Where a plaintiff in the court below filed a petition for the
recovery from the defendant of four slaves, whose value he alleged
to be $2,700, and the jury found a verdict for the plaintiff "for
$1,200, the value of the negro slaves in suit," and the plaintiff
thereupon released the judgment for $1,200, and the court adjudged
that he recover of the said defendant the said slaves, the case is
within the appellate jurisdiction of this Court.
The plaintiff averred in his petition, that the slaves were
worth $2,700, and by his releasing the judgment for $1,200, the
only question before this Court is the right to the property. And
as the defendant below prosecuted the appeal, the plaintiff cannot
be allowed to deny here the truth of his own averment of the value
of the property in dispute.
A motion was made to dismiss it for want of jurisdiction,
because the sum or matter in controversy was not of the value of
two thousand dollars.
Page 49 U. S. 127
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE TANEY delivered the opinion of the Court.
The court have considered the motion made in this case to
dismiss the writ of error for want of jurisdiction. From the mode
of judicial proceeding adopted in Texas, the motion presents a new
question, and one that is not free from difficulty.
The suit is not brought in any of the forms of action known to
the common law. It is instituted by petition, and the plaintiff in
the court below seeks to recover four slaves, which he alleges are
his property, and are detained from him by the defendant.
Page 49 U. S. 128
The value of each slave is averred separately in the petition,
the whole amounting to two thousand seven hundred dollars. The
verdict of the jury is as follows:
"We the jury find for the plaintiff twelve hundred dollars, the
value of the negro slaves in suit, with six and a quarter cents
damages."
And the record states, that thereupon the plaintiff released the
judgment for twelve hundred dollars in open court, and the court
adjudged that he recover of the defendant the said slaves and the
damages assessed by the jury, and his costs.
This proceeding appears to be a substitute for the common law
action of detinue, and resembles it in many respects. In that
action, if the jury find that the property belongs to the
plaintiff, and is detained from him by the defendant, they ought to
find at the same time the value of each separate article in
dispute, and the judgment of the court is that the plaintiff
recover the property, or the value thereof as found by the jury,
provided he cannot obtain possession of the property, together with
his damages and costs. Upon such a judgment a writ of error
certainly would not lie when the value assessed by the jury was
less than two thousand dollars. For the value of the property in
dispute would be fixed by the verdict and the judgment of the
court, and both parties would be bound by it.
But in the case before us, the finding of the jury and the
judgment of the court differ from the proceedings in an action of
detinue. The gross value of the four slaves is found by the jury,
and not the separate value of each of them. And the value as found
forms no part of the judgment of the court. The plaintiff was
permitted to release it -- and although it is said in the record
that he released the
judgment for this sum, yet it appears
that no judgment was rendered for it, and that it was released
before any was given.
The judgment of the district court therefore decides nothing
more than the right to the property specified in the petition; and
whether that judgment is erroneous or not is all that this Court
can examine into upon the writ of error. The sum which the
plaintiff below (who is the defendant in error here) is entitled to
recover, if the property is placed beyond his reach and he fails to
obtain possession of it, can form no part of the judgment of this
Court. The only matter in controversy is the four slaves, and their
actual value, whatever it may be, is the value of the matter in
dispute.
Now if the judgment of the district court had been for the
defendant, the plaintiff would evidently have been entitled to
maintain a writ of error. And as he sues for the specific
property,
Page 49 U. S. 129
and avers the value to be $2,700, he would have been entitled to
the writ, even if he had laid his damages for the detention below
$2,000. For the averment of value when he sues for property shows
the value of the thing in controversy, as much as the averment of
debt or damage, when he sues for money. And when he has rejected
the value found by the jury, and refused a judgment for it, and is
not bound by that finding, can he bind the defendant to it, and
thereby deprive him of his writ of error, upon the ground that the
property in dispute is not worth $2,000?
This is the question upon the motion before us.
