, both as to the methods to be pursued and the cases to which they are to be applied. ”

“ The intention of the legislature is to be collected from the words they employ.' 'To determine that a case is within the intention of a statute, its language must authorize us to say so. It would be dangerous, indeed, to carry the principle that a case which is within the reason or mischief of a statute is within its provisions so far as to punish a crime not enumerated in the statute, because it is of equal atrocity, or of kindred character, with those which are enumerated.' 5 Wheat, 95, 96. ”

“ In our constitutional system, the Legislature makes legal policy judgments regarding the particular circumstances that trigger the consequences that are associated with criminal convictions. Accord, United States v. ”

“ No citizen shall arbitrarily be deprived of his life, liberty, or property. This the legislature cannot do, nor authorize to be done. 'Due process of law' is not confined to judicial proceedings, but extends to every case which may deprive a citizen of life, liberty, or property ”

“ But the Constitution, which guarantees rights and immunities to the citizen, likewise insures to him the privilege of having those rights and immunities judicially declared and protected when such judicial action is properly invoked. ”

“ Probable cause does not mean sufficient cause. But this last proposition shows that the former decree could not have decided the question now before the court, and therefore that the case is not properly here. ”

“ This account of the considerations which have regulated the punishment of crimes explains the severity with which 'criminal negligence' is in some cases punished, and that severity is justified by the account given of the true principle of criminal law, the principle, viz., that crime should be punished according to the importance of the right which it violates, and to the degree of terror which in a well-organised society needs to be associated with the crime in order to the protection of the right. ”

“ To become the basis of a proceeding in error from this court to the supreme court of a state 'a right, privilege, or immunity' claimed under a statute of the United States must be 'especially set up and claimed,' and must be denied by the state court. ”