Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/445

 STICKNEY . KELSEY. Op/nion of the ourL STICKNEY v. KELSEY, COMPTROLLER OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. ERROR TO THE HURROGATES  COURT IN AND FOR THE COUIFI'Y OF NEW YORK STATE OF NEW YORK. No, I., Submitted March 20, 1008.--Decid April 6, 18. A ruling by the highest court of the State sustaining the method of prov- ing the ex/stence of a law of that State preente no Federal queetlon. Where the langus of the appellate court is ambiguous, if it may be taken  s declination to pass upon a question not neceary to the decision, this court will not, in order to aid s technical and non-meritorious de- fen, spell out a Federal question; but it will resolve the amb/gu/ty int the p]/ntiff in error who is bound, in order to give this court jurisdiction, to cle4riy how that a Federal right has been impaired. Wr/t of error to rview 185 N.Y. 107, dismissed. TB facts are stated in the opinion. Mr. Edwod Mitchell for plaintiffs in error. Mr. David B. Hill for defendant in error. MR. JuscE Moore delivered the opinion of the court. This is a writ of error to a Surrogates' Court of the State of New York. The judgment brought under review was entered in obedience to a judgment of the Court of Appeals of that State. The judgment impoeed a transfer tax upon certain real property devised by the will of Joseph Stickney, deceased. The tax was properly aeseed if an act purporting to be passed .on March 16, 1903, 1 Session Laws of 1903, p. 165, was a duly enacted law of the tate. It ppears that, by the constitu- tion of the State, lws of the nature of this .one require for their due enactment a majority vote in each.lgislafive cham- ber when three-fifths of the members are present. The pre- siding officers of both branches of the legislature, in certifying that this bill was duly passed by a majority vote, failed to certify that three-fifths of the members were then present.

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