The Rio Grande
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court.
Separate libels were filed by the appellees, in the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of Alabama, against the steamboat Rio Grande, to enforce the payment of certain claims made by those parties against the steamboat for materials furnished for repairs and for necessary supplies, which it is alleged constituted a maritime lien upon the steamboat. Process was issued and served and the parties appeared and were heard, and the decree states that the court ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the claims contained in the libels in this cause, do not constitute such a maritime lieu as to give the court jurisdiction, and the court entered a decree that the libel in each case be dismissed with costs. Immediate application was made to the court by the claimants for an order that the possession of the steamboat should be delivered to them by the marshal, and the record shows that on the twelfth of May, 1868,. the motion was granted. Notice of appeal was immediately given by the libellants, and .tw.o days after the order was passed delivering the steamboat to the trustees named in the application for the order, the appeal bonds were filed. During the pendency of the several libels in the District Court and before the final decree, to wit, on the tenth of December, 1867, the causes were consolidated by the court upon a written agreement being filed that the consolidation should not prejudice the officers of the court in respect to costs.
On the eighth of June, 1871, the same material-men filed a libel in the District Court of the United States for the District of Louisiana, against the same steamboat, to enforce the maritime lien for the same claims, in which they alleged that during the pendency of the said admiralty proceedings
Two grounds for dismissing the appeal are set forth in the motion under consideration:
1st. That the transcript does not contain a true copy of the record aud of all the proceedings in the case, under the hand and seal of th.e Circuit Court.
2d. That this court has no jurisdiction in the case, as the amount in dispute is less than $2000.
1. Probably the stipulation filed in the case allowing the appellants to complete and perfect the transcript in the case may be regarded as an answer to the first ground of the motion, but if not it is quite clear that the certificate of the clerk of the court must be regarded as primd facie evidence that the matter of fact alleged in the motion is not well founded. Deficiencies, if any, may be supplied by certiorari.
Motion denied.
The Patapsco, 12 Wallace, 451.
Reference
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- 1. Five libellants, on separate libels in rem, got a decree in the Circuit Court ■ of one circuit against a vessel for sums each one under $2000, and so without right of appeal here, and costs. Before they could get satisfaction from the vessel, she was taken out to sea. The vessel happening to be subsequently in another district the same five libellants now sent and libelled her there; not filing five separate libels, as in the former district, but all five persons joining in one libel, claiming for each the old suras, with interest from a day named, and claiming in one sum, and without any specification of wbat portion of it was for which libellant, the sum of $1767.62, costs of the courts of the first district, “and also all costs in this behalf expended.” The Circuit Court decreed in favor of the libellants the amount claimed by each, with 8 per cent, interest from a day named, to the date of the Circuit Court’s decree; and “ the further sum of $1767.62 costs in the District and Circuit Courts” of the former district, and all costs in the District and Circuit Courts where the libels had last been filed. With the interest thus allowed the claims of two of the five libellants exceeded the sum of $2000, but even with it added the claims of the remaining three did not do so. The owners of the vessel having taken an appeal to this court, a motion “ to dismiss the appeal,” for want of jurisdiction, because “ the matter in dispute did not exceed the sum or value of $2000,” was denied; the ground for the denial assigned being that “ the motion is to dismiss the appeal,’’ and that the decree in favor of two of the libellants was greater than $2000 when the interest allowed by the Circuit Court to the date of its decree was included with the principal. 2. Great faith given to a certificate of a clerk below (in the face of things ap-parent on the transcript itself, and in face of the assertion by counsel of one side and the admission by counsel of the other), that a record sent here by him is a full, complete, true, and perfect transcript of the record and proceedings in a court below. 8, On an allegation of deficiency in the record, the deficiency, if any, may be supplied by certiorari. A motion to dismiss the appeal upon such allegation denied.