Marshall v. Holmes, 141 U.S. 589 (1891)

(2) As all the judgments in law were held in the same right and against the same parties, and as their validity depended upon the same facts, the defendant therein, in order to avoid a multiplicity of actions, and the vexation and costs arising from numerous executions and levies, was entitled to bring one suit for a final decree determining the matter in dispute that was common to all the parties; and as, under the rules of equity, such a suit could be brought in a court of the United States, the aggregate amount of all the p. 590judgments sought to be annulled was the value of the matter in dispute; consequently, the cause was removable so far as the amount involved was concerned;

“That your petitioner, as usufructuary of the plantation Cabin Teele, in your said parish, employed one Elijah Boyd as an agent on the said plantation to collect the rents and ship the cotton received ; that the said Boyd died in the year 1884, and that said Mayer, pretending to have a contract with said Boyd, by which your petitioner was bound to him as a furnisher of supplies in solido with the several defendants named in the suits hereinbefore mentioned, brought said suits and made petitioner a party defendant thereto; that petitioner answered in the several suits that said Boyd, if he made any such contract as alleged, had no power, right or authority to do so; that a trial was had of the suit No. 607, and the said Mayer introduced evidence of the existence of a letter from your petitioner to the said Boyd authorizing him, the said Boyd, to make a contract by which her lien as lessor on the crops produced by the several defendants and other tenants on said plantation should be waived in favor of the said Mayer or of others as furnishers of supplies to said tenants; that upon such evidence so offered, and of the existence of which petitioner could not possibly be aware and of which she had no knowledge until subsequent to the trial, judgment was rendered against her in said suit and in the several other suits mentioned. Your petitioner shows that the said Boyd, who was an agent, with only a general power of administration, had no authority to bind her or to waive her lien as lessor in order to procure supplies for the several defendants and other tenants, and that the pretended letter authorizing him to make such contract, if it ever had an existence, which petitioner denies, was a false and forged document, not written and not signed by her; that your petitioner has never authorized the said Boyd or any other person whatsoever to waive her lien as lessor in favor of the said Mayer or any other furnisher of supplies, and has never written the pretended letter or any other letter to the said Boyd or to any other person whatsoever containing such authority; that, to the contrary, as soon as she was informed after the death of said Boyd that he had made such pretended contract and other contracts by which it was sought to bind her, she instructed p. 592her agents and attorneys to take immediate steps to disavow the authority of said Boyd to make such contracts; that the testimony of said Mayer as to the existence of said pretended letter is false and in pursuance of a conspiracy to defraud petitioner, or that said pretended letter, if it ever had an existence, is a false and forged document; that this testimony and much more testimony necessary to establish the falsity of said evidence upon which said judgments were obtained and the forgery of said pretended letter to said Boyd was unknown to petitioner at the time of the trial and could not have been known to or anticipated by her, and has been discovered by her since the rendition of said judgments in said suit and since the lapse of the legal delays within which a motion could be made for a new trial, and that there has been no laches on her part in failing to show the falsity of such evidence and the forgery of such pretended letter on the trial of the cause.”

Subsequently, June 5, 1885, Mrs. Marshall filed a petition, accompanied by a proper bond, for the removal of her suit into the Circuit Court of the United States, upon the grounds that she was a citizen of New York, and the defendants respectively were citizens of Mississippi and Louisiana; that the controversy was wholly between citizens of different States, and that it could be fuily tried and determined between them. The court made an order refusing the application for removal. The pleas were referred to the merits, and ordered to stand as p. 593an answer. Mayer answered, reiterating the allegations of the pleas previously filed by him, excepting to the petition as not disclosing any cause of action, denying each averment of the petition not admitted in the pleas, and praying that the plaintiff’s demand be rejected.

