New York Life Insurance Company v. Hendren/Opinion of the Court

This record does not show that any Federal question was decided or necessarily involved in the judgment rendered by the court below. The pleadings, as well as the instructions asked and refused, present questions of general law alone. The court was asked to decide as to the effect, under the general public law, of a state of sectional civil war upon the contract of life insurance, which was the subject of the action. It was not contended, so far as we can discover, that the general laws of war, as recognized by the law of nations applicable to this case, were in any respect modified or suspended by the constitution, laws, treaties, or executive proclamations, of the United States. This distinguishes the present case from Matthews v. McStea, where jurisdiction was taken at the last term (20 Wall. 640), and the case decided at the present term. 91 U.S. 7. The question was there presented, whether the President's proclamation of April 19, 1861, did not suspend, for the time being, the operation of that principle in the law of war which prohibited commercial intercourse in time of war between the adherents of the two contending powers. Here there is nothing of the kind.

Our jurisdiction over the decisions of the State courts is limited. It is not derived from the citizenship of the parties, but from the questions involved and decided. It must appear in the record, or we cannot proceed. We act upon questions actually presented to the court below, not upon such as might have been presented or brought into the case, but were not.

The case, therefore, having been presented to the court below for decision upon principles of general law alone, and it nowhere appearing that the constitution, laws, treaties, or executive proclamations, of the United States were necessarily involved in the decision, we have no jurisdiction. We have often so decided. Bethel v. Demaret, 10 Wall. 537; Delmas v. Insurance Co., 14 id. 666; Tarver v. Keach, 15 id. 67; Rockhold v. Rockhold, supra, p. 129.

Dismissed for want of jurisdiction.