Huntington v. Laidley

Citations

• 176 U.S. 668
• 20 S. Ct. 526
• 44 L. Ed. 630
• 1900 U.S. LEXIS 1763

Syllabus

<p>In order to maintain a direct appeal to this court from the Circuit Court of the United States under the act of March 3, 1891, c. 517, § 5, as to the jurisdiction of the court below, the record must distinctly and unequivocally show that that court sends up for consideration a single and definite question of its jurisdiction; but this may appear either by the terms of the decree appealed from and of the order allowing the appeal, or by a separate certificate of that court.</p> <p>A certificate of a question of jurisdiction of the Circuit Court of the United States, under the act of March 3, 1891, c. 517, § 5, may be made by the District Judge, even if the decree was rendered by the Circuit Judge.</p> <p>The question whether proceedings concerning the legal or equitable title to land, begun and concluded in the courts of a State, before the commencement of a suit in the Circuit Court of the United States to charge the land with a trust, afford a defence to this suit, is not a question affecting the jurisdiction of that court, but a question affecting the merits of the cause, and as such to be tried and determined by that court in the exercise of its jurisdiction; and if that court, of its own motion, and without hearing the parties on the question of its jurisdiction, enters a final decree dismissing the suit under the- act of March 3, 1875, c. 137, § 5, upon the ground that by reason of the proceedings in the courts of the ■ State the suit does not really and substantially involve a dispute or controversy properly within its jurisdiction, and an appeal is taken to this court upon the question of jurisdiction only, under the act of March 3, 1891, c. 617, § 5, the decree must be reversed and the cause remanded for further proceedings</p>