which defendants appealed to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and that court certifies three questions as to which it desires the instruction of this court.

The sufficiency of the certificate of the Circuit Court of Appeals is challenged at the threshold.

There is no denying that there is much of merit in the objection to the form of this certificate, including the form of the questions, for the reason that the certificate, instead of containing a "proper statement of the facts on which the questions and propositions of law arise," as is required by Rule 37 of this court, contains a statement of what is "alleged and denied" by the parties plaintiff and defendant in their pleadings, with the additional statement that there was evidence "tending to establish the facts as claimed by each party, but without any finding whatever as to what the evidence showed the facts to be, and the first question, on which the other two depend, is in terms based entirely on an "assumed" statement of facts.

If this certificate had not been supplemented by the recognition by the United States Government of the Government of Carranza, first as the de facto, and later as the de jure Government of Mexico, of which facts this court will take judicial notice (Jones v. United States, 137 U. S. 202; Underhill v. Hernandez, 168 U. S. 250), it would be our duty to declare the certificate insufficient and to return it to the Circuit Court of Appeals without answering the questions. Cinn., Ham. & Dayton Rd. Co. v. McKeen, 149 U. S. 259; Graver v. Faurot, 162 U. S. 435; Cross v. Evans, 167 U. S. 60; Stratton's Independence v. Howbert, 231 U. S. 399, 422.

But this recognition of the government under which General Pereyra was acting, as the legitimate Government of Mexico, makes the answers to the questions so certain and its effect upon the case is so clear, that, for the purpose of making an end of the litigation, we will proceed to answer the questions.

The first question is:

I. "Assuming that the bullion in suit was seized, condemned, and sold for war supplies by the Constitutionalist forces in revolution in Mexico, acting under authority from General Carranza, claiming to be the Provisional President of the Republic of Mexico, had the District Court of the Western District of Texas, into which the said bullion had been imported from Mexico, jurisdiction to try and adjudge as to the validity of the title acquired by and through the said seizure, appropriation and sale by the Carranza forces as against an American citizen claiming ownership of said bullion prior to its seizure?"

There can be no doubt that the required diversity of citizenship to give the District Court jurisdiction of the case was stated in the petition for injunction. The certificate shows that it was alleged in the petition that the bullion was the property of the plaintiff and that it had been forcibly taken from its possession in Mexico by unknown persons but without any reference being made to a state of war prevailing therein at the time; that it was consigned to defendant Barlow at El Paso, Texas, and was in a bonded warehouse in the possession of the defendant Cobb, as Collector of Customs, who, unless restrained by the court, would deliver it to the other defendants.

This form of petition brought the case within the jurisdiction of the District Court (United States v. Arredondo et al., 6 Pet. 691, 709; Gregnon's Lessee v. Astor et al., 2 How. 319; Minnesota Co. v. St. Paul Co., 2 Wall. 609, 632), and the question is, whether the circumstance that the bullion was seized, condemned and sold under the conditions stated in the question, deprived the court of jurisdiction to go forward and adjudge as to the validity of the title acquired by the seizure and sale by the Carranza forces.

The answer which should be given to this question has been rendered not doubtful by the fact that, as we have said, the revolution inaugurated by General Carranza against General Huerta proved successful and the government established by him has been recognized by the political department of our government as the de facto and later as the de jure Government of Mexico, which decision binds the judges as well as all other officers and citizens of the government. United States v. Palmer, 3 Wheat. 160; In re Cooper, 143 U. S. 472; Jones v. United States, 137 U. S. 202. This recognition is retroactive in effect and validates all the actions of the Carranza Government from the commencement of its existence (Williams v. Bruffy, 96 U. S. 176, 186; Underhill v. Hernandez, 168 U. S. 250, 253) and the action of General Pereyra complained of must therefore be regarded as the action, in time of civil war, of a duly commissioned general of the legitimate Government of Mexico.

It is settled that the courts will take judicial notice of such recognition, as we have here, of the Carranza Government by the political department of our government (Jones v. United States, 137 U. S. 202), and that the courts of one independent government will not sit in judgment on the validity of the acts of another done within its own territory (Underhill v. Hernandez, 168 U. S. 250, 253; Ameri

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can Banana Company v. United Fruit Company, 213 U. S. 347; Oetjen v. Central Leather Co., U. S. 1). This last rule, however, does not deprive the courts of jurisdiction once acquired over a case. It requires only that when it is made to appear that the foreign government has acted in a given way on the subject matter of the litigation, the details of such action or the merit of the result can not be questioned but must be accepted by our courts as a rule for their decision. To accept a ruling authority and to decide accordingly is not a surrender or abandonment of jurisdiction but is an exercise of it. It results that the title to the property in this case must be determined by the result of the action taken by the military authorities of Mexico and that, giving effect to this rule is an exercise of jurisdiction which requires that the first question be answered in the affirmative. The second question reads:

"If the first question is answered in the affirmative, does the subsequent recognition by the United States Government of Carranza as the legitimate President of the Republic of Mexico and his government as the only legitimate government of the Republic of Mexico deprive this court of jurisdiction on this appeal to decide and adjudge the case on its merits?"

