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Orchard v. Hughes/Opinion of the Court

1. The fatal defect in both the answer and the proofs is, that, admitting every allegation against the legality of the bank charter, and of the worthlessness of the paper issued by the bank, Orchard, the maker of the note and of the mortgage, had not been the sufferer. The bills constituting a portion of the consideration of the note, he used in payment of his debts, while they were current in the community, and he has not taken them back, either, voluntarily, assuming that he might have done so, and set up the fact as a defence to the note; nor has he been subjected to the repayment of the debts he discharged by the use of them; and even were he permitted to succeed in reducing the present demand by rebating the bank bills received by him, it does not appear that he is under any obligation to account for that amount to the creditor or creditors to whom he paid them. The defendant, therefore, is not in a condition to contest the several questions raised and discussed on the argument in respect to the power of the legislature to charter the bank, or the conduct of the parties concerned in its organization, or in keeping up its credit for the purpose of imposing upon and defrauding the community by means of the circulation of its paper. The decree, therefore, of the court below was right, and should be affirmed.

2. The appeal from the decree of the court below directing a sale of the mortgaged premises, did not operate to stay the proceedings, as the bond given was simply a bond for costs. The complainants below, therefore, proceeded to execute the decree by a sale of the land, under the direction of a master, and on the coming in of his report of the sale, certain exceptions were taken to the report and overruled, and a decree of confirmation entered. An appeal was taken by the defendants below from that decree, and has been argued in connection with the appeal from the previous and principal one. This second appeal seems to be a necessity from a very early decision of this court in the case of a foreclosure of a mortgage, that the decree in favor of the complainant, adjudging a sale of the mortgaged premises, was a final decree within the meaning of the Judiciary Act authorizing an appeal. We have accordingly looked into the second record in connection with the first, and are satisfied that there is no well-grounded objection to the report of the master, and that the court below was right in confirming it.

But there is a clause in this decree that is in conflict with a recent decision of this court. According to the report of the master, the sale of the mortgaged premises did not cover the debt, but left a balance of $519.23. The decree of confirmation orders execution to issue for this amount with interest.

It was held by this court in Noonan v. Lee, in an appeal from a decree in a foreclosure of a mortgage in chancery by the District Court of Wisconsin, with Circuit Court powers, in which execution was directed for the balance of the debt, that this part of the decree was erroneous, inasmuch as the equity courts of the United States, under the Constitution, are governed by the practice of the Court of Chancery in England, modified by acts of Congress and the rules of the Supreme Court: and as no execution could issue according to the practice in the English Chancery for this balance, and no rule had been adopted in this court authorizing it, this part of the decree was reversed.

The decree in the present case was rendered in a territorial court, and it has been contended that this court is not a court under the Constitution, nor organized under the Judiciary Act of 1789, but by the legislature of the Territory under the organic law, and whose jurisdiction is regulated by that law, and therefore that the decision in the case of Noonan v. Lee does not apply. Of this opinion are Messrs. Justices Swayne, Field, and myself. But a majority of the court are of opinion that the case is governed by the previous one. This part of the decree is therefore reversed, and the residue affirmed.

DECREE ACCORDINGLY.

title: Orchard v. Hughes/Opinion of the Court


text: Talk:Orchard v. Hughes/Opinion of the Court

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Eames v. Godfrey

GODFREY sued Eames in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Massachusetts, in an action on the case for infringing a patent for a new and useful improvement in boot-trees, of which patent he, Godfrey, was the assignee. The defendant pleaded Not Guilty, and gave notice of special matters of defence. The case was tried by a jury, who found the defendant guilty, and assessed the damages at $2177.50.

The patent was for a combination of mechanical powers for a new and useful improvement in boot-trees, and included a certain mechanism for distending the leg of the boot-tree. The plaintiff did not claim that the defendant had used the same mechanism that he did for distending the leg of the boot-tree, but that the defendant had used all the other parts of his combination, and that the mechanism which the defendant used, although differing in construction and operation from that described in the patent, yet performed the same function. The defendant contended, that not having used the mechanism described in the patent for distending the leg of the boot-tree, although he had used the other parts of the combination, he was not guilty of infringing the patent, and requested the court so to rule. The court refused to rule as requested, but instructed the jury, 'that to make out an infringement of the claim for combination, it was not necessary for the plaintiff to show that the mechanism for distending used by the defendant and its mode of operation were the same with that described in the plaintiff's patent for the purpose of distending the boot-tree; and that if said mechanism for distending the leg, &c., used by the defendant, was not the same mechanism, operating in the same manner as that described in the plaintiff's patent for the same purpose; still if there were in the defendant's machine a mechanism performing the same function as that performed by plaintiff's distending mechanism, and if this was combined with the other parts in the manner in which the distending mechanism described in the plaintiff's patent was combined, it was an infringement of said patent, and the defendant would be liable therefor.'

The defendant excepted to the instructions given, and the refusal of the court to instruct as prayed for.

On error here, the instructions and refusal, as aforesaid, were the points before this court.

Mr. F. A. Brooks for the plaintiff in error; Mr. Causten Browne, contra.

Mr. Justice DAVIS delivered the opinion of the court:

title: Eames v. Godfrey


text: Talk:Eames v. Godfrey

title: Talk:Eames v. Godfrey


text:
Eames v. Godfrey/Opinion of the Court

The patent in controversy was for a combination of mechanical powers to effect a useful result, and such a patent differs essentially in its principles from one where the subject-matter is new.

The law is well settled by repeated adjudications in this court and the Circuit Courts of the United States, that there is no infringement of a patent which claims mechanical powers in combination unless all the parts have been substantially used. The use of a part less than the whole is no infringement.

In Prouty & Mears v. Ruggles, the law is well considered. The patent there was for the combination of certain parts of a plough, arranged together so as to produce a certain effect. The suit was for an infringement. The court below had charged the jury, that unless the whole combination was substantially used in the defendant's plough it was no violation of the plaintiff's patent. Chief Justice Taney, in deciding the case, said: 'None of the parts referred to are new, and none are claimed as new; nor is any portion of the combination less than the whole claimed as new, or stated to produce any given result. The end in view is proposed to be accomplished by the union of all, arranged and combined together in the manner described. The use of any two of these parts only, or of two combined with a third, which is substantially different in form or in the manner of its arrangement and connection with the others, is, therefore, not the thing patented. It is not the same combination if it substantially differs from it in any of its parts.'

Testing this case by these principles, the court erred in charging the jury as it did, and in refusing to instruct as asked by the defendant. There is nothing in the record that shows in what manner the mechanism used by Eames, in distending the leg of the boot-tree, differed from that claimed in the patent. It is stated that the mechanism used by Eames was different in its construction and operation, but how far the difference extended we are left to conjecture. It is fair to presume, in the absence of proof, that it was essentially different. If, however, the mechanism used by Eames was not substantially different in its form or the manner of its arrangement from the mechanism used by Godfrey, there was an infringement; but this was a question that should have been left to the jury to pass on. The court laid down a broad rule without qualification,-that although Eames's mechanism for distending the leg of the boot-tree did differ in its construction and operation from that patented, yet if it performed the same functions as the mechanism in the combination, there was an infringement. This view of the law was wrong on principle and authority. Eames had a right to use any of the parts in Godfrey's combination, if he did not use the whole; and if he used all the parts but one, and for that substituted another mechanical structure substantially different in its construction and operation, but serving the same purpose, he was not guilty of an infringement.

JUDGMENT REVERSED AND VENIRE AWARDED.

title: Eames v. Godfrey/Opinion of the Court


text: Talk:Eames v. Godfrey/Opinion of the Court


text:
Gaylords v. Kelshaw

THE Gaylords, appellants here, had filed their bill in chancery in the Circuit Court for the District of Indiana, against the defendants Kelshaw and Butterworth, charging that they had an unsatisfied judgment at law in one of the Indiana courts against Kelshaw, and that some short time before the judgment was recovered, Kelshaw conveyed to Butterworth a valuable piece of real estate without any consideration; and with an intent fraudulently to hinder and delay them, the said Gaylords, in the collection of their debt. The bill prayed that the conveyance might be aside, and the property sold in satisfaction of their debt.

The complainants alleged themselves to be citizens of Ohio, and Butterworth to be a citizen of Indiana, but no allegation was made in any part of the record as to the citizenship of Kelshaw. The record showed, however, that he was found within the district, and had appeared and answered. The court below dismissed the bill on merits.

Coming here, the case was argued by Mr. Henderson for the complainants, who asked a reversal on merits, which he argued had been misunderstood below, and by Messrs. Ketcham and Dunn, contra. The arguments need not be given, since the court considered the question not a question of merits but one

1. Whether, there being no allegation of Kelshaw's citizenship, jurisdiction existed under that clause of the Judiciary Act which gives the Federal courts jurisdiction in suits between citizens of different States? and,

2. If jurisdiction did not exist, what was proper to be done; that is to say, whether the decree was to be reversed, or the bill dismissed, or the case remanded with directions, &c.?

Mr. Justice MILLER, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court:

title: Gaylords v. Kelshaw


text: Talk:Gaylords v. Kelshaw

title: Talk:Gaylords v. Kelshaw


text:
Gaylords v. Kelshaw/Opinion of the Court

It is clear, that neither the court below, nor this court, has jurisdiction of the case as between plaintiffs and Kelshaw.

But as the court might, under some circumstances, proceed to adjudicate on the rights of the parties properly before it, we must look into the case, so far as to see if it is one in which relief may be decreed, as between plaintiffs and Butterworth, without regard to Kelshaw.

Without referring to the numerous cases in this court and others, on the necessity of having all the proper parties before the court, in a suit in equity, and the circumstances under which the court will proceed in some cases, without persons who might well be made parties, it is sufficient to say that, in the present case, we think Kelshaw is properly made a defendant to this suit. It is a debt which he owes which is sought to be collected. It is his insolvency which is to be established, and it is his fraudulent conduct that requires investigation.

If the conveyance to Butterworth shall be decreed to be set aside, and the property conveyed to him, subjected to the payment of plaintiffs' debt, it is proper that Kelshaw should be bound by the decree; and to that end he ought to be a party.

It is not necessary to decide in this case, whether if Kelshaw were, in the language of the act of February 28, 1839, 'not an inhabitant of, or found within the district where the suit is brought,' the court could proceed without him; for the record shows that he was found within the district, and served there with process, and has answered the bill. Nor is it necessary, for the same reason, to inquire if the court could dispense with him as a party under the 47th rule prescribed by this court for the courts of equity of the United States. It is simply the case of a person made a defendant by the bill, who is also a proper defendant, according to the principles which govern courts of chancery as to parties, and who has been served with process within the district and answered the bill; but whose citizenship is not made to appear in such a manner that the court can take jurisdiction of the case as to him.

Under these circumstances, the court is of opinion that instead of a decree dismissing the bill on the merits, it should have been dismissed without prejudice for want of jurisdiction. The case will be remanded to the court below with leave to plaintiffs to amend their bill generally, and if they shall fail to do this it shall be dismissed without prejudice. Butterworth is entitled to his costs in this court.

DECREE ACCORDINGLY.


text: Talk:Gaylords v. Kelshaw/Opinion of the Court


text:
Mercer County v. Hacket

By act of Assembly, passed in 1852, the legislature of Pennsylvania authorized the commissioners of Mercer County in that State to subscribe to the stock of the pittsburg and Erie Railroad, which road, if built, would pass through their county and benefit it. The act, however, contained this proviso:

'Provided, that the subscription shall be made subject to the following restrictions, limitations, and conditions, and in no other manner or way whatever, viz.: all such subscriptions shall be made by the county commissioners, and shall be made by them after, and not before, the amount of such subscription shall have been designated, advised, and recommmended by a grand jury of said county; and such bonds shall in no case, or under any pretence, be sold, assigned, or transfered by the said Railroad Company at less than the par value thereof: And provided, further, that the acceptance of this act by the said company shall be deemed also an acceptance of the provisions of the act passed the 11th day of March, 1851, entitled An act fixing the gauges of railroads in the County of Erie.'

Rightly or wrongly-with authority or without it-the bonds to the extent of several thousands of dollars were issued. The instruments were elegantly engraved, with such external indications as were calculated to arrest the eye, and through it to inspire confidence. They were signed by the commissioners of Mercer County, attested by their clerk, and authenticated by the county seal conspicuously put. At the head of the bonds it was announced that they were issued for stock in the Pittsburg and Erie Company, and were payable in twenty years from their date in the city of New York. The words in the obligatory part of the instrument were as follows:

'Know all men by these presents, that the County of Mercer, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is indebted to the Pittsburg and Erie Railroad Company in the full and just sum of one thousand dollars, which sum of money said county agrees and promises to pay, twenty years after the date hereof, to the said Pittsburg and Erie Railroad Company, or bearer, with interest, at the rate of six per centum per annum, payable semi-annually on the first Monday of January and July, at the office of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company, in the city of New York, upon the delivery of the coupons severally hereto annexed: for which payments of principal and interest, well and truly to be made, the faith, credit and property of the said County of Mercer are hereby solemnly pledged, under the authority of an act of Assembly of this Commonwealth, entitled A supplement to the act incorporating the Pittsburg and Erie Railroad Company, which said act was approved the 21st day of April, A. D. 1846, and which said supplement became a law on the 4th day of May, 1852.'A number of the bonds having got, bon a fide and for value paid, into the possession of one Hacket, a citizen of New Hampshire, and the coupons,-themselves also payable to bearer, being due and unpaid, he sued the County of Mercer upon them, in the Circuit Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. Having put the bonds and coupons in evidence, the county now offered to prove that no such recommendation as was required by the act was made by the grand jury, but that the jury signed a paper, in which they state that they 'would recommend the commissioners of Mercer County to subscribe to the capital stock of the company to such an amount, and under such restrictions as may be required by the act of Assembly authorizing them to subscribe stock to said road, to an amount not exceeding $150,000.' The county proposed further to prove, that while by the provisions of the act the railroad company was required to accept 'an act fixing the gauges of railroads in Erie County,' before it should be entitled to the benefit of said act authorizing counties to subscribe to the capital stock of said company, the company, by a resolution of the stockholders, had refused to accept those provisions, and had declared it to be inexpedient to accept subscriptions made by counties. All this being offered for the purpose of showing that the commissioners of Mercer County acted illegally in making the subscription, and in issuing bonds in payment thereof; and that they issued the same without authority of law; so that the bonds are not binding upon the county. The county proposed to prove further, 'that the bonds issued were paid out by the railroad company to contractors at about sixty-six and two-thirds cents on the dollar; all this for the purpose of showing that the bonds were procured from the County of Mercer by misrepresentation and fraud, and were not binding upon her, and after being thus obtained were disposed of at less than their par value, in violation of the provisions of the act authorizing the county to subscribe and issue bonds; and also for the purpose of showing want and failure of consideration.'

The court below refused to let such evidence be given; and the suit having accordingly gone against the county, the correctness of the ruling was the point now considered here.

Mr. Stewart for the county: If the bonds were not issued in accordance with the requirements of law, which authorized the commissioners to make a subscription and issue bonds in payment therefor, they are void. In Mercer County v. The Railroad Company, where the subscription to this same road by this same county came in question, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania decided that there was such a failure on the part of the grand jury to perform the duty imposed upon it by the act of the legislature, passed the 4th day of May, 1852, as rendered the act of the commissioners, in making the subscription and issuing the bonds, illegal. The court accordingly rescinded the subscription, and ordered the bonds in possession of the railroad company to be surrendered. In that case it is decided, that by a proper and necessary construction of the act all discretionary power was vested in the grand jury and withheld from the commissioners, and that the grand jury not having designated, advised and recommended the amount to be subscribed, the commissioners had no authority to make a subscription,-the performance of the duty enjoined upon the grand jury having been a prerequisite to vest authority in the commissioners. The act of Assembly requiring certain things as conditions precedent to the issue of the bonds, and of course to their validity, is specifically referred to by name and date in the face of the instruments. This is the same as if it was set out at length.

If the bonds were issued without legal authority, no subsequent transfer can render them valid. Even a note, strictly negotiable, made by an assumed agent who acts without authority, acquires no increased obligation upon the principal by passing from hand to hand. There was no authority proceeding from the principal to put it upon its course, and be it long or short, it imparts to it no increased virtue. The inquiry always addresses itself to every one, Is it the contract of the party whose name it bears? The responsibility of a correct reply to this inquiry is imposed upon every one who gives it currency.

Bonds were never recognized by the lex mercatoria as commercial paper. The distinction between specialties and simple promises is defined by the common law. The remedies for their enforcement have always been different, and these lines of distinction have never been obliterated by any general system of jurisprudence, in this or any other country, with which we have any juridical comity, either as to their nature or the means of enforcing them. The same equities which exist between the original parties remain and follow specialties into whatever hands they may go, without regard to supervening equities. In no State has this ancient and salutary rule of law become so fixed as in Pennsylvania. Diamond v. Lawrence County is a strong case, and almost in point. The bonds apparently were in the hands of bon a fide holders for value. But the court adverts to the shocking frauds which had prevailed in obtaining the issue, and declared that the county was not bound for more than the railroad had received. The law of the place where the contract is made, and the obligation there assumed, govern its construction. Every one making a contract is presumed to make it with reference to its legal effect, whether direct or incidental, in the State where it is made; and if this court were to act on any other principle, our system, political and judicial alike, would be deranged.

Mr. Loomis for the bondholder: All the elegance of the engraver's art, all the plighted 'faith, credit and property,' of modern finance, all the strength and assurances of language, have here been used to allure the purchaser. Reference is made on the face of the bond to an act of Assembly-not to put him on his guard, lest the preliminary requisition may not have been complied with-but to attract him by evidence that the instrument is issued under the highest sanction. It had that effect, and the paper passed readily into the hands of a confiding holder in the distant State of New Hampshire, as a safe and secure investment. How can the county now, with the proceeds of the bond in its treasury-with riches which the railway will bring to its people in enjoyment-set up the defence it does, and proclaim to the nations, 'Base is the slave who pays?'

The recommendation of the grand jury was sufficient to warrant the subscription. If it were not, the county is concluded by Commissioners of Knox County v. Aspinwall, decided in this court, from denying the sufficiency. The act, no doubt, required the amount to be designated by the grand jury. But the jury signed a paper in which they stated that they 'would recommend' the commissioners to subscribe 'to such an amount and under such restrictions as may be required by the act of Assembly authorizing them to subscribe stock to said road to an amount not exceeding $150,000.' This is a substantial compliance. Even if there were an irregularity in not designating the precise amount to be subscribed, no decided case renders the subscription void. This question was before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, in Mercer County v. The Railroad Company, and was left undecided; Woodward, J., concurring in the opinion given by Lewis, J., that a subscription made, without any designation by the grand jury, was without competent authority and therefore void, Lowrie, J., not concurring, Knox, J., dissenting, and Black, C. J., absent. This case is not an authority for anything. The controversy was between the county and the railroad company only. The court directed the bonds ($84,900), remaining in the possession of the company, to be surrendered to the county. The remaining $65,100 having been paid to Johnson & Co., on account of work under their contract, the court refused to take action in relation to these bonds, a portion of which was purchased and are now held by the plaintiff. It declares that it leaves undisturbed the question how far innocent holders of the bonds already negotiated might be protected. In the County of Lawrence v. The Northwestern Railroad Company, a subscription made by the county to the stock of the Northwestern Railroad Company, was annulled and set aside, 'without prejudice, however, to any rights which third persons may have lawfully acquired as purchasers of the bonds issued on payment of the said stock.' And this ground is tenable. It is that which the Federal court for the second circuit (Grier, J.) has always taken. It has said (i), that it could not understand on what ground the constitutionality of acts authorizing these subscriptions could be maintained. But that the State court had maintained it, and that this was enough; (ii), that though the courts might, from a variety of causes, restrain an issue not yet made, still when the bonds were once issued and in the hands of innocent holders for value, that the county was bound to pay them. The distinction is one entirely obvious.

The bonds in this case import upon their face a compliance with the law. According to Commissioners of Knox County v. Aspinwall, the purchaser was not bound to look further for evidence of a compliance with the conditions of the grant of the power. The security was sold in a distant market. To require the purchaser to ascertain, at his peril, from an examination of the records of the county, whether facts authenticated by its proper officers and the seal of the county were true or not, would involve him in unreasonable trouble and expense, greatly impair the value and diminish the currency of such securities.

The act of Assembly did not require the company to accept the provisions of the gauge law at all. It simply declared in a proviso, 'that the acceptance of this act (May 4th, 1852) by the said company shall be deemed also an acceptance of the provisions of the act fixing the gauge of railroads in the County of Erie.' The acceptance was not made a condition precedent to the right to receive the benefit of the act authorizing counties to subscribe, but the acceptance of the act of 1852 involved an acceptance of the gauge law. The act of 1852 was accepted by the company's receiving the subscription of the county and the bonds issued in payment reciting a full compliance with the requirements of the law. This would have involved an acceptance of the provisions of the gauge law, had that law continued in force. It was, however, repealed before the construction of the railroad was commenced. A particular fact here requires to be stated: The report of Mercer County v. The Railroad Company, shows that I was of counsel for the company. On the trial of a subsequent cause against the company, I asserted that the case was decided upon a mistake of fact; the gauge law having been accepted by the company, evidence of which was before the court at the time the decision was made, and I read from the paper book before the court at the time of the decision, and furnished by the counsel of Mercer County, a resolution adopted at said meeting of stockholders, of the 24th of December, 1851, which proved what I asserted. When that resolution was read, one of the judges, Mr. Justice James Thompson, who resided at Erie, where the meeting of stockholders was held, and who had a profoundly intimate knowledge both of the facts and the law of these cases, remarked, that there was no doubt about the acceptance of the gauge law. The remaining judges acquiesced in silence. And thus the only support upon which the decision in that case rested was withdrawn. That case, having been so decided, is not an authority for anything.

It is true that in Diamond v. Lawrence County the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania declared, 'We have said, on several occasions, that we will not treat these bonds as negotiable securities.' The court admits, however, that '''on this ground we stand alone. All the courts, English and American, are against us''.' No reader of modern law will question the truth of the sentences italicized. But that case was exceptional. The community, in a state of intoxication about railroad subscriptions, had become wild. The voices of men of sense were not heard in an hour where madness ruled. The court determined to withstand this folly; the ardor civium prava jubentium. In taking a position, the judge, it is true, gives a 'flash of his cimeter' sufficiently alarming. But he did not mean to place his court in opposition to all the tribunals which the world most respects; nor, construing his announcement in a reasonable way, does he do so. At the moment when the transfer of the bond in suit was made there was a bill in equity pending, to restrain the transfer of all bonds of that sort; and his chief reliance was on this fact. Bona fides was scarce predicable in law of the transaction involved. And the language of the judge himself, in one part of his opinion, shows how little the dictum relied on by the other side entered into the grounds of the decree. It was but an answer to the argument, too much pressed at the bar, of what some courts in other States had done, and it meant no more than that the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania would not decree plain injustice upon the example of any or of all the courts of Christendom. After all, however, the court did not declare the bonds void. It allowed a recovery for what the railway company had actually received. The disrespect wrongly supposed to have been here expressed for precedent, and the apparent disregard of vested interests, destroyed with the profession everywhere the value of a case which, if the assumption of the court that bona fides did not exist was true, was itself rightly decided. The case was not well received in Pennsylvania when it was reported, and the clearer sense of the court is expressed in subsequent decisions, which, if Diamond v. Lawrence County decided what some have supposed, certainly overrule it. In the case of The Commonwealth v. The City of Pittsburg, it was declared that 'the holder of bonds, made payable to bearer, has a right to presume that they were issued and transferred in the mode agreed upon by the original parties; that he is not affected by any agreement between the obligor and obligee, that the latter should provide for the payment of the interest thereon.' This case goes almost the length of that of Commissioners of Knox County v. