Alaska Packers Assn. v. Pillsbury, 301 U.S. 174 (1937)

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Docket Number: 558

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U.S. Supreme Court ALASKA PACKERS ASS'N v. PILLSBURY, 301 U.S. 174 (1937)

[Page 301 U.S. 174, 177]

The reasons for requiring that an appeal be duly applied for and allowed is that there may be some assurance that the suit is one in which there may be a review in the Circuit Court of Appeals; that the decree is of such finality or character that it may be re-examined on appeal; and that appropriate security for costs may be taken where the appellant is not by law exempted from giving such security. [Footnote 3] In this way improvident and unauthorized appeals are provented. While an appeal in a proper case is matter of right, the question whether the case is a proper one under the law regulating appeals is not left to the appellant, but is to be examined and primarily determined by the court or judge to which the application is to be made. The reasons for thus conditioning the right of appeal have the same application to decrees in admiralty that they have to decrees in equity and judgments at law; and the act of 1925 includes one as much as another, for it says: 'No. ... appeal intended to bring any judgment or decree before a circuit court of appeals for review shall be allowed unless application therefor be duly made.' In all of the circuits other than the one in which the decision now under review was made full effect is given to this requirement. In the one circuit a rule exists whereby appeals in admiralty are excepted. But that rule contravenes the statute and has no force, for the power of a court to make rules necessarily is confined to such as are consistent with controlling laws.

It follows that the Circuit Court of Appeals was without jurisdiction to entertain the attempted appeal.

Decree reversed. Footnotes

Footnote 1 Act of March 3, 1891, c. 517, 26 Stat. 826.

Footnote 2 See title 28 U.S.C. 228; 28 U.S.C.A. 228 note.

Footnote 3 See Bartemeyer v. Iowa, 14 Wall. 26, 27; Havnor v. New York, 170 U.S. 408, 410, 18 S.Ct. 631; Ireland v. Woods, 246 U.S. 323, 328, 38 S.Ct. 319.