The right given to this Court by the sixth clause of § 250,
Judicial Code, to reexamine the judgment of the Court of Appeals of
the District of Columbia in cases in which the construction of any
law of the United States is drawn in question by the defendant is
confined to the construction of laws of general application
throughout the United States, and does not include laws local in
their application to the District of Columbia.
American
Security & Trust Co. v. District of Columbia, 224 U.
S. 491.
Quaere whether, under the third clause of § 250,
Judicial Code, this Court may not examine the judgment of the Court
of Appeals of the District of Columbia where the constitutionality
of a statute of the United States, whether general or local to the
District, is involved.
Sections 454 and 455 of the District Code are not
unconstitutional because they provide that a surety, by executing
the undertaking to release property attached, is bound by the
judgment against the principal, although it has no right to be
heard, whether the value of the property released be fixed by
appraisal or by the court.
Beall v. New
Mexico, 16 Wall. 535.
A constitutional question that has no real foundation cannot be
put forward as a mere pretext to open other questions that
otherwise could not come before this Court.
Goodrich v.
Ferris, 214 U. S. 71.
Writ of error to review 40 App.D.C. 239 dismissed.
The facts, which involve the jurisdiction of this Court to
review judgments of the Court of Appeals of the District of
Columbia under § 250, Judicial Code, are stated in the
opinion.
Page 238 U. S. 141
MR. JUSTICE HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a suit originally brought by the defendant in error
against the Semmes-Kelly Company in the Supreme court of the
District to recover $10,596.45 for goods sold. There was an
attachment of a stock of goods that were worth much more than the
judgment finally recovered, but never were formally appraised, and
the next day the plaintiff in error, as surety to the Semmes-Kelly
Company, signed an undertaking to release the property attached, in
the form provided in the District Code, § 454. By that
instrument, it in terms submitted to the jurisdiction of the court
and undertook
"to abide by and perform the judgment of the court in the
premises in relation to said property, which judgment may be
rendered against all the parties whose names are hereto
subscribed."
By § 455, if the judgment goes for the plaintiff "it shall
be a joint judgment against both the defendant and his surety or
sureties in said undertaking for the appraised value of the
property." After a second trial, judgment was entered against the
Semmes-Kelly Company and the plaintiff in error for $9,937.90, that
sum being found to be far less than the value of the property, as
we have said. 40 App.D.C. 239.
The jurisdiction of this court is invoked upon a contention that
the above §§ 454 and 455, as applied, deprive the
plaintiff of its property without due process of law. In
American Security & Trust Co. v. District of Columbia,
224 U. S. 491, it
was held that the right to reexamine a judgment of the Court of
Appeals, given by the Judicial Code, § 250, "Sixth. In cases
in which the construction of any law of the United States is drawn
in question by the defendant," was confined to the construction of
laws having general application throughout the United States.
But
Page 238 U. S. 142
in the same case it was left open whether the third clause,
"cases involving . . . the constitutionality of any law of the
United States," did not have a wider meaning, and that suggestion
is relied upon for the present attack upon the two sections of the
District Code.
There is no occasion to discuss it in this case. That a man may
contract to be bound by a judgment in which he has no right to be
heard, and that a statute may authorize him to make himself a party
to such a judgment, was decided, if it needed a decision, in
Beall v. New
Mexico, 16 Wall. 535. It is argued that there is a
difference if the value of the property is not appraised, but fixed
by the court. But there is nothing to hinder a man from assenting
to that as well as to the rest if the statute permits it. The
suggestion that there is a constitutional difficulty has no
foundation. It is true that the section of the Code speaks only of
appraised value, but if, by a reasonable construction, appraisal is
held to be a superfluous form when there is no question that the
property attached is worth much more than the judgment, the
omission must be taken to have been contemplated by the surety when
he signed. The constitutional point is a mere pretext put forward
in order to open other questions that otherwise could not come
here. That pretext is not allowed to succeed (
Goodrich v.
Ferris, 214 U. S. 71,
214 U. S. 79),
and therefore we shall not deal with the attempt to obtain a
reversal of the decision upon a construction of the local statute
by the local court, not so manifestly absurd as to extend the
surety's liability in a way that could not have been foreseen, or
matters of local practice, such as holding that, when the first
verdict against the Semmes-Kelly Company and a joint judgment were
set aside and the case put on the trial calendar, on the motion of
the plaintiff in error, "as against" it, the whole judgment was
annulled.
Writ of error dismissed.
