1. In an action to recover on a policy of life insurance, error in admitting
evidence as to the mental and physical condition of the assured in his
last days, when an overdue premium was paid and received is held to
be cured by the charge of the court that the only question was whether
there had been a waiver by the insurer, and that it was immaterial
whether the assured was or was not ill at that time. Hartford Life
Insurance Co. v. Unsell, 439.
2. As an action could not have been maintained against the insurer with-
out offer to pay overdue premiums, evidence of such offer was properly
admitted.
3. A life insurance company whose policy provides for the payment of
premiums at stated times, and further that the holder "agrees and
accepts the same upon the express condition that if either the monthly
dues," etc., "are not paid to said company on the day due, then this
certificate shall be null and void and of no effect, and no person shall
be entitled to damages or the recovery of any moneys paid for protec-
tion while the certificate was in force" may nevertheless by its whole
course of dealing with the assured, and by accepting payments of over-
due sums without inquiries as to his health, give him a right to believe
that the question of his health would not be considered, and that the
company would be willing to take his money shortly after it had be-
come due without inquiry as to his health, and such a course of deal-
ing may amount to a waiver of the conditions of forfeiture. lb.
4. A promise by the insurer in a policy of life insurance to pay the amount
of the policy on the death of the assured to "M. C., his creditor, if liv-
ing;" if not then to the executors, etc., of the assured, is a promise to
pay to that creditor, if he continues to be a creditor, and if not, then to
the executors, etc.; and in an action on the policy by the creditor, if
sufficient time elapsed between the making of the policy and the death
of the assured to warrant an assumption that the debt may have been
paid, it is incumbent on the plaintiff to prove the continuance of the
relation and the amount of the debt. Crotty v. Union Mutual Life Ins.
Co., 621.
5. The fact that an insurance company does not object to answers made to
questions on a blank sent out by it for securing proof of the death of
the assured, does not prevent it from challenging the truth of any
statement in such answers. Ib.
INTEREST.
See EQUITY, 4;
LOCAL LAW, 3;
MORTGAGE, 2.
INTERVENTION.
See LOCAL LAW, 4.
INTOXICATING LIQUORS.
See JURISDICTION, A, 9.
1. A judgment for the plaintiffs was rendered in August, 1873, in a United
States Court in South Carolina, in an action at law in ejectment, in
which a minor was defendant, and appeared and answered by a guar-
dian ad litem, and which minor became of age in December, 1885, and
brought a writ of error from this court, under § 1008 of the Revised
Statutes, within two years after the entry of the judgment, exclusive
of the item of the disability of the minor. The case involved the title
to land in South Carolina under a will made in 1819, the testator
dying in 1820. In June, 1850, a suit in equity was brought in a state
court of South Carolina, which set up that the title to the land, under
the will, was either in the grandmother of the minor or in her sons,
one of whom was the father of the minor, the grandmother and the
father of the minor being parties defendant to the suit, and the bill
having been taken pro confesso against all the defendants, and dis-
missed by a decree made in March, 1851, which remained unreversed,
an appeal taken therefrom having been abandoned. The only title set
up by the plaintiff in error was alleged to be derived through his father
and his grandmother. In September, 1854, an action of trespass to
try title to the land was brought in a state court of South Carolina,
and which resulted in a judgment for the plaintiff therein, but to
which the plaintiffs in the ejectment suit were not parties or privies.
Held, that as the decree in the equity suit was prior to the judgment
in the trespass suit, and as the plaintiffs in the ejectment suit were not
parties to the trespass suit, the judgment in the last named suit was
of no force or effect in favor of the plaintiff in error, as against the
decree in the equity suit. Bedon v. Davie, 142.
2. When a second suit is upon the same cause of action, and between the
same parties as a former suit, the judgment in the former is conclusive
in the latter as to every question which was or might have been pre-
sented and determined in the first action; but when the second suit is
upon a different cause of action, though between the same parties, the
judgment in the former action operates as an estoppel only as to
the point or question actually litigated and determined, and not as to
other matters which might have been litigated and determined. Nes-
bit v. Riverside Independent District, 610.
