Van Huffel v. Harkelrode, 284 U.S. 225 (1931)
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Van Huffel v. Harkelrode
Nos. 54-and 55
Argued October 28, 1931
Decided December 7, 1931
284 U.S. 225
CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF APPEAL OF TRUMBULL COUNTY
AND TO THE SUPREME COURT OF OHIO
Syllabus
1. The bankruptcy courts have power to sell real estate of bankrupts free from liens of state taxes, transferring the liens from the property to the proceeds of sale. P. 227.
2. Objections that the notice given the state treasurer in this case was insufficient and that the proceeding to determine priority of liens should have been plenary, rather than summary, held not open in this Court, not having been made in, or discussed by, the courts below. P. 229.
3. A decision of a state supreme court dismissing a petition in error as of right to review a judgment of an intermediate court, upon the ground that the constitutional question raised, and upon which the jurisdiction of the higher court depended, was not debatable, is a decision of the merits, so that a writ of certiorari from this Court should go to the supreme court if it has the record, and not to the intermediate court. P. 230.
4. In reviewing the judgment of a state supreme court, a transcript of the record in that court, certified by its clerk and filed here with the petition for certiorari is, by Rule 43, to be treated as sent up in response to a formal writ, and in such case there is no occasion to direct a writ to the intermediate state court to which, under the rules of the state supreme court, the record may have been returned. P. 230.
123 Oh.St. 674, 177 N.E. 587, reversed.
Certiorari, 283 U.S. 817, to review a judgment of the Supreme Court of Ohio, which, by declining to review, in effect affirmed on the merits a judgment of the Court of Appeals of the state, which had reversed a decree quieting title to land against a tax lien asserted by a county treasurer. This Court granted certiorari to both the appellate courts, but the writ sent to the Court of Appeals is now discharged. Of the transcripts filed here in support of the respective petitions, one was certified by the clerk of the court of appeals, and the other, six days later, by the clerk of the supreme court of the state.