Whittenton Manuf'g Co. v. Memphis & Ohio River Packet Co.

19 F. 273, 1883 U.S. App. LEXIS 2504
CourtUnited States Circuit Court
DecidedNovember 26, 1883
StatusPublished

This text of 19 F. 273 (Whittenton Manuf'g Co. v. Memphis & Ohio River Packet Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Circuit Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Whittenton Manuf'g Co. v. Memphis & Ohio River Packet Co., 19 F. 273, 1883 U.S. App. LEXIS 2504 (uscirct 1883).

Opinion

Hammond, J.

In whatever form the subject has presented itself,— whether as a matter of jurisdiction, pleading, or practice, as to methods of relief, defenses, review, or what not,—the supreme and inferior federal courts have, with inexorable firmness, insisted upon preserving the essential distinctions between law and equity by administering them separately, as required by the constitution and laws of the United States. The cases are far too numerous for citation here, hut will he gathered in a foot-note for consultation in support of this opinion. They commence with the organization of the courts, and are to be found in almost every volume of the reported decisions. It is a distinction that inheres in the system by virtue of constitutional commands, and it will be found upon close observation that the federal constitution has protectecl the right of trial by jury in a manner that imposes restrictions upon legislative power more effectual, perhaps, than those found in many of the state constitutions. It necessarily results from the requirement that, in all controversies of legal cognizance, there shall be preserved a right of trial by jury, and that no fact so tried shall be re-oxaminod in any court otherwise than according to the rules of the common law, that the original trial shall be likewise according to those rules in all essential and substantial particulars. Merely taking the verdict of 12 men, no matter how, is not, in the sense of our federal constitution, a trial by jury; and it is impracticable, as well as impossible, to conduct the original trial according to rules unknown to the common law, and in subversion of them, and then, on re-examination by writ of error in an appellate jurisdiction, or, it may be, on motion for new trial, or otherwise, in [276]*276the tribunal of first instance, to obey this mandate of the constitution, and conduct those proceedings “according to the rules of the common law.” Const. U. S. Amend. 7. The whole proceeding, from beginning to end, must be, ex necessitate rei, a common-law proceeding; not necessarily according to the precise forms of the common law,—reformation in procedure being open to legislation,—but always there must be a trial substantially according to the course of the common law.

Now, this consideration alone has convinced me, aside from all others, that when parties bring their “suits at common law” from a state court of equity, where, by state legislation, they have been permitted to conduct them under the forms of procedure known to those courts in ancient times, into this court, they must, in the nature of the ease, by repleading, convert their “bills,” exhibits, disclaimers, pro confessos, answers, cross-bills, pleas, replications, petitions, affidavits, jurats, and the like into declarations and pleas according to the forms for trials of suits at common law prevailing, not only in this court, but as well in the law courts of the state of Tennessee. Even in the state court of equity, from which this suit comes, when a jury is demanded, as it may be, the trial is not on the bill, answer, etc., but, by statute, the parties are required to make up their issues in a separate writing for the jury, which is, in effect, what we require them to do here by repleading. Manifestly, that method of sifting out the issues to be tried is not open to this court, and it can only be accomplished by repleading.

It matters not that this may result in two or more separate suits, with some at law and some in equity. This comes from state legislation allowing the parties to litigate their several controversies in one suit, a method forbidden to this court, which must administer law and equity separately. If the parties deem this an advantage they should remain in the state court where it can be done. Nor is it practicable to have a different rule for a suit which is removed when the “bill” only has been filed, from one which is brought here at some later stage. It would be a hybrid proceeding, producing confusion, if not disadvantage, to the defendant, to allow the plaintiff to use an elaborate and voluminous “bill” as the vehicle for his case and confine the defendant to the simple form of a plea at law.

Acting on these views some years ago, in the case of Levy v. Amer. Cent. Ins. Co., (not reported,) it was ruled by this court that there must be, in such eases, a repleading when the suit is removed; and the practice has been so until challenged in this case. In that case, as in this, the state chancery court had acquired jurisdiction under the act of March 23, 1877, or. 47, giving the equity courts jurisdiction concurrently with courts of law of all civil causes not founded in tort. Acts 1877, p. 119. And, it may be remarked, that in addition to this source of jurisdiction over purely common-law suits, the state chancery courts have, for a very long time, under our attachment [277]*277laws, and also by the statutes regulating their practice, acquired jurisdiction over all manner of civil causes of legal cognizance; as, for example, by a failure of the parties to object to the jurisdiction by special plea or demurrer, an answer being deemed a waiver of all objections to jurisdiction. The statutory provisions made for a finding of facts by a jury in all equity cases is considered an answer to all constitutional objections to such legislation. Tenn. Code, 4309, 4321; Jackson v. Nimmo, 3 Lea, 597; Scott v. Feucht, 1 Memphis L. J. 40; Saudek v. Turnpike Co. 3 Tenn. Ch. 473; 1 Memphis L. J. 3.

It was, therefore, an important question whether or not, when a,ny of these causes, of which the state equity court had such a vast and almost inexhaustible jurisdiction, are removed to this court and go to the law side of our docket, as all concede they must, they shall be submitted to the jury on the voluminous records and pleadings in use in our courts of equity, (for they are all conducted in that form in the state court, and in this form they necessarily come here,) or the parties bo required to replead according to the forms of a court of law. As before remarked they arc not required to be so submitted in the state courts, the difficulty being overcome by statutory provisions requiring the parties, under the supervision of the chancellor, to draw up in writing, “according to the forms of a court of law,” the issues of fact to be submitted to ilie jury. Tenn. Code, 3156, 4468. This provision is not, of course, available in this court, and the same end is reached, and can be reached, only by pleading de novo.

In the case of Levy v. Ins. Co., supra, there was a suit in the chancery court on a policy of fire insurance under the form of a bill in equity, which, in addition to a claim for the loss suffered, prayed, as in the case now under consideration, for a discovery, by the agent of the company, of certain papers in his possession, these being the plaintiff’s invoices, and also for an injunction to prevent him from sending them away. The defendant company filed an answer, and, as it might under the state statute, but not under the federal practice, made that answer a cross-bill, alleging fraud by the plaintiff in the procurement of the policy, for which it prayed to have the document canceled. Tenn. Code, 4323. The case was then removed by the defendant company to this court under the act of congress of March 3, 1875, (18 St. 470.) The plaintiff moved to docket the case on tlie law side of the court, for leave to file a declaration as at law and for a rule on the defendant to plead thereto.

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Bluebook (online)
19 F. 273, 1883 U.S. App. LEXIS 2504, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/whittenton-manufg-co-v-memphis-ohio-river-packet-co-uscirct-1883.