Statement of Facts. EX PARTE PENNSYLVANIA. APPLICATION FOR A WRIT OF PROHIBITION. Submitted October 15th, 1883.-Decided November 5th, 1883. Appeal-Jurisdiction-Practice-Writ of Prohibition. 1. The District Court of the U. S. for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has jurisdiction over the claim of a pilot appointed under the laws of Delaware for fees when the vessel is seized within the jurisdiction of the court, and properly brought before it. 2. Where the evident purpose of an application for a writ of prohibition is the correction of a supposed error in a judgment on the merits, the court will not grant the writ. The State of Pennsylvania by the act of 8th June, 1881, sec. 5, enacted that every vessel which is not spoken by a pilot outside of a straight line drawn between the capes of the Delaware shall be "exempt from the duty of taking a pilot on her voyage inward to the port of Philadelphia, and the vessel, as well as her master, owner, agent, or consignee, shall be exempt from the duty of paying pilotage, or half pilotage, or any penalty whatsoever, in case of her neglect or refusal so to do." The State of Delaware, by the act of 5th April, 1881, made it compulsory upon every vessel, except such as are solely coal laden, "passing in or out of the Delaware Bay by the way of Cape Henlopen," to receive a pilot. The vessel in this case did pass in by the way of Cape Henlopen, and was spoken by a Delaware pilot after she had entered the Capes. A Delaware pilot tendered his services to the incoming vessel within the exempted district bound for Philadelphia. The services being refused, the vessel was libelled in the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to recover the legal fees for them. The claim was resisted on the ground that the court had no jurisdiction. The court allowed the claim, whereupon the attorney-general of the State of Pennsylvania applied to this court for a writ of prohibition to the court below, directing it to refrain from any further proceedings in the case. Opinion of the Court. Mr. L. C. Cassidy, Attorney-General of Pennsylvania, Mr. Mr. II. G. Ward and Mr. M. P. Henry in support of the suggestion. 1. The writ of prohibition is the proper remedy. A court may act beyond its jurisdiction in taking cognizance of a particular cause of action, although within its general jurisdiction. When it clearly appears that the court below has exceeded its proper powers, this complete remedy is the proper one. The brief cites and discusses Quimbo Appo v. The People, 20 N. Y. 531; State v. Ridgell, 2 Bailey, 560; Ex parte Gordon, 104 U. S. 515; Ex parte Ferry Co., 104 U. S. 519; Ex parte Hagar, 104 U. S. 520; The Chaskieh, L. R. 8 Q. B. D. 197; United States v. Peters, 3 Dall. 121; Ex parte Easton, 95 U. S. 68; Devoe Manufacturing Company, 168 U. S. 2. The State of Delaware has no power to impose compulsory pilotage on vessels bound to Pennsylvania ports. Pilotage is a port regulation. A vessel is only subject to the pilotage laws of the port to which it is bound. Cooley v. Board of Wardens, 12 How. 299; Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1; Smith v. Condry, 1 How. 28; The China, 7 Wall. 53; The Annapolis, Lush. 295. Mr. Thomas F. Bayard, Mr. Curtis Tilton, and Mr. Henry Flanders, against the suggestion, cited Wilson v. McNamee, 102 U. S. 572; Rev. St. §§ 4235, 4236; The Clymene, 9 Fed. Rep. 164; The Clymene, 12 Fed. Rep. 346; The Alzena, 14 Fed. Rep. 174; Flanigen v. Washington Ins. Co., 7 Barr, 306; Cooley v. The Board of Wardens, 12 How. 299, 312; Steamship Co. v. Joliffe, 2 Wall. 450, 457; Ex parte McNeil, 13 Wall. 236, 342; and the cases from 104 U. S. cited on the other side. MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE delivered the opinion of the court. We are unable to distinguish this case in principle from Ex parte Hagar, 104 U. S. 520, where it was held on the authority of Ex parte Gordon, id. 515, that as the admiralty court had jurisdiction of the vessel sued, and the subject-matter of the suit, it could not be restrained by a writ of prohibition from deciding all questions properly arising in that suit. This, like that, is a suit for pilotage fees, and the question is, whether Opinion of the Court. a statute of Delaware, under which the fees are claimed, is valid. If valid in Delaware it is in Pennsylvania, and the court sitting in Pennsylvania is as competent to decide that question in a suit of which it has jurisdiction, as a court in Delaware. The jurisdiction of the court in Pennsylvania is no more dependent on the validity of the law than was that of the court in Delaware. The subject-matter of the suit is a claim of a Delaware pilot for his pilotage fees under a Delaware statute, and the sole question in the case is, whether the fees are recoverable. The vessel when seized was confessedly within the jurisdiction of the court in Pennsylvania, and she was properly brought into court to answer the claim which was made upon her. About that there is no dispute, as there was at the last term in Devoe Manufacturing Company, 108. U. S., where the question was as to the right of the court in New Jersey to send its process to the place where the seizure was made. There the question was as to the