From this judgment the present writ of error was prosecuted in this court.
The Judiciary Act, as most readers will remember, gives this court power to re-examine on writs of error, and reverse or affirm final judgments in civil actions or suits rendered in a Circuit Court, where the matter in dispute exceeds the sum or value of $2000.
Mr. Jenckes now moved to dismiss this writ, chiefly on the following grounds:
1. Because the record contained no bill of exceptions; nor any agreed statement of facts; nor any special verdict; demurrer to a material pleading, or demurrer to evidence.
2. Because the judgment exhibited in the record was not a final judgment.
In support of his motion, Mr. Jenckes argued, that unless a bill of exceptions was tendered to the judge for his rulings thereon, and allowed; or unless an agreed statement of facts, or a special verdict, or demurrer to a material pleading, or demurrer to evidence be shown, there was nothing disclosed for this court to review. And as there was thus no case made here upon which the judgment of the court could be given, and no final judgment of the court below set forth which could be affirmed, the proper course was to dismiss the writ of error.
Want of jurisdiction and irregularity of the writ, are the only grounds for a dismissal. Wherever error is apparent on the record, it is open to revision, whether it be made to appear by bill of exceptions or otherwise. In the present case the judgment is passed upon the allegations of the petition and exhibits, as though a formal demurrer had been filed by the defendant, and the action of the court, in either sustaining or overruling a demurrer, may be examined by writ of error, without a bill of exception.
The proceeding instituted on the 1st June, 1869-a petition in the nature of an audit a querel a-is beyond controversy a 'civil action,' or 'suit,' and the judgment rendered on 14th, and signed 18th June, was obviously final, inasmuch as it entirely disposed of the claim to relief set up in said 'civil action' or 'suit' and decreed costs. The motion is, therefore, plainly unfounded every way.
Mr. Justice CLIFFORD delivered the opinion of the court.
Two principal causes are assigned in support of the motion to dismiss the writ of error:
1. That the record contains no bill of exceptions nor any agreed statement of facts or any special verdict, demurrer to a material pleading, or demurrer to evidence.
2. That the supposed judgment exhibited in the record is not a final judgment.
Express jurisdiction is conferred upon this court by the twenty-second section of the Judiciary Act to re-examine, upon writ of error, and reverse or affirm final judgments in civil actions rendered in a Circuit Court, where the matter in dispute, exclusive of costs, exceeds the sum or value of two thousand dollars, whether the same was brought there by original process or was removed there from courts of the several States, or from a District Court.
Such a writ of error, when issued to a Circuit Court, removes the whole record into this court, and if all the proceedings in the suit were correct, it follows, if not from the very words of the section, certainly from the necessary construction of the same, that the judgment must be affirmed.
Error may be shown in such a case by a bill of exceptions or by a demurrer to the declaration, or a material pleading, or it may appear by an agreed statement of facts, if made a part of the record, or in a special verdict, if put in due form; but even when all these are wanting it is no cause for dismissing the suit, because the writ of error issued to a Circuit Court under that section brings up the whole record, and their absence only shows that there is no error in the proceedings; and if there is no error in any part of the record the prevailing party in the Circuit Court is entitled to an affirmance of the judgment.
Cases brought here by writ of error to a State court, issued under the twenty-fifth section of the Judiciary Act, stand upon a very different footing, as in such a case it must appear on the face of the record in express terms or by necessary implication, that some one, at least, of the questions described in that section did arise in the State court, and that the question so appearing in the record was decided in the State court, as required in that section; and if it does not so appear in the record, then this court has no jurisdiction of the case, and in that event the writ of error must be dismissed; as this court, under those circumstances, has no power either to reverse or affirm the judgment rendered in the State court.