US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

In an appeal in admiralty, where the record has failed to show that the sum necessary to give this Court jurisdiction of such an appeal was in controversy below, the court, in a proper case, and where it is asserted by the appellant that such sum was really in controversy, will allow him a limited time to make proof of the fact.

This was a motion made by Mr. Donohue to dismiss an appeal from the Circuit Court of the Northern District of New York.

Lockwood, the appellant, with several others, had filed a joint libel against the schooner Grace Girdler, claiming damages occasioned by her collision with the schooner Ariel. The aggregate damages sustained by the libellants amounted, according to the libel, to $2,754. The libel was dismissed in the district court, and the dismissal was affirmed on appeal in the circuit court. None of the libellants appealed to this Court except Lockwood, and while it was apparently obvious that as owner of the vessel, much the greater part of the loss had fallen upon him, the record did not aver that the damage which he had suffered exceeded $2,000, as a statute requires that it should be in order to give the Court jurisdiction. chanrobles.com-red

Page 73 U. S. 442

It was stated, however, in a brief filed by the appellant on the motion to dismiss, and stated also by the appellant's counsel at this bar, Mr. Carlisle, that while it had been supposed by the appellant that the fact that his damage did exceed $2,000 might be sufficiently inferred by comparison of different parts of the record, yet that the fact would clearly appear by affidavits, and he therefore opposed the motion to dismiss.