CONSTITUTIONAL LAW - FEDERAL QUESTIONS REVIEWABLE BY THE SUPREME COURT

Authors

Abstract

Two cases decided by the Supreme Court at the October, 1932, term of Court raised important questions of federal practice and due process of law. Judgment was rendered, on motion, without notice, pursuant to the terms of the bond, against the American Surety Company on a supersedeas bond given in an action in which the Singer Sewing Machine Company and one Anderson were the defendants in the trial court after the Supreme Court of Idaho had affirmed the judgment of the trial court as to Anderson and reversed it as to the Sewing Machine Company. An order of the trial court vacating the judgment it had rendered on the bond was reversed by the Supreme Court of Idaho upon an appeal by the Baldwins. The Surety Company petitioned for a rehearing by the Supreme Court of Idaho upon the appeal from the order vacating the judgment and for the first time presented a federal question. This petition was denied without opinion. Thereupon the Surety Company sought to enjoin the enforcement of the judgment in a federal court upon two grounds: (1) that the judgment violated due process in that no notice was given before entry of the judgment on the bond; (2) that a hearing upon the construction of the bond was denied. The Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed an order of the district court in Idaho denying the application. Both cases came to the Supreme Court upon writs of certiorari. In the first case, American Surety Company v. Baldwin (the two cases were consolidated and argued together), it was held that the writ to the Supreme Court of Idaho should be dismissed because of a failure seasonably to raise the federal question; in the second case, Baldwin v. American Surety Company, it was held that the decree be reversed because the matter was res judicata and the state procedure did not deny due process. ( Only the first of the three questions will be discussed in this note; the others are taken up in the next two succeeding notes.) American Surety Company v. Baldwin and Baldwin v. American Surety Company, (U.S. 1932) 53 Sup. Ct. 98.

Recommended Citation

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW - FEDERAL QUESTIONS REVIEWABLE BY THE SUPREME COURT, 31 Mich. L. Rev. 426 (1933).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol31/iss3/14