Opinion

Memphis v. Brown

  • 94 U.S. 715
  • 24 L. Ed. 244
  • 1876 U.S. LEXIS 1932
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Filed
Apr 23, 1877
Status
Published
Author
Waite
On the bench
Waite
Cited by
49 cases
Authority
More cited than 99.6%

“The city was then for the first time required, in express terms, to subject this particular class of property to the adjudged taxation.”

How later courts described this case

  • “The city was then for the first time required, in express terms, to subject this particular class of property to the adjudged taxation.”
  • appeal allowed from second judgment on the ground that the second made material changes in the first

Written by the judges who cited it.

The opinion

Me. Chief Justice Waite

delivered the- opinion of the court. '

We think that the order made by the Circuit Court, May 20, 1876, upon the motion to subject merchants’ capital to the tax was such a final judgment as may be brought here for reexamination by a writ of error. The precise question decided by that order had never before been presented in the cause. The city was then for the first time required, in express terms', to subject this particular class of property to the adjudged taxation. The writ was, therefore, properly sued out upon the judgment.

Under the ruling in

Brockett

v. Brockett, 2 How. 241 , the motion made during the term to set aside the judgment of

*718

March 2 suspended the operation of that judgment, so that it did not take final effect for the purposes of a writ of error until May 20, when the motion was disposed of. In addition to this, the form of the entry of May 20 is equivalent to setting aside the judgment of March 2, and entering it anew as of that date. This the court had the right to do during the term, and for the very purpose of giving it effect for a

supersedeas. Sage et al.

v.

Central Railroad Company of Iowa et

al., 98 U. S. 412 . As the writ was issued on the day of the order, and its allowance embraced in the entry recording the order itself, there cannot be' any doubt of the intention of the court to give the judgment at that time such an effect.

Motions denied.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

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