Marshall v. Holmes

Marshall v. Holmes, 141 U.S. 589, is an 1891 decision of the United States Supreme Court on equitable relief , _res judicata _ and fraud on the court in diversity jurisdiction. Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote for a unanimous Court that held it unconscionable to allow a state court's decision to stand that had been based on documents later exposed as forgeries. It permitted a federal case seeking to set that verdict aside to go forward.

The petitioner had previously had several judgements rendered against her in Louisiana state court . After discovering that a letter attributed to her, used as evidence against her at trial, had been forged, she filed a petition for a bill of review in the Southern District of New York seeking to enjoin the respondent from endorsing the verdict. The state court would not allow the case to be removed , and so Marshall appealed directly to the Supreme Court.

Harlan's opinion considered both the question of whether federal courts had the authority to so disturb a state court's decision, and whether a court other than that which rendered the original judgement could grant equitable relief in a decided action where allegedly fraudulent evidence had been considered. He held that since Marshall had sought an independent action, Louisiana law and federal precedent allowed the case to be considered. Harlan also dismissed the respondents' argument that federal courts could not hear the case since none of the judgements against Marshall exceeded the $500 minimum then legally required by noting that they well exceeded that amount in the aggregate.

Other courts noted shortly afterwards that the invocation of unconscionability seemed to be in conflict with the Court's unanimous holding 13 years earlier in _United States v. Throckmorton _ that equitable relief could not be granted in cases of intrinsic fraud such as that Marshall alleged. The Court was asked several years later in _Graver v. Faurot _ to reconcile the two cases, but declined. As of the early 21st century this issue remains unresolved; some state courts and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals have held that Marshall overruled Throckmorton while others have reaffirmed the latter case.

Contents

• 1 Underlying dispute

• 2 Supreme Court

• 3 Subsequent jurisprudence

  • 3.1 Supreme Court

    • 3.1.1 Graver v. Faurot

    • 3.1.2 Simon v. Southern Railway Co.

    • 3.1.3 United States v. Beggerly

  • 3.2 Federal appeals courts

    • 3.2.1 United States v. Gleeson

    • 3.2.2 American Bakeries Co. v. Vining

    • 3.2.3 Publicker v. Shallcross

      • 3.2.3.1 Averbach v. Rival Manufacturing Co.

    • 3.2.4 Josserand v. Taylor

  • 3.3 In re de Manati

  • 3.4 State courts

    • 3.4.1 Boring v. Ott

    • 3.4.2 Shammas v. Shammas

    • 3.4.3 Schwartz v. Merchants Mortgage Co.

• 4 Notes

• 5 References

• 6 External links

Underlying dispute

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In 1884 David Mayer, an agricultural supplier, brought suit against Sarah Marshall, owner of the Cabin Teele cotton plantation in Madison Parish, Louisiana , and 24 of her tenants , alleging nonpayment for products advanced to them. Mayer sought recompense from Marshall in the form of raw cotton equivalent in market value to the money he was owed. The two parties agreed to try all the cases as one.

At trial, Mayer introduced into evidence a letter from Marshall, who was not present, to her late agent, Elijah Boyd, instructing him to release the cotton to Mayer as payment. On that basis he secured judgement against her in all the cases, all for amounts less than $500 each. Marshall learned of the forged letter later but the state Supreme Court declined the case in 1887 as the amount in controversy in each judgement was too small for it to assert jurisdiction.

Marshall returned to her home in New York and filed an action at equity in the Southern District of New York seeking to enjoin Holmes, the Madison Parish sheriff, and Mayer from enforcing or collecting the judgement since it had been obtained fraudulently. Back in Louisiana she applied in state court for removal to federal court. The district court declined, on the grounds that Marshall's petition had been too vague or insufficient to state a case for removal, and she petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for _certiorari _.

Supreme Court

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The Court granted the petition, and heard oral argument in the case in April 1891. It returned a decision that November holding unanimously for Marshall.

Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote the opinion. Unlike the Louisiana Supreme Court, he found that the Court could hear the case on the basis of the aggregate total of the judgements since they were far above the $500 minimum at the time:

As all the cases not tried went to judgment in accordance with the result in the one tried, as the property of Mrs. Marshall was liable to be taken in execution on all the judgments, as the judgments were held in the same right, and as their validity depended upon the same facts, she was entitled, in order to avoid a multiplicity of actions, and to protect herself against the vexation and cost that would come from numerous executions and levies, to bring one suit for a decree finally determining the matter in dispute in all the cases; and as, under the rules of equity obtaining in the courts of the United States, such a suit could be brought, the aggregate amount of all the judgments against which she sought protection upon grounds common to all the actions is to be deemed, under the act of Congress, the value of the matter here in dispute.

Next Harlan turned to the fraud claim. Since the forged letter had made the difference at trial, "The case ... is one where, without negligence, laches or other fault upon the part of petitioner, Mayer has fraudulently obtained judgments which he seeks, against conscience, to enforce by execution." While it was generally a rule that courts of equity would not reconsider judgements made at law procured by forged or perjured evidence when that evidence had already been considered at trial, Harlan quoted from the Court's 1813 _Marine Insurance Co. v. Hodgson _ decision, which held that "any fact which clearly proves it to be against conscience to execute a judgment, and of which the injured party could not have availed himself in a Court of law; or of which he might have availed himself at law, but was prevented by fraud or accident unmixed with any fault or negligence in himself or his agents, will justify an application to a Court of Chancery."

Lastly Harlan addressed the respondents' argument that there was no federal jurisdiction. Two earli

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