US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

PRATT V. FITZHUGH, 66 U. S. 271 (1861)

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U.S. Supreme Court

Pratt v. Fitzhugh, 66 U.S. 1 Black 271 271 (1861)

Pratt v. Fitzhugh

66 U.S. (1 Black) 271

Syllabus

1. The right of a party to a writ of error from this Court under the 22d section of the Judiciary Act is expressly confined to cases where the matter in dispute exceeded the sum or value of two thousand dollars, exclusive of costs.

2. This means a property value capable of being ascertained and measured by the ordinary standard of value, and unless the fact necessary to bring the case within the statute be shown by the record or by evidence aliunde, this Court has no jurisdiction to review the judgment of the circuit court.

3. Therefore, where a cause comes into this Court on writ of error to a circuit court of the United States and it appears that no question is controverted between the parties except whether the defendants below were liable to imprisonment, and that question is raised upon an order of the circuit court discharging them on habeas corpus, the writ of error must be dismissed for want of jurisdiction.

In May, 1857, the plaintiff in error, Pratt, filed his libel in the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of New York against the propeller Kentucky, her boats &c., to recover damages caused by a collision with a vessel owned by him on Lake Erie. The Kentucky was seized on the 27th of May, and on the same day a bond for her release was executed by the defendants, as sureties for the claimant of the Kentucky, which bond was duly approved and the Kentucky was discharged. A recovery was had by plaintiff, and a decree perfected in his favor in May, 1859, for $21,581 28 against the claimant of the Kentucky, and Fitzhugh, Littlejohn, and Miller, his sureties. In July, 1859, execution issued commanding the marshal of the district to make the amount of the decree out of the goods and chattels of the defendants, and failing in this, to arrest and keep them until the moneys were paid. Under this process the defendants were imprisoned, but were discharged after a hearing upon habeas corpus by the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of New chanrobles.com-red

Page 66 U. S. 272

York on the ground that, as the law of the state had abolished imprisonment for debt on contracts, the defendants could not be imprisoned under the Acts of Congress of 28 February, 1839, and 14 June, 1841. This writ of error was then taken by Pratt, the plaintiff below, and the question argued in this Court was whether, under the acts of Congress, the defendants were liable to imprisonment.

Upon this question the arguments were elaborate and full, but they are not given here because nothing was decided by this Court except the question of jurisdiction.



























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