Opinion of the Court. Mr. L. H. Bisbee and Mr. D. M. Kirton for defendants in error submitted on their brief. MR. JUSTICE PECKHAM delivered the opinion of the court. The printed record which is before this court in this case is so fragmentary in its nature as to leave no foundation for us to even guess that there was a Federal question in the case or that it was decided by the state court against the right now set up by plaintiffs in error. error. The record opens with an assignment of errors which it is alleged were made by the Supreme Court of Illinois, and fourteen grounds of error are set forth, many of them setting up that such court, by the judgment in suit, erred in the decision of several Federal questions. Then follows the writ of Then comes what is termed a decree in the case of George Fowler v. The Cherokee Brilliant Coal and Mining Company and others, in the Superior Court of Cook County, Illinois, which decree, after reciting the fact of a hearing and a reference to a master in chancery and his report thereon, proceeds to make certain findings of fact, and to give extracts from the constitution and statutes of Kansas, which, briefly stated, are as follows: (1.) The incorporation of the coal and mining company under the statutes of Kansas. (2.) An extract from the constitution and statutes of Kansas providing for a double liability of stockholders of an insolvent corporation. (3.) An extract from the statutes of Kansas providing for the dissolution of corporations and for a recovery against the stockholders therein for debts due from the company. (4.) An extract from the statutes of limitation of Kansas relating to absconding or concealed debtors. (5.) Findings of indebtedness from the coal and mining company to the Fowlers, plaintiffs in error; the giving of a note and mortgage for such indebtedness, and default in the payment thereof and a dissolution of the company. (6.) The recovery of judgment in Illinois in favor of the Opinion of the Court. plaintiffs in error herein on account of the debt due them from the corporation; the issue and return of execution upon such judgment wholly unsatisfied. (7.) The ownership of stock in the company by the Lamsons. Upon these findings the decree directs a recovery by the plaintiffs herein against the defendants Lamsons, stockholders in the dissolved and insolvent corporation, of the amount of the Illinois judgment against the corporation which had been obtained by plaintiffs herein. This decree is followed in the record by an order made by the appellate court in Illinois reversing the decree of the court below. Then follows an assignment of errors committed by the court in ordering such reversal, after which the opinion of Judge Wilken of the Supreme Court of Illinois is printed, which affirms the judgment of the appellate court. In that opinion no Federal question is discussed or decided. The point actually decided by the Supreme Court of Illinois was, as shown by that opinion, that the constitution and statutes of Kansas in relation to the liability of stockholders in an insolvent corporation provide a special remedy for enforcing that liability, and that such remedy only could be pursued, and that the courts of Illinois would not enforce a statutory liability under a Kansas statute providing a special remedy against stockholders. Following this opinion is a decree of affirmance by the Supreme Court of Illinois; after which comes a petition for a writ of error from this court and an allowance thereof. This completes the record. It will be seen that there are no pleadings in the record; no evidence is returned; no exceptions to any decision of the court are to be found; no request to the court to find upon any Federal question; no refusal of the court to find and no finding upon any such question. Thus there is an entire absence in this whole record of any fact showing that the Supreme Court of Illinois or either of the lower courts decided any Federal question whatever. The assignment of errors alleged to have been made by the Illinois Supreme Court is unavailable for the purpose of showing any Federal question decided, where the record itself does not show that Syllabus. Mis any such question was passed upon by the state court. souri Pacific Railway v. Fitzgerald, 160 U. S. 556, 575. Where a case is brought to this court on error or appeal from a judgment of a state court, unless it appear in the record that a Federal question was raised in the state court before the entry of final judgment in the case, this court is without jurisdiction. Simmerman v. Nebraska, 116 U. S. 54. It has also been frequently decided that, to give this court jurisdiction on writ of error to a state court, it must appear affirmatively, not only that a Federal question was presented for decision by the state court, but that its decision was necessary to the determination of the cause, and that it was decided adversely to the party claiming a right under the Federal laws or Constitution, or that the judgment as rendered could not have been given without deciding it. Eustis v. Bolles, 150 U. S. 361; California Powder Works v. Davis, 151 U. S. 389, 393; Missouri Pacific Railway Company v. Fitzgerald, 160 U. S. 556, 576. Nothing of the kind appears from this record, and the writ of