3. A judgment against a municipal corporation in an action on coupons
cut from its negotiable bonds, where the only defence set up was the
invalidity of the issue of the bonds by reason of their being in excess
of the amount allowed by law, is no estoppel to another action between
the same parties, on the bonds themselves and other coupons cut from
them, where the defence set up is such invalidity, coupled with knowl-
edge of the same by the plaintiff when he acquired the bonds and
coupons.
Ib.
A. JURISDICTION OF THE SUPREME COUrt.
1. It is competent for this court by certiorari to direct any case to be
certified by the Circuit Courts of Appeal, whether its advice is requested
or not, except those which may be brought here by appeal or writ of
error. Lau Ow Bew v. United States, 47.
2. This court has no appellate jurisdiction over judgments of the Supreme
Court of the District of Columbia in criminal cases. In re Heath, 92.
3. The decision of the Supreme Court of a State in a case in which appli-
cation for removal to the Circuit Court of the United States had been
made in the trial court and denied, that, as no appeal was prosecuted
from the final judgment, the order denying the application to remove
was not open to review, and its judgment thereupon dismissing the
appeal from the orders refusing to set aside the judgment of the court
below, rest upon grounds of state procedure, and present no Federal
question. Tripp v. Santa Rosa Street Railroad Co., 126.
4. This writ of error is dismissed because the record presents no Federal
question properly raised, and because the judgment of the state court
rests upon an independent ground, broad enough to maintain it, and
involving no Federal question. Haley v. Breeze, 130.
5. The judgment of the Supreme Court of a State in a case which is
remanded by that court to the trial court and retried there, is not a
final judgment which can be reviewed by this court. Rice v. Sanger,
6. S. collected money from the Treasury of the United States as the
attorney at law of G., a former collector at the port of New York.
Not paying it over, the executors of G. brought suit against him in a
state court in New York, to recover this money. He set up in defence
that the case had been reopened by the government, and that he feared
he would be compelled to repay it; and that no valid agency could
exist by force of the statutes of the United States to collect and pay
over these moneys. Both defences were overruled and judgment
entered for plaintiff. A writ of error was sued out to this court.
Held, that no Federal question was involved in the decision of the
state court. Sherman v. Grinnell, 198.
7. No Federal question is involved when the Supreme Court of a State
decides that a municipal corporation within the State had not power,
under the constitution and laws of the State, to make the contract
sued on.
Missouri ex rel. Quincy &c. Railroad v. Harris, 210.
8. A writ of error does not lie in behalf of the United States in a criminal
case. United States v. Sanges, 310.
9. A complaint, in Vermont, before a justice of the peace, for selling
intoxicating liquor without authority, was in the form prescribed by
the state statute, which also provided, that, under such form of com-
plaint every distinct act of selling might be proved, and that the court
should impose a fine for each offence. After a conviction and sentence
before the justice of the peace, the defendant appealed to the county
court, where the case was tried before a jury. The defendant did not
take the point, in either court, that there was any defect or want of
fulness in the complaint. The jury found the defendant guilty of 307
offences as of a second conviction for a like offence. He was fined
$6140, being $20 for each offence, and the costs of prosecution, $497.96,
and ordered to be committed until the sentence should be complied
with, and it was adjudged, that if the fine and costs, and 76 cents, as
costs of commitment, aggregating $6638.72, should not be paid before
a day named, he should be confined at hard labor, in the house of cor-
rection, for 19,914 days, being, under a statute of the State, three days
for each dollar of the $6638. The facts of the case were contained in
a written admission, and the defendant excepted because the court
refused to hold that the facts did not constitute an offence. The case
was heard by the Supreme Court of the State, (58 Vermont, 140,)
which held that there was no error. On a writ of error from this
court; Held, (1) The term of imprisonment was authorized by the
statute of Vermont; (2) It was not assigned in this court, as error,
in the assignment of errors, or in the brief, that the defendant was
subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the Consti-
tution of the United States; (3) So far as that is a question arising
under the constitution of Vermont, it is not within the province of
this court; (4) As a Federal question, the 8th Amendment to the Con-
stitution of the United States does not apply to the States; (5) No
point on the commerce clause of the Constitution of the United States
was taken in the county court, in regard to the present case, or con-
sidered by the Supreme Court of Vermont or called to its attention;
(6) The only question considered by the Supreme Court, in regard to
the present case, was whether the defendant sold the liquor in Ver-
mont or in New York, and it held that the completed sale was in
Vermont; and that did not involve any Federal question; (7) As the
defendant did not take the point in the trial court that there was any
defect or want of fulness in the complaint, he waived it; and it did
not involve any Federal question; (8) The Supreme Court of Vermont
decided the case on a ground broad enough to maintain its judgment
without considering any Federal question; (9) The writ of error must
be dismissed for want of jurisdiction in this court, because the record
does not present a Federal question. O'Neil v. Vermont, 323.
