Ex parte Fisk

Ex parte Fisk, 113 U.S. 713 (1885), was a case in which Francis B. Fogg brought suit in the Supreme Court of the State of New York against Fisk to recover the sum of $63,250 on the allegation of false and fraudulent representations made by Fisk in the sale of certain mining stocks. Fisk was held in contempt when he declined to answer questions his attorney believed violated the Fifth Amendment.
Background.
From that suit, the plaintiff obtained the following court order:
A motion to vacate this order was overruled, and the judgment affirmed by the Court of Appeals.
The defendant then appeared before the court and submitted to a partial examination, answering some questions and objecting to others, until, pending one of the adjournments of the examination, he procured an order removing the case to the circuit court of the United States. In that court, an order was made to continue the examination before a master, to whom the matter was referred. The defendant refusing to be sworn and declining to be examined, he was brought before the circuit court on an application for attachment for a contempt in refusing to obey the order.
Without disposing of this motion, the circuit court made another order, to-wit:
The defendant appeared before the court in pursuance of this order and, stating that he was advised by counsel that the court had no jurisdiction to require him to answer in this manner to the questions propounded to him by the counsel for plaintiff, he refused to do so to avoid self incrimination. For this, on further proceeding, he was held by the court to be in contempt and fined $500 and committed to the custody of the marshal until it was paid. It is to be relieved of this imprisonment that he prays here the writ of habeas corpus.
Decision.
Justice Miller delivered the opinion of the court. He stated the facts as above recited and continued:
Justice Miller went on to give an illustration from act of Congress prescribing rules of evidence in § 858 of the Revised Statutes, which read:
Specifically the following sections of the Revised Statutes, in chapter XVII, on evidence:
Justice Miller continued: 
The court found that if the acts of Congress forbid the use of this kind of testimony in the courts of the United States, no order for taking it made in the state court while the case was pending in that court, with a view to its use on a trial there, can change the law of evidence in the federal court. In that case, after it had been once heard on appeal in the Supreme Court of Illinois, it was removed into the circuit court of the United States.
A writ would be issued on application to the clerk.