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
« PreviousContinue » |