Gordon v. Caldcleugh

Error to a state court. This court has not jurisdiction upon a writ of error to a state court, under the 25th section of the judiciary act of 1789, if the decision of the state court he in favor of the privilege claimed-under an act of congress.1

This was a writ of error to the judges of the Court of Equity of the state of South Carolina, holden in and for the eastern district of the said-, state. James Gordon, “ of the city of Charleston, in the state aforesaid,” filed a. bill in equity, against Caldcleugh & Boyd, “ of London, in the kingdom of Great Britain,” William Muir, “ of Hamburg,” and John Gillespie, George' McKay and Joseph Reid, whose residence was not mentioned in the bill. At the return of the subpoena, Caldcleugh, Boyd and Reid appeared, and filed a petition, stating themselves to be aliens, and subjects of the King of Great-Britain, and that the complainant was a citizen of the state of South Carolina, and praying that the cause might be removed to the circuit court of the United States, according to the 12th section of the judiciary act of 1789i. To which petition, Gordon, the complainant, answered, that the prayer thereof ought not to be granted, because Gillespie and McKay, two of the - defendants, were citizens of the state of South Carolina. But the court,. “ after observing that the parties, defendants to the suit, residing in this-state, were stakeholders, and not materially concerned in the determination of the cause, ordered that it be transferred to the federal court, agreeable to-the prayer of the petition. The complainant, immediately, in the same court, assigned errors, in the-following form : “Whereupon, the said James Gordon comes and says, that *269] in the giving of the final judgment, in the cause aforesaid, upon the construction of the 12th clause or section of the statute of the United States, entitled an act to establish the judicial courts of the United States, passed the 24th day of September 1789, and 2d section of the Sd article of the constitution of the United States, and the 12th article of the amendment of the constitution, there is manifest error in this, to wit, that the judgment aforesaid was given in form aforesaid, for the said Caldcleugh, Boyd and Reid, upon their petition, for the removal of the said cause for trial, into the-circuit court of the United States, to be held for the district of South Carolina, whereas, judgment should have been given for the said James Gordon, against the removal aforesaid ; and this he is ready to verify. Caldcleugh,. Boyd and Reid joined in error; and thus the ease came up. The writ of error did not state that the Court of Equity of the state of South Carolina, to the judges of which it was directed, was “ the highest court of equity of the state in which a decision in the suit could be had,” so as to bring the case within the provisions of the 25th section of the judiciary act of 1789, nor did that fact in any other manner appear.