United States v. Peters

This early decision bolstering the power of federal courts stemmed from an act of lawlessness on the high seas. During the Revolutionary War, a Connecticut sea captain named Gideon Olmstead was captured by the British Navy. Olmstead, who was no stranger to privateering, was sent to Jamaica and pressed into service along with his shipmates Artimus White, Aquilla Rumsdale, and David Rumsdale. The Connecticut sailors were forced to work aboard the sloop Active, which set sail for New York with a load of supplies for the British forces. On 6 September 1778, however, Olmstead and his compatriots overcame the British crew and headed for New Jersey.

Before the sloop could reach its new destination, it was intercepted by an armed brig belonging to the state of Pennsylvania, the Convention. Along with the Le Gerard, a privateer sailing nearby, the Convention escorted the Active into the port of Philadelphia. The captains of the two American warships quickly claimed any profit from the sale of the captured sloop and its cargo as their own. This was unwelcome news to the Connecticut sailors who had actually seized the vessel. Nevertheless, after a jury hearing, Pennsylvania's Court of Admiralty decided that any proceeds from the sale of the Active would be divided between the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which owned the Convention, and the officers and men of the three vessels involved. Under this arrangement, Olmstead and his shipmates would receive only one quarter of the total value of the sloop.

Olmstead and his fellows filed an appeal with the Court of Commissioners of Appeals in Prize Causes for the United States. On 15 December 1778, this U.S. appeals court reversed the Pennsylvania court's ruling and directed that the proceeds from the ship's sale should be directed to Olmstead, White, Rumsdale, and Clark. Here the squabbling over the fate of the Active and its cargo began in earnest.

Court of Admiralty Judge George Ross, who was entrusted with the disposition of the captured ship, would not honor the appeal court's verdict. While Judge Ross agreed that the U.S. court had the power to overturn the court of admiralty's verdict, he also pointed out that the case had been decided appropriately by a jury, whose opinion he was bound to honor under Pennsylvania's laws. Judge Ross ordered the Active to be sold. Olmstead quickly got an injunction ordering the marshall in charge of the sale to deliver the proceeds to the appeals court. The marshall ignored the order and delivered the money to Judge Ross, against whom Olmstead and the others filed suit.

Judge Ross had the sale proceeds transformed into U.S. loan certificates. Rather than hold the state of Pennsylvania's share of 11,496 pounds, Ross turned the certificates over to David Rittenhouse, a prominent Philadelphian who was the state's treasurer. Rittenhouse in turn gave Judge Ross a certificate of indemnity against any future claims upon the sum.

Rittenhouse was willing to hand the loan certificates over to the state of Pennsylvania at any time, yet the state did not act. The certificates sat in Rittenhouse's personal account accruing interest.

After Rittenhouse died, Olmstead and the other claimants brought suit against Elizabeth Serjeant and Esther Waters, the executrixes of the Rittenhouse estate, demanding that the money be turned over in accordance with the court of appeals decision. Pennsylvania's General Assembly finally became interested in the money and passed an act in 1801 demanding that Rittenhouse's estate deliver the certificates to the state treasury. With the state of Pennsylvania and Olmstead both claiming the certificates, the executrixes refused to give them to anyone.

This paralysis lasted until 1808, when Olmstead and the others attempted to get Philadelphia U.S. District Court Judge Richard Peters to grant an attachment against the Rittenhouse estate. When Peters refused, Olmstead succeeded in obtaining a writ of mandamus, an order to carry out the higher federal court's decision. Yet Peters stated that he would decline to order the certificates to change hands as long as the state of Pennsylvania was still involved as a claimant. Judge Peters cited the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution, which prevents the judicial power of the United States from extending to any lawsuit prosecuted against any of the individual states. Since Rittenhouse had been Pennsylvania's treasurer, Peters ruled, the state could claim jurisdiction over the case.

A more pressing concern to Judge Peters was that the state of Pennsylvania was threatening to use armed force to prevent the appeals court sentence from being carried out. Faced with the state militia on one side and a federal writ on the other, Judge Peters returned the mandamus to the U.S. Supreme Court and waited for a decision.

To Prevent "A Solemn Mockery"

The Court's 1809 decision commanded Judge Peters to act on the mandamus. Chief Justice Marshall pointed out that the disputed certificates had never been the actual property of the state of Pennsylvania. They had always been in the possession of David Rittenhouse or his estate. Since Rittenhouse had always acted as a private citizen in the affair, the Eleventh Amendment prohibition against making a state a party in a lawsuit was not an issue.

In a broader sense, the Court also repudiated the contention that the Pennsylvania legislature's 1801 act demanding the money was legally superior to the federal appeals court decision.

"If the legislatures of the several States may, at will, annul the judgements of the courts of the United States, and destroy the rights acquired under those judgements," wrote Justice Marshall, "the Constitution itself becomes a solemn mockery, and the nation is deprived of the means of enforcing its laws by the instrumentality of its own tribunals."

The Supreme Court declared that states could neither annul the judgements nor determine the jurisdiction of federal courts. Since the court of appeals in the Active case had been formed by the Continental Congress, its decision superceded Pennsylvania's Court of Admiralty. Judge Peters was ordered to act on the mandamus, while making sure that the executrixes of the Rittenhouse estate were protected from any possible legal repercussions. Rittenhouse's papers left no doubt that he had been willing to be rid of the disputed money as soon as its rightful owners were determined.

The Court's decision was extremely unpopular in Pennsylvania. As a matter of national law, however, the decision strengthened the power of federal courts in an era when the struggle over the relative rights of states and the U.S. government was still young.

Related Cases

• United States v. Peters, 9 U.S. 115 (1809).