In cases where the plaintiff sues for money, and claims in his
pleadings a larger sum than $2,000, and obtains a judgment for a
smaller amount, the sum for which the judgment is rendered is the
only matter in controversy, when the defendant brings the writ of
error. Because if the plaintiff rests satisfied with it, and takes
no step to reverse it, he is bound by it as well as the defendant.
Both parties therefore, stand upon an equal footing in that
respect. But if the plaintiff brings the writ of error upon the
ground that he is entitled to more than the judgment was rendered
for, then his averment in his declaration shows the amount he
claimed, and as that claim is the matter for which he brings suit,
he is entitled to the writ of error if that claim appears to be
large enough to give jurisdiction to this Court. These principles
have been settled in this Court by the cases referred to in the
argument.
In the case before us, the plaintiff avers in his petition that
the slaves for which the suit is brought are worth $2,700. The
right to these slaves must be the only matter in controversy here,
whether the writ of error is sued out by the plaintiff or the
defendant. If by the plaintiff, he would undoubtedly be entitled to
it, upon the ground that the property in dispute, and which he is
seeking to recover in this suit, is claimed to be worth more than
$2,000; and he would be entitled, under the decisions of this
Court, to rely on the averment in his petition, to show that the
amount in value of the slaves he claimed is sufficient to give
jurisdiction to this Court. Can he, then, be permitted to deny here
the truth of his own averment, when precisely the same thing -- the
same property -- is the matter in controversy upon the writ of
error brought by the defendant? We think not. And as by his release
he prevented a judgment from being entered, fixing the value, as
between these parties in this suit, at $1,200, the averment in his
petition must be regarded as determining the amount in controversy
upon a writ of error brought by either plaintiff or defendant.
Page 49 U. S. 130
Consequently, this Court has jurisdiction upon this writ, and
the motion to dismiss it must be
Overruled.
MR. JUSTICE DANIEL.
In the opinion of the Court pronounced in this cause I am unable
to concur, regarding that opinion as reconcilable with neither the
act of Congress (Judiciary Act, § 22) regulating the
jurisdiction of this Court, nor with the fundamental rules of
pleading and evidence, but as in contravention of both. This cause
is in effect, and in form except with regard to the frame of the
petition, corresponding with the declaration at common law, in all
its details and proceedings, an action of detinue for the recovery
of four slaves. In every such action, the authorities tell us that
it is requisite to describe the property demanded with so much
certainty, that it may be delivered up in specie, and it was ruled
by the older cases, that, where the property consisted of several
articles, the plaintiff must show the value of each particular
article, and not state the aggregate value. Subsequently, however,
it has been ruled that the declaration may mention the separate
value of each article, or it may state the value in gross; and this
appears to be the established doctrine in England at this day.
See Com.Dig., tit. Pleader (2 x 2). So in 1 Chit.Pl. 377,
it is said that,
"In actions for injuring or taking away goods or chattels, it is
in general necessary that their quality, quantity, or number, and
value or price, should be stated; the assigned reason is that a
former recovery could not else be pleaded in bar to a second action
for the same goods; neither could the defendant properly defend
himself."
Then with respect to the verdict and judgment, to be rendered in
the action of detinue, the law is thus given in Com.Dig., tit.
Pleader (2 x 12):
"The judgment against the defendant shall be for the recovery of
the thing detained
vel valorem inde and costs, and if
judgment be upon confession
non sum informatus, demurrer
&c., a writ of inquiry shall be awarded to inquire of the
values. And after judgment, if a
distringas goes
ad
deliberandum bona, and the defendant does not, the plaintiff
shall have damages taxed by the inquest, so that it lies in the
defendant's election to deliver the goods or the value."
