Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/719

MOCH V, VIRGINIA FIEE & MAEINE INS. CO. 707' �It does not follow, however, that even though a home court may inquire into the jurisdictioa of the court of another sovereignty, theref ore .the parties to a litigation there are not bound in the home court by the prinoiple of res judicata. The two, questions are distinct and should not be confounded. Whether or not Taber was "such au agent of the defendant as that service of citation upon him would bind the defendant and bring it into court," was the precise question presented to the court in Louisiana, not only in ipsissiniis verbis by the defendant's exception, but by the showing of the record'; and was the only question open to debate ; for the proofs were apparently con- olusive on the merits. This question was not only decided by the Louisiana court, but I think rightly decided, the court holding prop- erly that the corporation was before it as defendant to the action, as well as before it for the special purpose of pleading to the juris- diction. �Now, it is not denied that the court whose judgment I am consid- ering was one of general jurisdiction, and, as such, competent to pass upon the validity of process issued by its clerk to bring a defendant before it ; and there is very high authority, both in Louisiana and Vir- ginia, holding that when such a court passes upon a question within its competeney, in a litigation between two parties, those parties are conclu ded in every other court but an appellate one on that question. �In the case of Verneuil v. Harper, 28 La. Ann. 893, there had been a proceeding by Peitel against Verneuil to revive a judgment obtained nine years before, to which an exception had been filed by Verneuil, denying his identity with the original defendant. After a hearing upon the proofs taken upon this issue, there had been judg- ment overruling the exception and reviving the original judgment. Upon this second judgment execution was issued and property about to be sold in satisfaction by Harper, the sheriff. Whereupon Ver- neuil filed a petition for an injunction, and got a rule to show cause why it should not be granted, to stay the sheriS's sale. The petition denied the identity of pefcitioner with the defendant in the original judgment; that is to say, set up the same defence in the last pro- ceeding which had been made in the second. Peitel filed an excep- tion in the nature of a plea of res judicata, which the court a quo sus- tained. The cause went up to the supreme court of Louisiaaa, which, in the opinion delivered, among other things, said: ��� �