Is the right of removal affected by the fact that no one of the judgments against the plaintiff in error exceeded the amount — five hundred dollars exclusive of costs — limited, by the act of 1875, for the jurisdiction, whether original or upon removal, of a Circuit Court of the United States, in suits between citizens of different States? We think not. The judgments aggregate more than three thousand dollars. They are all held by Mayer, and are all against Mrs. Marshall. Their validity depends upon the same facts. If she is entitled to relief against one of the judgments, she is entitled to relief against all of them. The cases in which they were rendered were, in effect, tried as one case, so far as she and Mayer were concerned; for the parties stipulated that the result in each one not tried should depend upon the result in the one tried. As all the cases not tried went to judgment in accordance with the result in the one tried; as the property of Mrs. Marshall was liable to be taken in execution on all the judgments; as the judgments were held in the same right; and as their validity depended upon the same facts, she was entitled, in order to avoid a multiplicity of actions, and to protect herself against the vexation and cost that would come from numerous executions and levies, to bring one suit for a decree finally determining the matter in dispute m all the cases. And as, under the rules of equity obtaining p. 596in the courts of the United States, such a suit could be brought, the aggregate amount of all the judgments against which she sought protection, upon grounds common to all the actions, is to be deemed, under the act of Congress, the value of the matter here in dispute.

the case might be within the cognizance of the Federal courts. The distinction between the two classes of cases may p. 598be somewhat nice, but it may be affirmed to exist. In the one class, there would be a mere revision of errors and irregnlari-ties, or of the legality and correctness of the judgments and decrees of the state courts ; and in the other class, the investigation of a new case, arising upon new facts, although having relation to the validity of an actual judgment or decree, or of the party’s right to claim any benefit by reason thereof.”

The rules laid down in Barrow v. Hunton were applied in Johnson v. Waters, 111 U. S. 640, 667, and Arrowsmith v. Gleason, 129 U. S. 86, 101. In Johnson v. Waters, this court upheld the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court of the United States, by a decree in an original suit, to deprive parties of the benefit of certain fraudulent sales made under thé orders of a Probate Court of Louisiana, which court, by the law of that State, had exclusive jurisdiction of the subject matter of the proceedings out of which the sales arose. After observing p. 599that the Court of Chancery is always open to hear complaints against fraud, whether committed in pais or in or by means of judicial proceedings, the court said: “ In such cases, the court does not act as a court of review, nor does it inquire into any irregularities or errors of proceeding in another court; but it will scrutinize the conduct of the parties, and, if it finds that they have been guilty of fraud in obtaining a judgment or decree, it will deprive them of the benefit of it, and of any inequitable advantage which they have derived under it.” In Arrowsmith v. Gleason, the grounds of the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court of the United States to entertain an original suit — the parties being citizens of different States — to set aside a sale of lands fraudulently made by the guardian of an infant, under authority derived from a Probate Court, are thus stated: “These principles control the present case, which, although involving rights arising under judicial proceedings in another jurisdiction, is an original, independent suit for equitable relief between the parties; such relief being grounded upon a new state of facts, disclosing not only imposition upon a court of justice in procuring from it authority to sell an infant’s lands when there was no necessity therefor, but actual fraud in the exercise, from time to time, of the authority so obtained. As the case is within the equity jurisdiction of the Circuit Court, as defined by the Constitution and laws of the United States, that court may, by its decree, lay hold of the parties, and compel them to do what according to the principles of equity they ought to do, thereby securing and establishing the rights of which the plaintiff is alleged to have been deprived by fraud and collusion.”

These authorities would seem to place beyond question the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court to take cognizance of the present suit, which is none the less an original, independent suit, because it relates to judgments obtained in the court of another jurisdiction. While it cannot require the state court itself to set aside or vacate the judgments in question, it may, as between the parties before it, if the facts justify such relief, adjudge that Mayer shall not enjoy the inequitable advantage obtained by his judgments. A decree to that effect p. 600would operate directly upon him, and would not contravene that provision of the statute prohibiting a court of the United States from granting a writ of injunction to stay proceedings in a state court. It would simply take from him the benefit of judgments obtained by fraud.

