Hoyt v. Shelden/Opinion of the Court

This being a writ of error directed to a State court, it is incumbent upon the plaintiff, in order to give jurisdiction to this court, to show that one of the questions enumerated in the twenty-fifth section of the act of Congress of 1789, Ch. 20, arose at the trial, and that a right he claimed under the Constitution of the United States, or an act of Congress, was decided against him.

In the argument here, he alleges that the construction and effect of the first section of the fourth article of the Constitution was drawn in question, and the right to the property in dispute, which he claimed under it, was decided against him.

The section referred to is in the following words:

'Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records, and judicial proceeding of every other State. And the Congress may, by general laws, prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.'

And he now contends that, by virtue of the act of the Legislature of New Jersey, and the proceedings and decree of the Court of Chancery of that State, and the sale by the receivers under the authority of that court, as set forth in the bill of complaint, the right to the property in controversy vested in the vendees, under whom he claims title; and that the State court, by deciding against him, refused to give full faith and credit to the records and judicial proceedings in New Jersey, as required by the clause in the Constitution above quoted.

But, in order to give this court the power to revise the judgment of the State court on that ground, it must appear upon the transcript, filed by the plaintiff in error, that the point on which he relies was made in the New York court, and decided against him; and that this section of the Constitution was brought to the notice of the State court, and the right which he now claims here claimed under it. The rule upon this subject is clearly and fully stated in 18 How., 515, Maxwell vs. Newbold and others, as well as in many other cases to which it is unnecessary to refer.

This provision of the Constitution is not referred to in the plaintiff's bill of complaint in the State court, nor in any of the proceedings there had. It is true, he sets out the act of the Legislature of New Jersey, the proceedings and decree of the Chancery Court of that State under it, and the sale of the property in dispute by the authority of the court, which, he alleges, transferred the title to the vendee, under whom he claims, and charges that the assignment set up by the defendants was fraudulent and void, for the reasons stated in his bill. But all of the matters put in issue by the bill and answers, and decided by the State court, were questions which depended for their decision upon principles of law and equity, as recognised and administered in the State of New York, and without reference to the construction or effect of any provision in the Constitution, or any act of Congress. This court has no appellate power over the judgment of a State court pronounced in such a controversy, and this writ of error must, therefore, be dismissed for want of jurisdiction.