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of its courts is coextensive with its territorial jurisdiction. That the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia is a court of the United States, results from the right of exclusive legislation over the District which the Constitution has given to Congress. Accordingly, the judgments of the courts of the United States have invariably been recognized as upon the same footing, so far as concerns the obligation created by them, with domestic judgments of the States, wherever rendered and wherever sought to be enforced. Barney v. Patterson, 6 Har. & J. (Md.) 182; Niblett v. Scott, 4 La. Ann. 246; Adams v. Way, 33 Conn. 419; Womack v. Dearman, 7 Port. (Ala.) 513; Pepoon v. Jenkins, 2 Johns. (N. Y.) Cas. 119; Williams v. Wilkes, 14 Pa. St. 228; Turnbull v. Payson, 95 U. S. 418; Cage's Ex'rs v. Cassidy, 23 How. 109; Galpin v. Page, 3 Sawyer, 93, 109.

The rule for determining what effect shall be given to such judgments is that declared by this court, in respect to the faith and credit to be given to the judgments of State courts in the courts of other States, in the case of M'Elmoyle v. Cohen, 13 Pet. 312, 326, where it was said: "They are record evidence of a debt, or judgments of record, to be contested only in such way as judgments of record may be; and, consequently, are conclusive upon the defendant in every State, except for such causes as would be sufficient to set aside the judgment in the courts of the State in which it was rendered."

The question then arises, what causes would have been sufficient in the District of Columbia, according to the law then in force, to have authorized its courts to set aside the judgment recovered there by Embry against Stanton and Palmer?

This is answered by the decision of this court, upon the point, in the case of Marine Insurance Company of Alexandria v. Hodgson, 7 Cranch, 332. That was a bill in equity, filed in a court of the District of Columbia, perpetually to enjoin the collection of so much of a judgment at law recovered in the District as was in excess of an amount claimed to be the sum equitably due. The grounds of relief alleged were that a fraud had been practised upon the underwriters in a valued policy of marine insurance, by an over-valuation of the ship, and that the complainant had been prevented from making the defence

at law. Chief Justice Marshall, delivering the opinion of the court, affirming the decree of the court below dismissing the bill, stated the rule as follows:

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"Without attempting to draw any precise line to which courts of equity will advance, and which they cannot pass, in restraining parties from availing themselves of judgments obtained at law, it may safely be said that any fact which clearly proves it to be against conscience to execute a judgment, and of which the injured party could not have availed himself in a court of law, or of which he might have availed himself at law, but was prevented by fraud or accident, unmixed with any fault or negligence in himself or his agents, will justify an application to a court of chancery. On the other hand, it may with equal safety be laid down as a general rule that a defence cannot be set up in equity which has been fully and fairly tried at law, although it may be the opinion of that court that the defence ought to have been sustained at law. In the case under consideration the plaintiffs ask the aid of this court to relieve them from a judgment, on account of a defence, which, if good anywhere, was good at law, and which they were not prevented, by the act of the defendants, or by any pure and unmixed accident, from making at law."

This was held to be the law prevailing in the District of Columbia, not by reason of any local peculiarity, but because it was a general principle of equity jurisprudence. It was repeated in Hendrickson v. Hinckley, 17 How. 443, where the rule was condensed by Mr. Justice Curtis into the following statement: "A court of equity does not interfere with judg ments at law, unless the complainant has an equitable defence, of which he could not avail himself at law, because it did not amount to a legal defence, or had a good defence at law, which he was prevented from availing himself of by fraud or accident, unmixed with negligence of himself or his agents." Creath v. Sims, 5 How. 192; Walker v. Robbins, 14 id. 584. It was reaffirmed in Crim v. Handley, 94 U. S. 652, and in Brown v. County of Buena Vista, 95 id. 157.

This is the doctrine recognized and applied by the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut in the case of Pearce v. Olney, 20 Conn. 544. That was a bill in equity to restrain the collec

tion of a judgment recovered in New York, upon the ground that the complainant had a good defence at law to the action, which he was prevented from making by the fraud of the defendant. It was there said by that court: "It is well settled that this jurisdiction will be exercised, whenever a party, having a good defence to an action at law, has had no opportunity to make it, or has been prevented by the fraud or improper management of the other party from making it, and by reason thereof a judgment has been obtained which it is against conscience to enforce." Then stating that the action was founded on an alleged contract, on which the complainant was not personally liable, having been made by him as agent for a corporation, and that this was known to the party suing, the court continue: "If this was all, the plaintiff would have no remedy, however unjust it might be to compel him to pay that judgment. Still, as he was duly served with process in that suit, it was his duty to make defence in it; and an injunction ought not to be granted to relieve him from the consequences of his own neglect."