Sir William Blackstone in treating of the action of detinue,
Vol. IV, 413, thus states the law:
"In detinue, after judgment, the plaintiff shall have a
distringas to compel the defendant to deliver the goods by
repeated distresses of his chattels, and if the defendant still
continues obstinate, then (if judgment hath been by default or
demurrer) the sheriff shall summon an inquest to ascertain the
value of the goods, and the plaintiff's
Page 49 U. S. 131
damages (which being so assessed, or by the verdict in case of
an issue) shall be levied on the person or goods of the defendant.
So that after all, in replevin and detinue (the only actions for
recovering the specific possession of personal chattels), if the
wrongdoer be very perverse, he cannot be compelled to a restitution
of the thing taken or detained."
So, too, in Chit.Pl., Vol. I, 124, it is said:
"The nature of this action requires, that the verdict and
judgment be such that a specific remedy may be had for the recovery
of the goods detained, or a satisfaction in value, for each parcel,
in case they or either of them cannot be obtained. The judgment is
on the alternative, that the plaintiff do recover the goods or the
value thereof, if he cannot have the goods themselves."
The citation of these seemingly trite and familiar principles of
law will not be deemed useless, when an application of them, and of
the reasons on which they are founded, shall be made to the case
under consideration. In the authorities above quoted, we have
disclosed to us the propriety and necessity (resulting from the
peculiar character of the remedy) for averring in the declaration,
and of ascertaining by the verdict and judgment, the value of the
property sought; because that value is to become the measure of
redress to the plaintiff, in one branch of the alternative, in the
event that the other shall prove fruitless. It is indispensable,
therefore, that this measure be ascertained upon legal testimony
and solemn investigation before the court, and under its
supervising authority -- as indispensable, fully, as that the title
to the property should be so ascertained, for both enter alike into
the redress of the plaintiff, and flow from the same source. His
right to the one rests upon the same foundation with his right to
the other, and if he had no right to one, he had a right to
neither. Nor can it be said that the measure of the plaintiff's
redress rests mainly in the breast or in the action of the court;
on the contrary, it rests rather in the opinion and action of the
jury. The court cannot, even with the parties and witnesses before
it, determine the value of the property, or the parties' right
thereto. The court, by awarding a new trial, may correct an excess
or irregularity of any kind on the part of the jury, but it could
have no power to find for either party upon the issue before the
jury, nor argument or diminish by one cent the measure of redress
established by the jury. If, then, such a power belonged not to the
court when in a course of regular judicial inquiry, with the
parties and witnesses fully before it, does it not seem strange to
contend, that such a power can be exercised collaterally by a
different tribunal, neither trying the issue, nor weighing
Page 49 U. S. 132
the evidence which the jury had before them, and in the absence
of all or any of the circumstances, exercised upon
ex
parte affidavits before the jury, thereby overturning what
twelve men upon their oaths, and in regular discharge of their
functions, have done, and what the law through them had declared
shall be the standard of value? And for what purpose, it may be
asked, is this collateral inquiry to be allowed? Not, strange as it
may seem, to settle any other alternate value of the property, nor
to put any estimate upon it at all, but to let in other questions
connected with the title, or with some proceedings in the court
below, wholly disconnected with the value of the property.
But it is said that the plaintiff below has released his right
to the damages assessed by the jury, and therefore can no longer
enforce them. What of that? What possible connection can exist
between the power of the plaintiff to enforce his judgment, as
affected by any act or indiscretion of his own, and the value of
the property as assessed by the jury? Does the release of the
estimated value render that value either greater or smaller than it
was before? Possibly this act of the plaintiff may render his power
to enforce the verdict and judgment less efficient; but to reason
from that consequence to the value of the property as found by the
jury, appears to me to be an argument as illogical as any that can
be conceived. The estimated value, the true measure settled by the
jury, remains unchanged, although it may have been released. The
verdict has never been reversed or annulled. Moreover, it may not
follow necessarily, that the release of the damages by the
plaintiff below vitiates the judgment, or deprives the plaintiff of
the power to enforce it, for we find by the authorities that a
judgment may be by confession, or
non sum informatus, or
on demurrer, in either of which cases judgment may be entered, and
that afterwards, if the defendant will not deliver the property,
damages for the value and for the detention may be assessed, and
such value, when assessed in the proper, regular, legal mode, is
all for which execution can be had against the person or property
of the defendant.
