for right of appeal is not essential to due process of law. Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U. S. 78, 111.

The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees that the defendant shall be given that character of notice and opportunity to be heard which is essential to due process of law. When that has been done the requirements of the Constitution are met, and it is not for this court to determine whether there has been an erroneous construction of statute or common law. Iowa Central Railway v. Iowa, 160 U. S. 389; West v. Louisiana, 194 U. S. 261. The matter was summed up by Justice Moody in Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U. S. 78, 110, where, citing many authorities, he said:

Subject to

"Due process requires that the court which assumes to determine the rights of parties shall have jurisdiction, and that there shall be notice and opportunity for hearing given the parties. these two fundamental conditions, which seem to be universally prescribed in all systems of law established by civilized countries, this court has up to this time sustained all state laws, statutory or judicially declared, regulating procedure, evidence and methods of trial, and held them to be consistent with due process of law.

There is nothing in the present record which takes the case out of that principle. This was not like a suit on a note resulting in a sentence to the penitentiary; nor does it resemble any of the extreme illustrations given in Windsor v. McVeigh, 93 U. S. 274, 282, in which, after a trial, the judgment of a court having jurisdiction might be invalidated because the relief so far exceeded the issue heard as, in effect, to deprive the defendant of the benefit of his constitutional right to notice. No such question is presented in the present case, for the plaintiffs in error were bound to know that, under the laws of Missouri, the court, on proof of the charge contained in the Information, might impose a fine, and were afforded an op

Opinion of the Court.

224 U.S.

portunity to offer evidence in mitigation or reduction. On the application for a rehearing there was no claim that the fine was excessive, but the judgment was attacked on the ground that, for want both of jurisdiction and of notice, no such penalty could be imposed. We are concluded by the decision of the Supreme Court of the State as to its power; the judgment was within the issues submitted and is not void as having been entered without due process of law.

If the judgment was not void we cannot consider the collateral questions as to whether the suit abated against the Republic Oil Company when it gave notice of its withdrawal from the State; nor whether the act of 1905, amending the Anti-trust Act, operated to relieve the defendant from the penalties for all combinations in restraint of trade entered into prior to the adoption of the amending statute. These are non-federal questions.

5. It is further contended that the defendants were denied the equal protection of the law. This claim is based upon the fact that without indictment or trial by jury they were ousted of their franchise and subjected to a fine of $50,000 at the discretion of the Supreme Court, while corporations prosecuted in the Circuit Court for the identically same acts in violation of the anti-trust statute were entitled to a trial by jury and, if convicted, could be ousted of their franchises and subjected to a fine not to exceed $100 per day, during the time the combination continued in effect.

But proceedings by Information in the nature of quo warranto differ in form and consequence from a prosecution by indictment for violation of a criminal statute. In the one the State proceeds for a violation of the company's private contract-in the other it prosecutes for a violation of public law. The corporation may be deprived of its franchise for nonuser-a mere failure to act. It may also be deprived of its charter for that which, though

innocent in itself, is beyond the power conferred upon it as an artificial person. If, however, the act of misuser is not only ultra vires but criminal, there is no merger of the civil liability in the criminal offence. Separate proceedings may be instituted-one to secure the civil judgment, and the other to enforce the criminal law. Both cases may involve a consideration of the same facts; and evidence warranting a judgment of ouster may be sufficient to sustain a conviction for crime. A judgment may in one case sometimes be a bar to the other; but neither remedy is exclusive. The double liability, in civil and criminal proceedings, finds its counterpart in many instances, as, for example, where an attorney is disbarred or ousted of his right to practice in the court because of conduct for which he may likewise be prosecuted and fined.

In addition to these considerations it is to be noted that though the Anti-trust Act provides for penalties somewhat similar to those which may be entered in quo warranto proceedings, the statute did not, and, as held by the Supreme Court, could not lessen the power conferred upon it to hear and determine quo warranto proceedings and to enter judgments which on general principles appertained to the exercise of such constitutional jurisdiction. Standard Oil Co. v. Tennessee, 217 U. S. 413, 421; Delmar Jockey Club v. Missouri, 210 U. S. 324.

It was pointed out in the opinion (218 Missouri, 349), that where a corporation had entered into a combination in restraint of trade, it thereby offended against the law of its creation, and consequently forfeited its right longer to exercise its franchise. It was thereupon held, that in Missouri quo warranto might have been instituted for such acts of misuser, even though there had been no criminal statute on the subject. For this reason neither the validity nor invalidity of the anti-trust statute have any bearing on the case. The plaintiffs in error cannot VOL. CCXXIV-19

complain that they were deprived of the equal protection of the law, because in the civil proceeding they were not tried in the manner, and subjected to the judgment, appropriate in criminal cases.

If the plaintiffs in error were afforded due process of law, and were not deprived of the equal protection of the law, the judgment cannot be reversed. And, if it cannot be reversed, it cannot be modified to provide that it shall not be construed to conflict with a decree entered in an equity cause in another court to which plaintiffs are parties. Neither can it be amended by adding a provision that the judgment of ouster shall not operate to make those who buy plaintiff's products subject to prosecution, under the act of 1907, making it a felony for any person to deal in articles manufactured by a corporation whose license had been forfeited. This statute which, it is said, will deprive plaintiffs of the right to do interstate business, is not before us. We have no right to assume that it will be applied so as to interfere with any right, which plaintiffs have, under the Constitution, to do interstate business.

Affirmed.

CROZIER v. FRIED. KRUPP AKTIENGESELL

SCHAFT.

CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

No. 8. Argued April 30, 1911.-Decided April 8, 1912.

Prior to the passage of the act of June 25, 1910, 36 Stat. 851, c. 423, a patentee, whose patent was infringed by an officer of the United States, could not sue the United States unless a contract to pay was implied; and the object of the statute is to afford a remedy under circumstances where no contract can be implied, but where the

224 U.S.

Argument for Petitioner.

property rights of the inventor have been appropriated by an officer of the United States for its benefit and the acts of such officer ratified by the Government by the adoption of such act. Compensation for property taken under eminent domain need not necessarily be made in advance of the taking if adequate means be provided for a reasonably just and prompt ascertainment and payment thereof.

The duty to provide for payment of compensation for property taken under eminent domain may be adequately fulfilled by an assumption of such duty by a pledge either express or by necessary implication of the public good faith to that end.

The act of June 25, 1910, having afforded a remedy for a patentee whose property rights have been appropriated by an officer of the United States for the benefit of the Government, such patentee is entitled to maintain an action in the Court of Claims to have his compensation determined, and the statute makes full and adequate provisions for the exercise of power of eminent domain. Since the enactment of the act of June 25, 1910, a patentee cannot maintain an action for injunction against an officer of the United States for infringing his patent for the benefit of the Government; his remedy is to sue in the Court of Claims for compensation. In this case held that although this action was commenced before June 25, 1910, as it was confined solely to obtaining an injunction against future use, which cannot now be allowed, the action must be dismissed without prejudice to the right of the patentee to proceed in the Court of Claims for compensation under the act of 1910. 32 App. D. C. 1, reversed.

THE facts, which involve the right of a patentee to enjoin an officer of the United States from using the patent, and the construction and effect of the act of June 25, 1910, conferring jurisdiction on the Court of Claims in certain instances of claims of patentees against the United States, for use of patents, are stated in the opinion.

Mr. Stuart McNamara, Special Assistant to the Attorney General, with whom The Attorney General was on the brief, for petitioner:

The suit is unauthorized, being either against the United States directly, which is the only person to be