EX PARTE SOUTHWESTERN SURETY INSURANCE COMPANY, PETITIONER

U.S. | 1918-05-20
No. 28
247 U.S. 19 Supreme Court of the United States (1918) Caution
Also reported at: 62 L. Ed. 961 · 38 S. Ct. 430 · 1918 U.S. LEXIS 1953 · SCDB 1917-153
Cited by 42 cases

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Synopsis

A surety insurance company challenged the jurisdiction of a federal district court to hear claims by material suppliers and creditors against a contractor and surety on a bond for federal construction work. The Supreme Court upheld the statute granting district courts jurisdiction over such claims in the district where the work was to be performed and rejected the surety's challenges to the court's authority, finding them foreclosed by prior precedent and noting that any remaining factual question about whether claims were timely filed was not properly before the Court.

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Opinion of the Court
Mr. Chief Justice White,

Memorandum opinion by

Mr. Chief Justice White,

by direction of the court.

The statute (c. 280, 28 Stat. 278; c. 778, 33 Stat. 811) makes the. district court of the district in which work contracted to be done for the United States is to be performed the forum for the assertion by supply creditors or material men of their claims against the contractor and the surety on the bond. It moreover authorizes one suit by all for the purpose of enforcing the liability of the surety. In the light of these provisions and their settled interpretation all the contentions of the petitioner but one which we shall hereafter separately notice are so completely foreclosed by previous authorities as to require only reference to them. United States v. Congress Construction Co., 222 U. S. 199; Illinois Surety Co. v. Peeler, 240 U. S. 214; Illinois Surety Co. v. John Davis Co., 244 U. S. 376. Indeed so certain is. this the case that .as to the principal one of the questions, the power of the court, when raised at this term it was treated as not open to controversy and was hence disposed of by a per curiam opinion. Hopkins v. Ellington & Guy, 246 U. S. 655.

The one subject which we postponed considering is the contention that rights of some of the claimants were asserted after the one-year period of limitation which the statute fixes. But this depends upon facts which are not before us, and besides involves a question within the competency of the court to decide concerning which therefore there is no basis for granting the writ of prohibition or sanctioning a resort to any other extraordinary legal remedy. See In re New York & Porto Rico S. S. Co., 155 U. S. 523; Ex parte Oklahoma, 220 U. S. 191.

It follows therefore that the rule must be and it is di¿. charged.

Rule discharged.

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Citator

Cited By (19 total)

  • Ex parte Bakelite Corp., 279 U.S. 438 (U.S. 1929)
    …67, 175-176; Ex parte Joins, 191 U. S. [*449] 93, 102; In re Rice, 155 U. S. 396; In re Huguley Manufacturing Co., 184 U. S. 297; Ex parte Oklahoma, 220 U. S. 191; Ex parte Oklahoma (No. 2), 220 U. S. 210; Ex parte Southwestern Surety Insurance Co., 247 U. S. 19; Ex parte Tiffany, 252 U. S. 32; Ex parte Peterson, 253 U. S. 300; Ex parte Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Ry. Co., 255 U. S. 273; Ex parte United States, 263 U. S. 389. Benner v. Porter, 9 How. 235, 242; Clinton v. Englebrecht, 13 Wall. 434, 447;…
  • S & H Contractors, Inc. v. A.J. Taft Coal Co., Inc., 906 F.2d 1507 (11th Cir. 1990)
    …equently ask whether the intrastate transaction is an essential element of an interstate transaction. See, e.g., Allenberg Cotton Co. v. Pittman, 419 U.S. 20, 30, 95 S.Ct. 260, 266, 42 L.Ed.2d 195 (1974); York Mfg. Co. v. Colley, 247 U.S. 21, 24-26, 38 S.Ct. 430, 431-32, 62 L.Ed. 963 (1918); Diversacon Indus., Inc. v. National Bank of Commerce, 629 F. 2d 1030, 1033 (5th Cir.1980). In our view, both factors weigh in favor of holding the transaction at issue here to be sufficiently localized to permit enforce…
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  • Vilter MFG. Co. v. Rolaff, 110 F.2d 491 (8th Cir. 1940)
    …that the facts herein embrace acts and transactions which were primarily local in- their character, and are not such as are merely relevant and appropriate to the interstate sale of defendant’s machines. See York Mfg. Co. v. Colley, 247 U.S. 21, 25, 38 S.Ct. 430, 62 L.Ed. 963, 11 A.L.R. 611. A mere recital of the work done by Ginaine indicates that it was not merely incidental to the interstate business done by the company, but that various and sundry additional local acts were-performed by him in furthera…

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