But the inquiry is not properly instituted here whether the
plaintiff, by error or indiscretion, has lost the power of
enforcing his verdict and judgment; the question is purely one of
jurisdiction, dependent upon the value of the subject, and that
value ascertained by all the solemnities, and in the only mode
known to the law -- solemnities, as I contend, nowhere to be
properly gainsaid. Let it be supposed that there had been no
release of damages or value by the plaintiff below. The principles
applicable to the action of this Court would be precisely those
involved in the case as it now
Page 49 U. S. 133
stands. Then let it be supposed that, after taking jurisdiction
upon this collateral inquiry, this Court should come to the
conclusion that there was no error in the proceedings and judgment
in the court below. What manner of mandate would be sent to that
court? Would this Court, upon its own estimate of the value of the
subject founded upon affidavits, and because it had claimed
jurisdiction upon such an estimate, order the circuit court to
augment the damages assessed to the plaintiff below? Could they by
so doing open again that which had become
res judicata? If
they should not do this, they would confessedly have effected a
wrong to the plaintiff; and if they should attempt to do so, I
desire to know their authority for such a proceeding, and what
standard or measure for their mandate they would adopt; they would
have repudiated the verdict of a jury and a judgment of the court,
and what higher or other standard they would adopt I am at a loss
to conceive.
In defense of the proceeding permitted in this case, it has been
contended that, by the practice of this Court, in cases sounding in
damages purely, a plaintiff is permitted to confer jurisdiction on
this tribunal by laying his damages at an amount
ad
libitum, sufficient for that purpose. If the practice of this
Court is to be understood in the latitude in which it is just
expressed, that practice must be deemed to be in consonance with
neither the letter nor the spirit of the statute. In cases arising
ex contractu or
quasi-ex contractu, which in
their original form and magnitude might fall within the rule laid
down by Congress, but which, in the progress of investigation by
the application of payments or setoffs, should be brought below the
minimum established by law, or in cases of tort, which, from their
peculiar character, might also come within the reason of the same
rule (though the latter must be regarded as liable to strong
doubt), jurisdiction may be claimed. But if either the practice, or
any express annunciation from this Court, is to be apprehended as
placing it at the option of parties, plaintiffs or defendants, to
refer all their contests to this tribunal, however their character
may be stamped and ascertained by the decision of the inferior
courts, and in contravention of such solemn decisions, given upon
full investigation by courts and juries, why then, by the rules or
the practice of this Court, the act of Congress is substantially
repealed, and the proceedings of the courts below are a mere
mockery. The value of the subject of the controversy, as
ascertained in the court below, supplies the only safe and uniform
rule as to jurisdiction, in cases wherein jurisdiction is dependent
on value. My opinion, therefore, is that it is incompetent to
either of the parties, or to this Court, in the indirect
Page 49 U. S. 134
and collateral mode here attempted, and upon evidence entirely
dehors and unconnected with the record, to impeach or inquire into
the verdict and judgment rendered in the district court of Texas;
that such a proceeding is utterly subversive of the act of Congress
limiting the right to appeals and writs of error, and equally
subversive of the fundamental rule of pleading and of evidence,
which establishes undeniable verity in the solemn proceedings of
courts acting within the sphere of their jurisdiction, and
establishes every fact and every conclusion embraced within the
scope of those proceedings.
Order
On consideration of the motion made by Messrs. Hughes and Howard
on a prior day of the present term of this Court, to-wit, on
Friday, 25 January last past, to dismiss this writ of error for the
want of jurisdiction, and of the arguments of counsel thereupon
had, as well in support of as against the same, it is now here
ordered by this Court, that the said motion be, and the same is
hereby, overruled.