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of the amendment, the States may prosecute the suits, because as the "sovereign and trustee of its citizens," a State is "clothed with the right and faculty of making an imperative demand upon another independent State for the payment of debts which it owes to citizens of the former." There is no doubt but one nation may, if it sees fit, demand of another nation the payment of a debt, owing by the latter to a citizen of the former. Such power is well recognized as an incident of national sovereignty, but it involves also the national power of levying war and making treaties. was said in the United States v. Diekelman, 92 U. S. 520, if a sovereign assumes the responsibility of presenting the claim of one of his subjects against another sovereign, the prosecution will be as one nation proceeds against another, not by suit in the courts, as of right, but by diplomatic negotiations, or, if need be, by war."

As

All the rights of the States as independent nations were surrendered to the United States. The States are not nations, either as between themselves or towards foreign nations. They are sovereign within their spheres, but their sovereignty stops short of nationality. Their political status at home and abroad is that of States in the United States. They can neither make war nor peace without the consent of the national government. Neither can they, except with like consent, "enter into any agreement or compact with another State." Art. 1, sec. 10, cl. 3.

But it is said that, even if a State, as sovereign trustee for its citizens, did surrender to the national government its power of prosecuting the claims of its citizens against another State by force, it got in lieu the constitutional right of suit in the national courts.

Under the Constitution as it was originally construed, a citizen of one State could sue another State in the courts of the United States for himself and obtain the same relief his State could get for him if it should sue. Certainly, when he can sue for himself, there is no necessity for power in his State to sue in his behalf, and we cannot believe it was the intention of the framers of the Constitution to allow both remedies in such a case. Therefore, the special remedy, granted to the citizen himself, must be deemed to have been the only remedy the citizen of one State could have under the Constitution against another State for the redress of his grievances, except such as the delinquent State saw fit itself to grant. In other words, the giving of the direct remedy to the citizen himself was equivalent to taking away any indirect

remedy he might otherwise have claimed, through the intervention of his State, upon any principle of the law of nations. It follows that when the amendment took away the special remedy there was no other left. Nothing was added to the Constitution by what was thus done. No power taken away by the grant of the special remedy was restored by the amendment. The effect of the amendment was simply to revoke the new right that had been given, and leave the limitations to stand as they were. In the argument of the opinions filed by the several justices in the Chisholm case, there is not even an intimation that if the citizen could not sue his State could sue for him. The evident purpose of the amendment, so promptly proposed and finally adopted, was to prohibit all suits against a State by or for citizens of other States, or aliens, without the consent of the State to be sued, and, in our opinion, one State cannot create a controversy with another State, within the meaning of that term as used in the judicial clauses of the Constitution, by assuming the prosecution of debts owing by the other State to its citizens? Such being the case, we are satisfied that we are prohibited, both by the letter and the spirit of the Constitution, from entertaining these suits, and

A citizen may not sue his Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S. 1.

The bill in each case is dismissed.

own state in the United States courts. But the fact that a state owns stock in a corporation will not prevent a suit by an individual in the United States courts against such corporation. United States Bank v. Planters Bank, 9 Wheaton 904; Bank of Kentucky v. Wister, 2 Peters 318; and a state may sue another state in the United States courts, South Dakota v. North Carolina, 192 U. S. 286.

V. LIABILITY OF LOCAL CORPORATIONS.

Olmstead v. Mayor, 42 N. Y. Superior Court, 481; Koch v. Mayor, 152 N. Y. 72; Hadley v. Mayor, 33 N. Y. 603; Dolan v. Mayor, 68 N. Y. 274; Wardlane v. Mayor, 137 N. Y. 194; Gregory v. Mayor, 113 N. Y. 416; White v. Inhabitants of Levant, 78 Me. 568; County of Lancaster v. Fulton, 128 Pa. St. 48; Fitzsimmons v. Brooklyn, 102 N. Y. 536; McCahon v. Commissioners, 8 Kan. 437; O'Leary v. Board, 93 N. Y. 1 (supra); all cases of liability of local corporations in contract.

See also, Lorillard v. Town of Monroe, 11 N. Y. 392; Wilcox v. Chicago, 107 Ill. 334; Hill v. Boston, 122 Mass. 344; Detroit v. Bladseby, 21 Mich. 84; Hand v. Brookline, 126 Mass. 324, all cases of the liability of local corporations for the tortious acts of officers.

CHAPTER IX.

LIABILITY OF OFFICERS.

I. CRIMINAL LIABILITY.1

COMMONWEALTH V. COYLE.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. 1894.
160 Pa. St. 36.