error must, therefore, be Dismissed. LALONE v. UNITED STATES. APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN. No. 4. Submitted October 13, 1896. Decided November 30, 1896. The rule that in all proceedings instituted to recover moneys or to set aside and annul deeds or contracts or other written instruments on the ground of alleged fraud practised by a defendant upon a plaintiff, the evidence tending to prove the fraud and upon which to found a verdict or decree must be clear and satisfactory extends to cases of alleged fraudulent representations, on the faith of which an officer of the government has done an official act upon which rights of the party making the representations may be founded; and in this case the evidence on the part of the plaintiff, when read in connection with that which was given on the part of the defendants, falls far short of the requirements of the rule. THE case is stated in the opinion. Opinion of the Court. Mr. A. T. Britton and Mr. A. B. Browne for appellants. Mr. Solicitor General for appellees. MR. JUSTICE PECKHAM delivered the opinion of the court. This is a suit in equity, brought by the United States to recover back certain moneys which had theretofore been paid the appellant, Joseph Lalone, upon the granting of his application for a pension, and to enjoin the defendant, the First National Bank of Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, from paying out certain moneys deposited therein by the appellant, Margaret Lalone, the wife of Joseph, and which moneys were alleged to be part of those paid to Joseph, and to enjoin the conveyance of certain real estate, the legal title to which was vested in the defendant, Margaret Lalone, and which plaintiff alleged to have been purchased by her with a portion of such moneys, and to vest the title to such moneys and real estate in the United States. The ground upon which a recovery of the moneys was sought was that the pension had been obtained through the fraudulent acts and representations of the individual defendants. The bill alleged that the defendant, Joseph Lalone, filed with the pension bureau, on the 19th of May, 1880, a claim for a pension on account of partial paralysis due to disease and sickness contracted while serving in the army during 1865; that after the consideration of such claim for a period of eight years, and until April 21, 1888, the application was allowed, and more than $5000 were paid to the applicant as arrearages of pension, and the sum of $30 per month thereafter was allowed. The bill then alleged that the partial paralysis which Lalone claimed he was suffering from and which he said resulted from the disease and sickness contracted while in such army service was not the result of any such cause, and that Lalone's allegation to that effect was false and fraudulent, and intended to deceive the officers charged with the duty of examining and allowing such claim, and that it did so deceive them; that claimant's disability Opinion of the Court. was caused by and resulted from an accident suffered by him long subsequent to his discharge from the army; that Lalone had turned the pension moneys received from the government over to his wife, Margaret Lalone, who had deposited $5000 thereof in her name in the First National Bank of Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, and had thereafter withdrawn all but about $1500 thereof, and with it had purchased 120 acres of land in Dodge County, Wisconsin, subject to an existing mortgage of $1300; that Margaret Lalone had knowledge of and was a party to the fraud alleged. The bill asked for a decree giving the United States the residue of the fund in the bank and a conveyance of the realty and for an injunction pendente lite. Upon the filing of the bill an injunction was issued. The individual defendants each answered under oath denying all the charges of fraud made by the bill. The bank admitted its possession of $1500 deposited by Margaret Lalone. On the testimony submitted, which consisted of the depositions of many witnesses, the Circuit Court rendered a final decree in favor of the United States against the individual defendants for a recovery of the amount of money received by them from such pension fund with interest; the decree also provided that the bank should pay the $1500 on deposit with it into the United States Treasury; it also ordered the sale of the realty, and that the proceeds of the sale should be applied to the payment of the money decree against the Lalones, with execution for any deficiency. The case is now before us for review. In all proceedings instituted to recover moneys or to set aside and annul deeds or contracts or other written instruments on the ground of alleged fraud practised by a defendant upon a plaintiff, the rule is of long standing and is of universal application, that the evidence tending to prove the fraud and upon which to found a verdict or decree must be clear and satisfactory. It may be circumstantial but it must be persuasive. A mere preponderance of evidence which at the same time is vague or ambiguous is not sufficient to warrant a finding of fraud, and will not sustain a judgment based on such finding. The rule obtains in cases of alleged fraudulent representations made to VOL. CLXIV-17 |