WALKER
v.
DREVILLE
AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.
A mortgagee sought to foreclose a mortgage in the Louisiana federal courts through a chancery proceeding that included a personal judgment against the mortgagor. The Supreme Court held that because the case was fundamentally an equity proceeding in foreclosure, it should have been brought to the Court by appeal rather than by writ of error, and therefore dismissed the writ for lack of proper jurisdiction. The Court reaffirmed its principle that the distinction between law and equity must be preserved in federal courts regardless of state procedures or civil codes.
© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.
Mr. Justice MILLER,
having stated the case in the way above given, delivered the opinion of the court.
Tire pleading, the orders, and the decree of the court, show, we think, so as to need no further argument to a mind familiar with the principles of equity jurisprudence, that the procedure is in its essential nature a foreclosure of a mortgage in chancery. It has all the essential qualities of such a suit, and it has none which is not usual and appropriate in such a proceeding. It is true that there is a personal judgment against defendant, but the niuety-second rule of equity practice prescribed by this court clearly authorizes such a judgment in foreclosure cases. It is the precise mode of foreclosing mortgages adopted in many of the States under their codes, and in all of them, when there is r separate chancery docket, such proceedings are classed among the chancery causes.
We have so often decided that notwithstanding the peculiarities of the Civil Code of Louisiana, the distinctions between law and equity must be preserved in the Federal courts, and that equity causes from that circuit must come here by appeal, and common law causes by writ of error, that we'cannot now depart from that rule without overruling numerous decisions and a well-settled course of practice.* The present case being a proceeding in equity brought here by writ of error, and not by appeal, the writ roust be
.Dismissed. .
SWAYNE and BRADLEY, JJ., dissented.
*
San Pedro, 2 Wheaton, 132; McCollum v. Eager, 2 Howard, 61; Minor v. Tillotson, Ib. 392; Surgett v. Lapice, 8 Id. 48; Brewster v. Wakefield, 22 Id. 118; Thompson v. Railroad Companies, 6 Wallace, 134.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
-
Bessette v. W. B. Conkey Co., 194 U.S. 324 (U.S. 1904)…a party to the suit, and cannot be regarded as interlocutory — we are of opinion that there is a right of review in the Circuit Court of Appeals. Such review must, according to the settled, law of this court, be by writ of error. Walker v. Dreville, 12 Wall. 440; Deland v. Platte County, 155 U. S. 221; Bucklin v. United States, 159 U. S. 680. On such a writ only matters of law are considered. The decision of the trial tribunal, court or jury, deciding the facts, is conclusive as to them. We, therefore, ans…
-
Idaho & Or. Land Improvement Co. v. Bradbury, 132 U.S. 509 (U.S. 1889)…by the complaint, and granted by the court, was purely equitable, and the proceeding was in the nature of a suit in equity. Canal Co. v. Gordon, 6 Wall. 561; Davis v. Alvord, 94 U. S. 545; Brewster v. Wakefield, 22 How. 118, 128; Walker v. Dreville, 12 Wall. 440; Marin v. Lalley, 17 Wall. 14; Rule 92 in Equity. The district court so treated the case, as is evident from its having made its own findings of fact on some of the questions at issue, and having based its decree, not upon the findings of the jury,…
-
Behn v. Campbell & GO Tauco, 205 U.S. 403 (U.S. 1907)…errors alleged to have been committed in an action at law can be reviewed, here only by writ of error. This in the absence of modification by statute is the rule in respect to all courts whose records are brought here for review. Walker v. Dreville, 12 Wall. 440; United States v. Hailey, 118 U. S. 233; Deland v. Platte County, 155 U. S. 221; Comstock v. Eagleton, 196 U. S. 99. The defendant, having failed in its appeal, has now brought a writ of error and asks this court to review the facts to the same ext…
Previewing 3 of 8 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceAuthorities Cited
- The San Pedro-Valverde, 2 Wheat. 132 (U.S. 1817)