jurisdiction of the court over a particular place; here as to the liability of a vessel confessedly seized within the territorial jurisdiction of the court upon a claim subject to judicial determination in an admiralty proceeding. The evident purpose of this application is to correct a supposed error in a judgment of an admiralty court on the merits of an action. That cannot be done by prohibition. The remedy, if any, is by appeal. If an appeal will not lie, then the parties are concluded by what has been done. Congress alone has the power to determine whether the judgment of a court of the United States, of competent jurisdiction, shall be reviewed or not. If it fails to provide for such a review, the judgment stands as the judgment of the court of last resort, and settles inally the rights of the parties which are involved. The petition is dismissed. Opinion of the Court. HUNT and Another, Appellant, v. OLIVER. APPÉAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN. . Argued October 22d, 1883.-Decided November 5th, 1883. Mortgage-Supersedeas. A mortgaged real estate to B, C, and D, including the south half of a fractional section. Two years later B assigned his interest in the mortgage to C and D, and took from A, who was embarrassed, a conveyance of all his property, including the other half of the fractional section. This was done to aid A in disposing of his property, and paying his debts. It was found in the decree below that it was for the joint benefit of B and his co-mortgagees. The mortgaged property was purchased by C at foreclosure sale. A brought suit against B, C, D, and others in possession, to redeem all the estate conveyed to B. An accounting showed a balance due A. Execution was ordered directing the defendants to surrender the lands. B and C appealed, giving security for a supersedeas. A applied for a writ of assistance putting him in possession of the north half. The court below granted the writ. On application to this court to stay the writ of assistance: Held, that the writ of supersedeas should issue. The facts appear in the opinion of the court. Mr. Henry M. Duffield, for the appellant Hunt. MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE delivered the opinion of the court. This is a motion for a writ of supersedeas to stay the execution of a writ of assistance issued by the circuit court, after an appeal to this court, to put the appellee in possession of a part of the property involved in the litigation below. The material facts affecting the motion, as found and determined by the circuit court, or otherwise shown by the motion papers, are these: On the 17th of November, 1866, Oliver, the appellee, executed to Henry S. Cunningham, Garrett B. Hunt, and Jacob Eschelman a mortgage on certain lands in Michigan to secure a debt of $35,000. Included in this mortgage was the S. fr. sec. 12, T. 29, N. R.. 8 E., containing 22715 acres, more or less, "with the saw-mill and other improvements thereon." In VOL. CIX-12 Opinion of the Court. the summer of 1868, Oliver owned and possessed other lands encumbered by other mortgages, one to Calvin Haines and Philip N. Ranney, and others to other parties, and he also owed other debts to other persons, which were unsecured, amounting in the aggregate to a large sum. On the 2d of September, 1868, Cunningham assigned his interest in the $35,000 mortgage to his co-mortgagees, Hunt and Eschelman, and then took a conveyance from Oliver of all his property, real and personal, for the purpose of assisting him in disposing of it, and realizing any surplus that should remain after his debts were paid. Among other lands conveyed by Oliver at this time and for this purpose was frac. sec. 12, T. 29, N. R. 8 E. The decree finds that Cunningham took this conveyance "for the joint benefit of himself and his co-mortgagees." After this conveyance was made, Cunningham, Hunt, Eschelman, Haines, Ranney, George Robinson, and Henry Robinson, formed a partnership to carry on lumbering business and to cut the timber upon the property, and manufacture it. Hunt then proceeded to foreclose the $35,000 mortgage, and purchased the mortgaged property at the foreclosure sale. After this, on the 13th of March, 1873, Oliver filed a bill in equity in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Michigan against Cunningham, Hunt, Eschelman, Haines, Ranney, and the two Robinsons, the object of which was to redeem the lands which had been conveyed to Cunningham, and to charge the defendants, as mortgagees in possession, with the rents and profits of the property. Upon this bill a final decree was rendered on the 21st of September, 1882, finding due from the defendants to Oliver the sum of $41,488.87, for which execution was ordered, and directing the defendants to "surrender and yield up to the complainant possession of all lands transferred by said complainant to said defendant Cunningham by deeds dated September 3d, 1868," and to make, execute and deliver to complainant good and sufficient conveyances to transfer all their title and interest in and to the land described in said deeds, and which should describe and specify the lands as follows: "The entirety of the following lands: Entire fract. sec. 12 T. 29, N. R. 8 E.. From |