Sentilles v. Inter-Caribbean Shipping Corp./Dissent Frankfurter

by Felix Frankfurter

United States Supreme Court

361 U.S. 107

Sentilles  v.  Inter-Caribbean Shipping Corp.

 Argued: Oct. 19, 1959. --- Decided: Nov 23, 1959

Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER, dissenting.

'We do not grant a certiorari to review evidence and discuss specific facts.' United States v. Johnston, 268 U.S. 220, 227, 45 S.Ct. 496, 497, 69 L.Ed. 925. Thus Mr. Justice Holmes, speaking for a unanimous Court thirty-five years ago, summarized the practice of the Court in abstaining from exercising its certiorari jurisdiction for the purpose of reviewing facts and weighing evidence in relation to them. This practice obviously derived from the Evarts Act of 1891, by which Congress established intermediate courts of appeals to free this Court from reviewing the great mass of federal litigation in order to enable the Nation's ultimate tribunal adequately to discharge its responsibility for the wise adjudication of cases 'involving principles the settlement of which is of importance to the public, as distinguished from that of the parties,' Layne & Bowler Corp. v. Western Well Works, Inc., 261 U.S. 387, 393, 43 U.S. 422, 423, 67 L.Ed. 712. Since Mr. Chief Justice Taft announced this for the Court in 1923, cases of obvious public importance demanding the Court's attention have increased in number and difficulty. The practice of not taking cases turning solely on the evaluation of evidence has been consistently adhered to, barring an occasional sport like Dick v. New York Life Insurance Co., 359 U.S. 437, 79 S.Ct. 921, except in the special class of cases arising under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, 45 U.S.C.A. § 51 et seq. and its twin, the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C.A. § 688. The fluctuating interest in this special class of cases by the necessary number of Justices for granting certiorari, first on behalf of employers, see Frankfurter and Landis, The Business of the Supreme Court (1928), 207-209, and more recently on behalf of employees, has disregarded the normal practice.

The oral argument overwhelmingly confirmed what the petition had already made clear, that this is the kind of case which, in the language of my Brother Stewart, does not 'belong in this Court.' To entertain the case merely because argument has been had does not lessen the disregard of the Court's practice, formulated in Rule 19, 28 U.S.C.A. The Court has in scores of cases dismissed the writ of certiorari even after oral argument, when the true basis for a certiorari was lacking. Even in criminal cases involving sentences of life imprisonment this practice has been followed. See Triplett v. State of Iowa, 357 U.S. 217, 78 S.Ct. 1358, 2 L.Ed.2d 1361; Joseph v. Indiana, 359 U.S. 117, 79 S.Ct. 720, 3 L.Ed.2d 673. Again to quote Mr. Chief Justice Taft in Layne & Bowler Corp. v. Western Well Works, Inc., supra, 261 U.S. at page 393, 43 S.Ct. at page 423, 'it is very important that we be consistent in not granting the writ of certiorari * * *.' As a general practice the Court does not review cases involving merely individualized circumstances not unlike the type of factual situations arising in the application of the Federal Employers' Liability Act and the Jones Act. Since this case does not 'belong in this Court,' to have brought it here was an undue exercise of judicial discretion. Accordingly, I would dismiss the writ as improvidently granted. See my opinion in Rogers v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 352 U.S. 500, 524, 77 S.Ct. 443, 459, 1 L.Ed.2d 493.

Notes