10. When, in an action brought against a railroad company in Michigan
by the administrator of a person killed by one of its trains, to recover
damages for the killing, the record in this court fails to show that any
exception was taken at the trial, based upon the lack of evidence to
show that he left some one dependent upon him for support, or some
one who had a reasonable expectation of receiving some benefit from
him during his lifetime, as required by the laws of that State, (How-
ell's Ann. Stat. §§ 3391, 3392,) the objection is not before this court for
consideration. Grand Trunk Railway Co. v. Ives, 408.
11. A decision by the highest court of a State that a former judgment of
the same court in the same case, between the same parties, upon a
demurrer, was res judicata in that action as to the rights of the par-
ties, presents no Federal question for the consideration of this court,
and is broad enough to maintain the judgment; and this court is
therefore without jurisdiction. Northern Pacific Railroad Co. v. Ellis,
458.
12. A suit was brought in the Supreme Court of New York against a
railroad corporation created by an act of Congress, to recover damages
for personal injuries sustained by the plaintiff, who was a laborer on
the road, from the negligence of the defendant. The suit was removed
by the defendant into a Circuit Court of the United States, on the
ground that it arose under the act of Congress. It was tried before a
jury, and resulted in a verdict and judgment for the plaintiff for $4000.
The defendant took a writ of error from the Circuit Court of Appeals,
which affirmed the judgment. On a writ of error taken by the
defendant from this court to the Circuit Court of Appeals, a motion
was made, by the plaintiff, to dismiss or affirm: Held, (1) Under § 6
of the act of March 3, 1891, c. 517, 26 Stat. 826, the writ would lie,
because the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court was not dependent
entirely on the fact that the opposite parties to the suit were one of
them an alien and the other a citizen of the United States, or one
of them a citizen of one State and the other a citizen of a different
State, but was dependent on the fact that the corporation being
created by an act of Congress, the suit arose under a law of the United
States, without reference to the citizenship of the plaintiff; (2) The
decision of the Circuit Court of Appeals was not final, nor in effect
made final by the act of 1891, as in Lau Ow Bew v. United States, 144
U. S. 47; (3) As it did not appear by the record, that, on the trial in
the Circuit Court, the defendant made any objection to the jurisdiction
of that court, and the petition for removal recognized the jurisdiction,
it could not be said, as a ground for the motion to dismiss, that the
defendant might have taken a writ of error from this court to the
Circuit Court, under § 5 of the said act of 1891, and had, by failing to
do so, waived its right to a review by this court; (4) There was color
for the motion to dismiss, and the judgment must be affirmed on the
ground that the writ was taken for delay only; (5) The main defence
was contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff, and the court
charged the jury that they had the right to take into consideration
the fact that the foreman of the defendant told the plaintiff it was
safe for him to cross, at the time, the bridge where the accident took
place, through the plaintiff's being struck by a locomotive engine
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