The case before us is unlike the two last cited. While the court, upon final hearing, would not permit Mrs. Marshall, p. 601being a party to the actions at law, to plead ignorance of the evidence introduced at the trial, it might be that relief could be granted by reason of the fact, distinctly alleged, that some of the necessary proof establishing the forgery of the letter was discovered after the judgments at law were rendered, and after the legal delays within which new trials could have been obtained, and could not have been discovered by her sooner. It was not, however, for the state court to disregard the right of removal upon the ground simply that the averments of the petition were insufficient or too vague to justify a court of equity in granting the relief asked. The suit being, in its general nature, one of which the Circuit Court of the United States could rightfully take cognizance, it was for that court, after the cause was docketed there, and upon final hearing, to determine whether, under the allegations and proof, a case was made which, according to the established principles of equity, entitled Mrs. Marshall to protection against the judgments alleged to have been fraudulently obtained.

On the filing of the bill, an order was made by the court, that on the payment by the plaintiff into the German National Bank of Little Rock, Arkansas, the depository of the court, to the credit of the court, of the $33,825, and the payment to the clerk of all costs in the forcible entry and detainer suit, a temporary injunction should issue, enjoining Johnson from issuing any process to put the plaintiff out of the possession of the eighteen miles of track, or disturbing its possession thereof, until the further order of the court in the premises; and that Johnson might receive said sum from the depository at his pleasure, without prejudice to any of his rights, and particularly his right to receive any further sum that might be due him, and for which he had a lien on the eighteen miles of p. 606track, or a right to the possession of the same as security therefor.

II. The relation between the parties was contractual and p. 608the bill seeks through a court of equity to relieve appellee from the effects of the contract merely because the enforcement will now prove a hardship.

VOL. CXLI—39 p. 610condition of affairs, and entitled the plaintiff to the relief by injunction asked for, because it showed that the contract of April 23, 1879, had been fully complied with by the plaintiff, as the successor of the Iron Mountain and Helena Railroad Company, and that Johnson had no further right to the possession of the road. The $25,000, with interest from October 6,1881, was substituted for the $29,000; and the contract of April 23, 1879, is to be read as if the sum of $25,000? instead of $29,000, had been mentioned in it. Johnson was to have possession of the road, and the right to run, use and control it, only as security for the payment of the money, and was to deliver up possession of it to the Iron Mountain and Helena Company, of which the plaintiff is the successor, as soon as the money should be paid. It was paid, by the tender and deposit of the $25,000, with interest, and the right of Johnson further to retain possession of the road, or to interfere with it, ceased.

The written agreement of October 6, 1881, is full and complete ; and its terms cannot be varied, qualified or contradicted by showing, as is sought to be done, a contemporaneous verbal understanding that the $25,000 mentioned in the agreement was to be paid in cash in a limited time, or satisfactory securities delivered in a limited time, or the written contract p. 612was to be void. The agreement of October 6, 1881, is, on its face, an absolute one, that the amount due to Johnson under the prior contract of April 23, 1879, was the sum of $25,000 on October 6,1881; and it cannot be reduced by parol evidence to a mere offer that in a certain contingency Johnson would accept the sum specified in full for the sum provided in the original contract.

