The "matter in dispute," as respects a money demand, as employed
in the statutes regulating appeals from the courts of the District
of Columbia, has relation to justiciable demands, and must be money
or some right, the value of which can be ascertained in money, and
which appears by the record to be of the requisite pecuniary
value.
Where the averments in a petition that a mandamus be issued
directing the Secretary of State to assert for the petitioner a
claim against a foreign government do not state a cause of action
under the principles of law of false imprisonment in this country,
and do not show that the alleged wrong was actionable in such
foreign country, the right to have the claim asserted is purely
conjectural, and not susceptible of pecuniary estimate, and cannot
be said to have the value necessary to give this Court
jurisdiction, and the writ must be dismissed.
The relator, plaintiff in error, filed his petition in the
Supreme
Page 194 U. S. 374
Court of the District of Columbia, praying a writ of mandamus
directed to the then and present Secretary of the United States. In
substance it was averred that Holzendorf, prior to and since May,
1898, had been a naturalized citizen of the United States, and
while on a visit to Germany, his native country, he was wrongfully
imprisoned in an asylum for the insane at Dalldorf, near Berlin,
from May 11, 1898, to July 8, 1899, when he was released by the
judgment of a German court, as being "perfectly sound in mind and
body." The grievance complained of was alleged to have been the act
of the German Empire, and it was averred that said grievance "was
manifestly in contempt of his rights as a citizen of the United
States," which "oppressively deprived him of liberty, reputation,
and time, greatly to his cost, loss, damage, and injury." Alleging
a refusal by the defendant in mandamus "to proceed, on the part of
the United States, to seek to obtain redress of grievance in behalf
of your petitioner," it was prayed that a writ of mandamus
issue
"addressed to said defendant, John Hay, the Secretary aforesaid,
commanding and requiring him forthwith to institute vigorous and
proper proceedings against the Empire of Germany, or Kingdom of
Prussia, or both -- that is to say, against the Emperor -- for the
recovery of five hundred thousand dollars damages in behalf of your
petitioner."
The matter was heard, and an order was entered, dismissing the
petition. An appeal was allowed, and the Court of Appeals of the
District affirmed the judgment. 20 App.D.C. 576. By writ of error,
the cause was then brought to this Court.
MR. JUSTICE WHITE, after making the foregoing statement,
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The relief demanded was denied by the court below
substantially
Page 194 U. S. 375
upon the ground that no legal duty rested upon the defendant to
do the act the performance of which it was the purpose of the
proceeding to coerce, because such act concerned the political
department of the government, involving solely the exercise of
official discretion, which was not subject to judicial control.
Without intimating in the slightest degree that the dismissal was
not justified upon the ground referred to, we are compelled to
dispose of the case upon the objection made to the want of
jurisdiction in this Court to entertain the writ of error.
It is provided in the Code of the District of Columbia, 31 Stat.
1227, c. 854, as follows:
"SEC. 233. Any final judgment or decree of the Court of Appeals
may be reexamined and affirmed, reversed, or modified by the
Supreme Court of the United States, upon writ of error or appeal,
in all cases in which the matter in dispute, exclusive of costs,
shall exceed the sum of five thousand dollars, in the same manner,
and under the same regulations, as existed in cases of writs of
error on judgments or appeals from decrees rendered in the Supreme
Court of the District of Columbia on February ninth, eighteen
hundred and ninety-three, and also in cases, without regard to the
sum or value of the matter in dispute, wherein is involved the
validity of any patent or copyright, or in which is drawn in
question the validity of a treaty or statute of, or an authority
exercised under, the United States."
It is clear, therefore, unless the case is one in which the
matter in dispute, exclusive of costs, exceeds the sum of five
thousand dollars, we have no power to review the final judgment of
the Court of Appeals in this case.
The meaning of the term "matter in dispute," as employed in
prior and analogous statutes regulating appeals from the courts of
the District of Columbia, has been considered in previous decisions
of this Court, to one only of which we shall specially refer.
In
South Carolina v. Seymour, 153 U.
S. 353, the Court had
Page 194 U. S. 376
under consideration section 8 of the act of 1893 referred to in
§ 233 of the District Code,
supra. Particularly
discussing the preliminary provision conferring jurisdiction upon
this Court where "the matter in dispute, exclusive of costs, shall
exceed the sum of five thousand dollars," the Court said (p.
153 U. S.
357):
"In order to bring a case within the first alternative, the
matter in dispute, according to the settled construction, must be
money, or some right the value of which can be estimated and
ascertained in money, and which appears by the record to be of the
requisite pecuniary value."
Now assuming that the term "matter in dispute" may embrace a
right to have a claim against a foreign government presented
through the political department of the United States, and that the
value of such a right may be gauged by the possible pecuniary
injury which may be sustained if no such action is taken, it is yet
evident that the claim under consideration is one having merely a
conjectural value. The "matter in dispute," as respects a money
demand, has relation to justiciable demands. Now the averments in
the petition for mandamus in this case do not, under the principles
of the law of false imprisonment prevailing in this country, state
a cause of action even against individuals, much less against a
sovereignty; nor is it shown that the alleged wrong was actionable
under the laws of Germany. So far as appears, the right to assert
the demand in question upon the German Empire is merely a right to
appeal to the grace of that country. The value of such a right is
manifestly purely conjectural, and not susceptible of a pecuniary
estimate. It certainly cannot be said to have the value declared by
the statute to be essential to our power to entertain a writ of
error. The writ of error must therefore be
Dismissed.
MR. JUSTICE BREWER and MR. JUSTICE BROWN think the judgment
should be affirmed.
