Crane v. Weymouth

Department No. 1, McKinstry, J.: Defendants were sureties upon an undertaking on appeal in an action of ejectment, wherein one Huff was plaintiff and C. W. Doyle defendant, and the present action was brought by plaintiffs upon the undertaking to recover the costs and damages, and for the value of the use and occupation by the defendant in ejectment pending the appeal.

This Court reversed the judgment in ejectment of the District Court, and directed that Court to render judgment in favor of Doyle for his costs, etc. In obedience to the remittitur of the Supreme Court, the District Court entered judgment in favor of Doyle for his costs. Subsequently Huff “ caused a writ of error to be issued out of the Supreme Court of the United States, whereby said cause was removed from the Supreme Court of the State of California to said Federal Court for review, and such proceedings were had and taken in said cause in the Supreme Court of the United States, that on the 15th day of January, 1877, said last-named Court made and caused its judgment to be entered therein, whereby the judgment and order of the Supreme Court of California, made in said cause on the 6th day of April, 1875, aforesaid, was reversed, and said cause was [479]remanded to the said last-named Court, with directions to affirm the judgment of the District Court of the 21st of January, 1874, aforesaid.” (Finding 4.)

The mandate of the Supreme Court of the United States ran to the Supreme Court of the State, and in accordance therewith the latter “ caused to be entered its order and judgment, whereby it was ordered and adjudged that the order and judgment of said Court, made on the Gth day of April, 1875, be vacated and set aside, and that the District Court do vacate and set aside its judgment of the 4th of August, 1875, in favor of said Doyle for costs; and it was further ordered and adjudged that the judgment of the District Court made and entered in said action on the 21st of January, 1874, be in all things affirmed.” (Finding 5.)

This proceeding accorded with the law of the United States. “A final judgment or decree in any suit in the highest Court of a State, in which a decision in that suit could be had * * * may be re-examined and reversed or affirmed in the Supreme Court upon writ of error. ® * * The Supreme Court may reverse, modify, or affirm the judgment or decree of such State Court, and may at their discretion award execution, or remand the same to the Court from which it was removed by the writ.” (Desty’s Fed. Proc. p. 102, § 709.)