I concur in the judgment dismissing the appeal in No. 71 for want of jurisdiction, but I dissent from the judgment and opinion of the court, just announced, affirming the decree of the court below in No. 60. As I see the case, it is a bill in which the complainant, (The St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway Company,) asks the aid of a court of equity to relieve it from the execution of a judgment of a court of law, affirmed by this court, upon the ground that it would be against conscience to execute that judgment in obedience to the mandate of this court. I do not say that a court of equity cannot interfere in such a case. But, as has been remarked by Lord Redesdale, “ bills of this description have not of late years been much countenanced.” 2 Story Eq. Jur. § 888. In general, such jurisdiction is exercised only in a case where the equity of the applicant is free from doubt—such equity, for instance, as that the judgment was obtained by fraud, acciden or mistake; or that the applicant had a good defence to t e action at law of which he could not avail himself in a court o law, or was prevented from doing so by the act of the adverse party, or by some accident un mixed with negligence or fa p. 613in himself ; or that the right, upon which the relief he asks in equity, arose after the judgment at law was obtained, and independently of it, and which would not have constituted a defence in the suit at law. Marshall v. Holmes, ante, 589, and cases there cited. I do not think that the state of facts which appears in this record presents such a case. It is more like the case of Ballance v. Forsyth, 24 How. 183. In that case, Ballance brought an action of ejectment against Forsyth and obtained a verdict and judgment for the recovery of the land in dispute. The judgment was affirmed by this court. 13 How. 18. After the mandate went down from this court, Ballance filed a bill in equity, setting forth the same titles that were involved in the suit at law, and praying relief on certain special grounds. Mr. Justice Campbell, who delivered the opinion of the court, said: “ This is a bill filed by the plaintiff to enjoin the execution of a judgment in the Circuit Court, upon which a writ of error had been taken to this court and affirmed. The cause in this court was between the same parties, and the decision of the court is reported in 13 How. 18. The plaintiff sets forth the claims of the respective parties, and insists that his is the superior right, and that he is entitled to have the property. But it is not allowable to him to appeal from the judgment of the Circuit Court and Supreme Court to a court of chancery upon the relative merit of the legal titles involved in the controversy they had adjudicated?

These few sentences aptly characterize the case under consideration. The two cases, in their essential features, are very similar. In the one cited, the relative merits of the legal titles to the property in dispute were involved. In this, the relative claims of right to the possession of the property in dispute are involved. There is one difference between them. The applicant for relief in this case comes into court an adjudged trespasser and wrong-doer, asking for relief from the legal effects of his own wilfully illegal act. In speaking of the complainant as a trespasser and wrong-doer, I am sustained by the statement in the bill itself, to the effect that, whilst the action of forcible entry and detainer was pending, the complainant bought the property of which the appellant was dispossessed, p. 614took possession thereof and became a maintainer of the defendant in the suit, and was itself made a party to said suit.

I do not think that the written agreement of October 6,1881, between the appellant, Johnson, and Bailey, (the president of the railroad company,) merits consideration as a ground of equitable relief, in view of the peculiar circumstances which attended its execution. That writing was entered into whilst the possessory suit was pending and before the complainant was made a party thereto. If it is a valid ground for equitable intervention now, it was then ; and the complainant could have filed his bill on the equity side of the court, praying that the action be suspended until the equities of the case could be adjusted, and thus have prevented the judgment from being p. 615obtained. Instead of pursuing such a course the complainant waited about seven months after the judgment was affirmed by this court, when, assuming that the written agreement, so called, was the sole measure of the rights of Johnson under the judgment, it tendered him the sum named in that agreement, and upon his refusal to accept the same as a full satisfaction, instituted this suit, asking the court to aid it in retaining its illegal and ill-gotten possession of the property in the controversy. The same remark applies to the tender by the company to Johnson of $25,000. It wras not such a fact, arising after the judgment, and independent of it, as constitutes in itself alone a right to invoke the aid of a court of equity; but it was an act closely connected with that judgment, not independent of it, resorted to as a means of avoiding the execution thereof by offering the $25,000 as a substitute for its satisfaction ; in no aspect of it does that tender, relied on as the foundation of this suit, create the clear and unquestionable equity which alone can justify a court of chancery in suspending the execution of a judgment, for the express purpose of giving its sanction and protection to a possession acquired by an unlawful forcible entry and detainer. The undisputed facts of the case are, that the appellee purchased from the original transgressor, who had ousted Johnson of his rightful possession of the railroad property, took possession and continued in the wrongful occupancy and use of it; contested the action of forcible entry and detainer brought by Johnson until judgment was rendered in his favor, awarding to him restitution of the possession of the property, which, on a writ of error from this court, was affirmed; and now when it asks for a decree enjoining Johnson from taking the possession thus adjudged to him, equity demands that before the preventive remedy of injunction can be invoked, there must first be an actual restoration of the injured party to his original rights.