Our answer to the first requires a negative answer to this second question.

The third question reads:

"If question two is answered in the negative, did the seizure, condemnation, and sale of the bullion in the manner and for the purposes stated to be assumed in question one have the effect of divesting the title to or ownership of it of a certain citizen of the United States of America not in or a resident of Mexico when such seizure and condemnation occurred?"

The answer to this question must be in the affirmative for the reasons given and upon the authorities cited in the opinion recently announced in cases Nos. 268 and 269, Oetjen v. Central Leather Company. The fact that the title to the property in controversy may have been in an American citizen who was not in or a resident of Mexico at the time it was seized for military purposes by the legitimate Government of Mexico, does not affect the rule of law that the act within its own boundaries of one sovereign state can not become the subject of reëxamination and modification in the courts of another. Such action when shown to have been taken, becomes, as we have said,

1 Infra, p. 421.

a rule of decision for the courts of this country. Whatever rights such an American citizen may have can be asserted only through the courts of Mexico or through the political departments of our Government. The first and third questions will be answered in the affirmative and the second in the negative. And it is so ordered.

OETJEN V. CENTRAL LEATHER CO.

Supreme Court of the United States
March 11, 1918

Mr. Justice CLARKE delivered the opinion of the court.

These two cases involving the same question, were argued and will be decided together. They are suits in replevin and involve the title to two large consignment of hides, which the plaintiff in error claims to own as assignee of Martinez & Company, a partnership engaged in business in the city of Torreon, Mexico, but which the defendant in error claims to own by purchase from the FinneganBrown Company, a Texas corporation, which it is alleged purchased the hides in Mexico from General Francisco Villa, on January 3, 1914.

The cases were commenced in a Circuit Court of New Jersey, in which judgments were rendered for the defendants, which were affirmed by the Court of Errors and Appeals, and they are brought to this court on the theory, that the claim of title to the hides by the defendant in error is invalid because based upon a purchase from General Villa, who, it is urged, confiscated them contrary to the provisions of the Hague Convention of 1907 respecting the laws and customs of war on land; that the judgment of the State court denied to the plaintiff in error this right which he "set up and claimed" under the Hague Convention or treaty; and that this denial gives him the right of review in this court.

A somewhat detailed description will be necessary of the political conditions in Mexico prior to and at the time of the seizure of the property in controversy by the military authorities. It appears in the record, and is a matter of general history, that on February 23, 1913, Madero, President of the Republic of Mexico, was assassinated; that immediately thereafter General Huerta declared himself Provisional President of the Republic and took the oath of office as such; that on the twenty-sixth day of March following General Carranza,

who was then Governor of the State of Coahuila, inaugurated a revolution against the claimed authority of Huerta and in a "Manifesto addressed to the Mexican Nation" proclaimed the organization of a constitutional government under "The Plan of Guadalupe," and that civil war was at once entered upon between the followers and forces of the two leaders. When General Carranza assumed the leadership of what were called the Constitutionalist forces he commissioned General Villa his representative, as "Commander of the North," and assigned him to an independent command in that part of the country. Such progress was made by the Carranza forces that in the autumn of 1913 they were in military possession, as the record shows, of approximately two-thirds of the area of the entire country, with the exception of a few scattered towns and cities, and after a battle lasting several days the City of Torreon in the State of Coahuila was captured by General Villa on October 1 of that year. Immediately after the capture of Torreon, Villa proposed levying a military contribution on the inhabitants, for the support of his army, and thereupon influential citizens, preferring to provide the required money by an assessment upon the community, to having their property forcibly seized, called together a largely attended meeting and after negotiations with General Villa as to the amount to be paid, an assessment was made on the men of property of the city, which was in large part promptly paid. Martinez, the owner from whom the plaintiff in error claims title to the property involved in this case, was a wealthy resident of Torreon and was a dealer in hides in a large way. Being an adherent of Huerta, when Torreon was captured Martinez fled the city and failed to pay the assessment imposed upon him, and it was to satisfy this assessment that, by order of General Villa, the hides in controversy were seized and on January 3, 1914, were sold in Mexico to the Finnegan-Brown Company. They were paid for in Mexico, and were thereafter shipped into the United States and were replevied, as stated.

This court will take judicial notice of the fact that since the transactions thus detailed and since the trial of this case in the lower courts, the Government of the United States recognized the Government of Carranza as the de facto government of the Republic of Mexico, on October 19, 1915, and as the de jure government on August 31, 1917. Jones v. United States, 137 U. S. 202; Underhill v. Hernandez, 168 U. S. 250.