Police Jury of Jefferson v. United States ex rel. Fisk
Opinion of the Court
(after stating the facts as above.) The assignments of error present two questions, the disposition of which will dispose of the case. The police jury of the parish of Jefferson, appellant, contended in the court below that it was a different legal being from the police jury of the parish of Jefferson, Left Bank, and, as shown by the third bill of exceptions in the record, on the trial of the case, requested the court to charge the jury “that the present police jury of the ‘parish of Jefferson, defendant in this cause, is a different legal being from the police jury of the parish of Jefferson, Left Bank, which is alleged by the relator to' have made the contracts with him in 1871, and that under the Act No. 92 of 1884, creating the present parish of Jefferson, and especially the provisions of the sixth section, the relator is not entitled to a mandamus against the present respondents,” which charge, as requested, the court refused. A similar question was presented upon similar facts in the case of U. S. v. Port of Mobile, 12 Fed. 768, and it was there held that “the liability of the port of Mobile for the relator’s judgment is settled by the judgment. All questions in the case back of that judgment are res judicata. See U. S. v. New Orleans, 98 U. S. 395; Wolff v. New Orleans, 103 U. S. 360.” This authority ought to settle the matter, but, as between the parties here, the question is conclusively settled by the decision of the supreme court of the state of Louisiana in State v. Police Jury of Jefferson, 39 La. Ann. 979, 3 South. 88, where precisely the same question now made was adjudicated against the plaintiff in error.
The next question presented in different forms by several bills of exceptions and in different assignments of error is how far the demand of the relator is res judicata between the parties, and this in relation to the force and effect of the restrictions upon municipal taxation found in the constitution of 1879--80, in regard to the matter of fact whether the parish of Jefferson, Left Bank, had ex
On the trial in the conrt below the court ruled that the admissions of the defendants and the judgment of the supreme court of the United States and of the supreme court of Louisiana, above referred to, were decisive of the cause in favor of the relator, and directed a verdict accordingly. In our view of the case, this ruling was incorrect, so far as it included the whole judgment of the relator against the police jury of the parish of Jefferson. The verdict in favor of relator should have been restricted to that part of the judgment of the circuit court based upon the judgment claims included in the-first suit for mandamus, (described in the statement of facts,) and confirmed by the supreme court of the state in 38 La. Ann. 505. As the judgment claims of Fisk are recited in detail in the judgment of the court below, the error is one which can be corrected by amendments, without awarding a venire de novo.
It is therefore ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the judgment of the circuit court be, and the same is hereby, amended by striking out the fifth claim, of $482.10, with 8 per cent, interest thereon from March 1, 1875, until paid, and $8.50, clerk’s and sheriff’s costs, and the sixth claim, for $358.22, with 5 per cent, interest from March 1, 1875, and $5.95, clerk’s costs, and $5.75, sheriff’s costs, and that otherwise the judgme.nt of the circuit court be, and the same is hereby, affirmed. It is further ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the defendant in error pay the costs of this court.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- POLICE JURY OF JEFFERSON v. UNITED STATES ex rel. FISK
- Status
- Published