Argument for Appellant. 257 U.S. While the statute1 provides for the ascertainment of a fact and uses the words "it shall appear," etc., there is no provision even for a notice to the occupant. It is therefore submitted that under the Constitution the Commission of Fisheries did not have jurisdiction to determine the property rights of appellant. Appellant had built up and improved the grounds by planting; had been allowed by the State's officers to stake them and pay taxes for rental; was thereby an actual lessee of the State. At the time of the proceedings instituted by the Commission his property, in the shape of planted oysters upon the grounds held by the Commission to be public bottoms within the Baylor survey, were of the value of more than $8,000. By the action of the Commission, it has been determined that the stakes designating the grounds of appellant shall be at once removed and that his planted oysters shall be thrown open to the public, and that he, the owner, shall not be permitted to take possession of or to remove the same, thus confiscating, without any legal proceedings, the property of appellant. It is contended by appellees that appellant appeared before the Commission. "It is not enough that the 1"§ 15. Resurveys of Planting Ground.-When, by any resurvey of oyster-planting grounds or survey made to re-establish the lines of the State survey of natural oyster beds, rocks or shoals, which shall hereafter be made under the direction of the Commission of Fisheries, it shall appear that any holder, without his own default, and by mistake of any officer of the State, has assigned to him and included in the plat of his assignment any portion of the natural oyster beds, rocks or shoals as defined by law, and it shall further appear that such holder has oysters or shells planted on said ground, then, before the stakes shall be removed from said ground or the same opened to the public, the said holder shall be allowed a reasonable time, the length of which is to be determined by the Commission of Fisheries, in their discretion (and duly advertised), within which to remove his planted oysters or shells from said ground owners may by chance have notice, or that they may, as a matter of favor, have a hearing. The law must require notice and give them the right to a hearing, and an opportunity to be heard. The constitutional validity is to be tested, not by what was done under writ, but by what may by its authority be done." Stuart v. Palmer, 74 N. Y. 183; Taylor, Due Process, § 133; Coe v. Armour Fertilizer Works, 237 U. S. 413, 424; Central of Georgia Ry. Co. v. Wright, 207 U. S. 127. Mr. Robert W. Shultice, with whom Mr. J. D. Hank was on the brief, for appellees. MR. JUSTICE MCREYNOLDS delivered the opinion of the court. Appellant sought a temporary injunction restraining the Virginia Commission of Fisheries from removing the stakes and marks which designated the boundaries of certain oyster grounds in the Rappahannock River, planted by him and which he claimed the right to occupy, and thereby opening the same for public use and enjoyment. He maintained that the Commission was proceeding under a state statute invalid because it failed to provide for proper notice and hearing and that the proposed action would deprive him of property without due process of law contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment. A majority of the three judges composing the court below concluded-264 Fed. 116-that the Commission had acted in substantial compliance with the challenged statute, that whatever rights of property appellant claimed in respect of the specified lands, or the oysters thereon, were necessarily based upon the statute itself and that he could not both assail it and rely upon it in the same proceeding. Kansas City, Memphis & Birmingham R. R. Co. v. Stiles, 242 U. S. 111, 117. And further that the evidence showed conclusively that the threatened Statement of the Case. 257 U.S. action would not deprive him of any property which he could rightfully claim. It accordingly refused to grant a temporary injunction but did not dismiss complainant's bill. We find no reason to interfere with this decree and it is affirmed. MR. JUSTICE CLARKE Concurs in the result. Affirmed. RAFFERTY, COLLECTOR OF INTERNAL REVENUE FOR THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, v. SMITH, BELL & COMPANY, LIMITED. SAME v. COMPANIA GENERAL DE TABACOS DE FILIPINAS. SAME v. VISAYAN REFINING COMPANY. CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. Nos. 138, 140, 142. Argued November 10, 1921.-Decided December 5, 1921. 