The court then proceeds to show that he not only had a good defence, but that it was his intention to make it, which he would have done had he not been led by the assurances of the attorney for the plaintiff in the action to believe that it had been abandoned, so that its subsequent prosecution, without further notice, operated as a surprise, tantamount to a fraud; and that, consequently, there was no ground on which to impute laches to the complainant in not defending himself at law.

A subsequent action was brought in New York upon the same judgment by an assignee of the plaintiff, to which the defendant set up as a bar the Connecticut decree perpetually enjoining its execution, which, by the judgment of the Court of Appeals of New York, was sustained. Dobson v. Pearce, 12 N. Y. 156. The court said: "The decree of the Court of Chancery of the State of Connecticut, as an operative decree, so far as it enjoined and restrained the parties, had and has no extra-territorial efficacy, as an injunction does not affect the courts of this State; but the judgment of the court upon the matters litigated is conclusive upon the parties everywhere and in every forum where the same matters are drawn in question.

It is not the particular relief which was granted which affects the parties litigating in the courts of this State; but it is the adjudication and determination of the facts by that court, the final decision that the judgment was procured by fraud, which is operative here, and necessarily prevents the plaintiff from asserting any claim under it." p. 167.

The same rule, as to the jurisdiction in equity to enjoin the enforcement of judgments at law, was declared by the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut in the case of Carrington v. Holabird, 17 Conn. 530, in these words: "This jurisdiction. will be exercised where to enforce a judgment recovered is against conscience, and where the applicant had no opportunity to make defence, or was prevented by accident, or the fraud or improper management of the opposite party, and without fault on his own part.”

To the same effect is the case of Borland v. Thornton, 12 Cal. 440, where the subject is discussed and the authorities cited.

These, then, are the principles which should have governed the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut in the proceedings and judgment now under review. It remains to ascertain whether they were in fact applied in its dealing with the judgment sought to be enforced by the plaintiff in error.

No question is made of the right of that court to entertain the Jurisdiction to enjoin proceedings upon the judgment, notwithstanding it was the judgment of a court of the United States. It had jurisdiction of the person of the plaintiff in error, who was himself seeking the aid of the courts of that State in his suit at law upon the judgment for the purpose of enforcing it.

Nor is any inquiry opened, upon this writ of error, as to any matter of fact found in the record before us. The facts, as ascertained and acted upon by the State court, are assumed to be true. They are contained in the report of the committee appointed to hear the evidence and report its conclusions of fact, which were accepted by the court, and they are not the subject of any exception.

The Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut state the grounds of their judgment in the report of the case, Stanton

v. Embry, 46 Conn. 595, and hold that upon its circumstances it comes within the rule laid down in Pearce v. Olney, 20 id. 544, already noticed. The conduct of the plaintiff in error, alleged as the ground for granting the relief decreed, is, that he "unintentionally gave them (the complainants) every reason for thinking that he did not believe that he had any right to ask for a judgment for a larger sum, and, of course, that he would not; he unintentionally led them to believe and act upon the belief, that the only loss which could possibly ensue from either a partial or a total omission of preparation for trial would be the sum of $2,296.25." The solitary fact upon which these inferences rest is, that the plaintiff in error originally presented an account for payment, claiming that sum, as a commission at the rate of five per cent upon the amount collected, and the complainants refusing to pay any part of it, on the ground of defences which applied to the whole of it, he brought his first suit in Connecticut against them, and in his declaration joined a special count on an agreement for this rate of compensation, with a general count upon a quantum meruit. The declaration in the action, in which judgment was rendered by the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, contained two similar counts. It is argued from this that the claim for $10,000 damages, appropriate to the quantum meruit count, could only have been regarded as a form of pleading, not calculated to remove from the minds of the defendants sued "the effect produced by the precise and explicit statement of the bill of particulars; " which, regarding as obtained presumptively from the papers of the decedent, they had a right to treat as "equivalent to a declaration that those papers furnished positive evidence that there was a contract calling for payment at that rate;" that the plaintiff in error by "no act or word gave any intimation that he considered himself entitled to or intended to claim more;" and that all this was "calculated to and did in fact produce the belief on their part that no more would in any event be asked of the court than to assess the damages according to the terms of the contract."

It is admitted, however, that the plaintiff in error did not know of the alleged special contract; that he did not intend to give to the defendants in error any assurances on the subject,

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