PHILA. & READ. C. & I. CO. v. Gilbert

Background

A resident of New York sued a Pennsylvania coal company in a New York court for injuries the worker suffered while employed at the company’s Pennsylvania mine. The company did business in New York and had named an agent there to receive legal papers. The plaintiff served that agent in New York. The company asked the New York court to set aside the service, arguing the claim did not arise from its New York business and that forcing the company to defend there violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The motion was denied, the company answered, and the state courts entered and affirmed judgment for the plaintiff; the company then sought review in the Supreme Court by a writ of error.

Reasoning

The Court examined the Judicial Code provision that distinguishes cases reviewable by writ of error (an appeal as of right) from those reviewable only by certiorari (discretionary review). The Court found that the company’s objection only challenged the power of the state court to proceed on the service of process under the Fourteenth Amendment. That type of challenge, the Court said, was not the sort of question the statute made reviewable by writ of error. Because the claim did not raise the specific statutory categories for a right-to-review writ, the proper route would be discretionary certiorari, not writ of error.

Real world impact

The Court dismissed the writ of error on procedural grounds, not the merits of the company’s Fourteenth Amendment claim. Parties in similar situations cannot demand automatic review by writ of error and must seek discretionary certiorari instead if they want federal review of comparable procedural questions.