PROCEEDINGS IN THE UNITED STATES CIRCUIT COURT.

While these proceedings were being had in the state courts the case of Sharon vs.  Hill in the federal court was making slow progress.  Miss Hill’s attorneys seemed to think that her salvation depended upon reaching a decision in her case before the determination of Sharon’s suit in the United States Circuit Court.  They were yet to learn, as they afterwards did, that after a United States court takes jurisdiction in a case, it cannot be ousted of that jurisdiction by the decision of a state court, in a proceeding subsequently commenced in the latter.  Seldom has “the law’s delay” been exemplified more thoroughly than it was by the obstacles which her attorneys were able to interpose at every step of the proceedings in the federal court.

Sharon commenced his suit in the United States Circuit Court October 3, 1883, twenty-eight days before his enemy commenced hers in the State Superior Court.  By dilatory pleas her counsel succeeded in delaying her answer to Sharon’s suit until after the decision in her favor in the state court.  She did not enter an appearance in the federal court until the very last day allowed by the rule.  A month later she filed a demurrer.  Her counsel contrived to delay the argument of this demurrer for seven weeks after it was filed.  It was finally argued and submitted on the 21st of January, 1884.  On the 3d of March it was overruled and the defendant was ordered to answer in ten days, to wit, March 13th.  Then the time for answering was extended to April 24th.  When that day arrived her counsel, instead of filing an answer, filed a plea in abatement, denying the non-residence of Mr. Sharon in the State of California, on which depended his right to sue in the federal court.  To this Mr. Sharon’s counsel filed a replication on the 5th of May.  It then devolved upon Miss Hill’s counsel to produce evidence of the fact alleged in the plea, but, after a delay of five months and ten days, no evidence whatever was offered, and the court ordered the plea to be argued on the following day.  It was overruled, and thirty days were given to file an answer to Sharon’s suit.  The case in the state court had then been tried, argued, and submitted thirty days before, but Miss Hill’s counsel were not yet ready to file their answer within the thirty days given them, and the court extended the time for answer until December 30th.  Six days before that day arrived Judge Sullivan rendered his decision.  At last, on the 30th of December, 1884, fourteen months after the filing of Sharon’s complaint, Sarah Althea’s answer was filed in the federal court, in which, among other things, she set up the proceedings and decree of the state court, adjudging the alleged marriage contract to be genuine and legal, and the parties to be husband and wife, and three days later Sharon filed his replication.  There was at no time any delay or want of diligence on the part of the plaintiff in prosecuting this suit to final judgment.  On the contrary, as is plainly shown in the record above stated, the delays were all on the part of the defendant.  The taking of the testimony in the United States Circuit Court commenced on the 12th of February, 1885, and closed on the 12th of August following.