Opinion by Mr. Justice MCCOLLUM, February 26, 1894. James Coyle, appellant, Michael Seavers and John H. Rhoads were jointly indicted and tried for neglect of their duty as directors of the poor and of the house of employment for Cumberland County. A verdict of guilty was rendered by the jury, sentence was suspended as to Seavers and Rhoads on their payment of onefourth of the costs, and Coyle was sentenced to pay a fine of one hundred dollars and three-fourths of the cost. The pith of the complaint against them was that they neglected to discharge a duty which in their official capacity they owed to Joseph N. Diller, a poor and infirm child, aged seven years, who was a legal charge upon the county of Cumberland, and that in consequence of their neglect, he died. . It is manifest from the

testimony that they did not exercise the care enjoined by the law, and that they were negligent in binding him to Lafferty, and in their failure to institute proceedings to cancel the indenture. We need not repeat or discuss the testimony descriptive of the neglect and cruelty to which the child was subjected. It is sufficient to say of it that in our opinion it fully sustained the charges made in the first and second counts of the indictment. The counsel for the Commonwealth agree with the counsel for the defendants that this case is not governed by the statute referred to, but the former maintain and the latter deny that the matters charged in the indictment constitute a common law misdemeanor.

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We think the contention of the defendants that the common law does not hold them criminally liable for a wilful neglect or refusal to discharge their duties as directors is unsound. In Amer. & Eng. Ency. of Law, vol. 19, p. 504, the rule on this subject is stated thus: "The neglect or failure of a public officer to perform any

'Officers are liable as private individuals for the ordinary crimes. See, e. g., State v. Dierberger, 90 Mo. 369, supra.

duty which by law he is required to perform is an indictable offence even though no damage was caused by the default, and a mistake as to his powers or with relation to the facts of the case is no protection."

In Pennsylvania overseers of the poor have been indicted, convicted, and sentenced for a misdemeanor in office in selling the keeping of paupers by public vendue or outcry to the lowest bidder; 9 Pa. 48-9.

The several specifications of error which complain of the admission of evidence of deprivation and cruelty after the 5th of September, 1891, and of the denial by the court of the defendant's motion to strike out such evidence, are not sustained. The evidence referred to showed a continuance of the ill usage.

We are not able to discover in the remaining specifications anything which calls for the reversal of the judgment. The contention that the appellant cannot be prosecuted and punished for misdemeanor in office because his term has expired, is not supported by reason or authority, and certainly he ought not to complain, that, while he was liable for all the costs, he was required to pay only three-fourths of them.

The specifications are overruled and the judgment is affirmed.

Officers are often made criminally liable by statute. For an instance of such a liability see United States v. Germaine, 99 U. S. 508, supra.

The criminal liability of officers is often difficult of enforcement, owing to the powers possessed by the district attorney or other public prosecutor, who has control of the prosecution of all crimes including those committed by public officers. Thus it is the usual rule that counsel of private prosecutors may not participate in the prosecution except with the consent of the public prosecutor. In State v. Kent, 4 North Dakota 577. Sometimes, however, the local public prosecutor acts under the control of the Attorney General. Cf. State v. District Court, 22

Mon. 25.

The courts exercise a control over officers when officers have to resort to them to punish individuals for alleged violations of laws and ordinances. Instances of the exercise of such a control in this connection are: Overshiner v. State, 156 Ind. 187; Ransom v. Black, 54 N. J. L. 446; State v. Ferguson, 33 N. H. 424; Morris v. City of Columbus, 102 Ga. 792; City of Chicago v. Quinby, 38 Ill. 274; City of Clinton v. Phillips, 58 Ill. 102; Health Department, etc. v. Trinity Church, 145 N. Y. 32.

II. CIVIL LIABILITY OF OFFICERS

A. ON CONTRACT.

1. Personal Liability.

BROWN V. BRADLEE.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. February, 1892. 156 Mass. 28.

Contract for the amount of a reward.

HOLMES, J. This is an action to recover a reward which was offered in writing in the following terms:

"$2,500 reward will be paid to any person furnishing evidence that will lead to the arrest and conviction of the person who shot Mr. Edward Cunningham, November 21, 1889.

Milton, Nov. 22, 1889."

"J. WALTER BRADLEE,

T. EDWIN RUGGLES,
J. ALBERT SIMPSON.
Selectmen of Milton.

The main questions reserved by the report are really questions as to the construction of this instrument, namely, whether the defendants bound themselves personally by it, and what evidence would warrant a finding that the conditions of the offer were satisfied.

On the first question we are of opinion that the defendants are personally liable. No doubt the instrument would bind the town if made with authority and intent to bind it. Crawshaw v. Rorbury, 7 Gray, 374. Janvrin v. Exeter, 48 N. H. 83. But the same words may bind two parties; the agent, because in their literal sense they purport to bind him; the principal, because he is taken to have adopted the name of the agent as his own for the purpose of the contract. Byington v. Simpson, 134 Mass. 169. Calder v. Dobell, L. R. 6 C. P. 486. The purport of the words used in this case is that the promise contained in the body of the paper is made by the signer. The only question is, Who is the signer? Do the defendants, by adding their official designation, take away from their names their ordinary significance as proper names, and make of their collective signatures a composite unit, which means the

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