1. Taxes on the value of exports from the Philippine Islands collected under a Philippine Act, effective July 1, 1916, while duties on such exports were forbidden by the Act of Congress of August 29, 1916, c. 416, 39 Stat. 545, were legalized, ratified and confirmed by the congressional Act of June 5, 1920, c. 253, 41 Stat. 1015, 1025. P. 231. 2. This was within the power of Congress (United States v. Heinszen & Co., 206 U. S. 370,) even where the parties taxed had obtained judgments for restitution, in the Supreme Court of the Philippines, before the date of the ratifying statute but where the judgments at that date were still reviewable and subsequently were reviewed in this court by certiorari. P. 232. 40 Phil. Rep. 691, reversed. CERTIORARI to the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands for the review of judgments of that court holding illegal the collection of certain taxes and ordering the Col 226. Argument for Respondents. lector of Internal Revenue for the Islands, defendant below, to refund them to the present respondents. Mr. Grant T. Trent, with whom Mr. Cassius M. Dowell was on the briefs, for petitioner. Mr. Clarence B. Miller, with whom Mr. W. H. Lawrence, Mr. J. G. Lawrence and Mr. Frederick C. Fisher were on the briefs, for respondents. The transactions involved were exports. The taxes in question were not legalized by the Act of Congress of July 1, 1916, 39 Stat. 286; nor by the Act of June 4, 1918, 40 Stat. 597. The Act of Congress of June 5, 1920, 41 Stat. 1025, can not have the effect of confiscating the judgments under review. The Smith, Bell & Company case was commenced in the Court of First Instance of Manila in February, 1918; in July, 1918, that court ordered the entry of judgment; both parties appealed; the Philippine Supreme Court entered its judgment in March, 1920. The Compania General case was commenced in the Court of First Instance January 23, 1917; judgment in favor of respondent was rendered November 26, 1917; both parties appealed to the Supreme Court and judgment there was given in favor of respondent March 16, 1920. The Visayan Refining Company case was commenced in the Court of First Instance on January 20, 1917; judgment in favor of respondent was entered by that court on November 26. 1917; both parties appealed to the Supreme Court and judgment there was given in favor of respondent March 18, 1920. By these judgments respondents became entitled to recover from petitioner the amounts which the petitioner had exacted as taxes under the ostensible authority of § 1614, Act No. 2657. The decisions upholding retrospective statutes to cure irregularities as against claims not reduced to judgment, of which many are quoted or cited by petitioner, do not 6267-22- -20 Argument for Respondents. 257 U.S. require particular notice. All are distinguishable in that they do not involve the overthrow of judgments, and most of them present other obvious and vital differences that make them inapplicable herein. None of them goes so far toward being in point as United States v. Heinszen & Co., 206 U. S. 370, and if that case is not controlling, all the others fall with it. The proposition that a statute may divest rights established by a judgment is so abhorrent to our fundamental principles and to natural justice, as well as to familiar constitutional limitations, that there are few instances in our jurisprudence where the attempt has been made and passed upon. Nevertheless, there is plain condemnation of the theory in the decisions of this court. McCullough v. Virginia, 172 U. S. 102, 103; Stephens v. Cherokee Nation, 174 U. S. 445, 478; Pennsylvania v. Wheeling Bridge Co., 18 How. 421, 431; Haley v. City, 68 Pa. St. 45; Taylor v. Place, 4 R. I. 337; Sanders v. Cabaniss, 43 Ala. 184; Lawson v. Jeffries, 47 Miss. 702; Griffin v. Cunningham, 20 Gratt. 54. While United States v. Heinszen & Co. holds that a congressional ratification may destroy a mere right of action, practically overruling in this respect DeLima v. Bidwell, 182 U. S. 1, yet the reasoning, by distinction, compels the conclusion that a claim reduced to judgment is immune. The immunity of respondents' judgments from legislative confiscation does not depend upon their finality in the sense of not being subject to judicial review. If the interposition of this court had the effect of vacating the judgments and bringing the causes here to be tried de novo, the case might, arguably, be different; but, upon the allowance of the writ, the judgment is reviewed "as if brought up by writ of error," and it is precarious only to the extent that error may be found. If the judgment is declared free from error, its affirmance by this court will in no way enhance its value or change its character. The ultimate |