298 F. 718 | 8th Cir. | 1924
This action was brought in the state court by Apple as obligee on a supersedeas bond against plaintiff in error Coleman, one of the sureties, and removed by Coleman-to the Federal court on the ground of diverse citizenship. The bond was given by one Smith as principal .on his appeal, to the Supreme Court of' Kansas from a decree which Apple had secured against him in a suit brought by Apple
The bond here sued on was given by Smith on his appeal from that decree to the Kansas Supreme Court. That court affirmed the decree, with a modification, however, that Apple and Smith each assign the leases taken in their respective names to the' partnership of Apple & Smith, instead of to a receiver. 105 Kan. 732, 185 Pac. 903; 106 Kan. 717, 190 Pac. 8. Smith then failed to pay the amount found to be due Apple on the accounting, and this action was brought against Coleman on the bond. The answer of Coleman thereto is that the bond was given without consideration and is void, because the Kansas courts were without jurisdiction in Apple’s suit against Smith over the lands in Oklahoma and the leases thereon, and those courts could not require of Smith an accounting in relation thereto, that the amount adjudged against Smith on the accounting consisted almost wholly of the profits which Smith had made from those leases. .Coleman further alleges in his answer that jurisdiction of the Kansas courts was challenged by Smith in the suit brought by Apple against him on the ground stated above, and that the judgment of the trial court in that case, and the judgment affirming it in the Supreme Court, are for those reasons wholly void. Coleman further pleads in his answer that after the decree was rendered in the district court for Cherokee County (also after the Kansas Supreme Court had rendered its opinion of affirmance)
“Jurisdiction oí the subject-matter is the power to deal with the general abstract question, to hear the particular facts in any case relating to this question, and to determine whether or not they are sufficient to invoke the exercise of that power. „It is not confined to cases in which the particular facts constitute a good cause of action, but it includes every issue within the scope of the general power vested in the court, by the law of its organization, to deal with the abstract question. * * * It empowers the court to determine every issue within the scope of its authority according to its own view of the law and the evidence, whether its decision is right or wrong, and every judgment or decision so rendered is final and conclusive upon the parties to it, unless reversed by writ of error or appeal, or impeached for fraud. * * * The decision of the question that is now admitted to be presented anew was the exercise of jurisdiction, and the rightful exercise of that jurisdiction, and, whether right or wrong, it cannot be successfully attacked in a collateral proceeding.”
The Supreme Court, in Erickson v. United States, 44 Sup. Ct. 310, 68 L. Ed.-, decided March 3, 1924, said:
“Jurisdiction is power to decide the case either way, as the merits may require.”
“The territorial limitation of the jurisdiction of courts of a state over property in another state has a limited exception in the jurisdiction of a court of equity, but it is an exception well defined. A court of equity having authority to act upon the person may indirectly act upon real estate in another state, through the instrumentality of this authority over the person. Whatever it may do through the party it may do to give effect to its decree respecting property, whether it goes to the entire disposition of it or only to effect it with liens or burdens. Story on Conflict of Laws, § 544. In French, Trustee, v. Hay, 22 Wall. 250, 252, this court said that a court of equity having jurisdiction in personam has power to require a defendant ‘to do or to refrain from doing anything beyond the limits of its territorial jurisdiction which it might have required to be done or omitted, within the limits of such territory.”
We think there was no error committed by the court in rendering judgment on the pleadings in favor of defendant in error.
Affirmed.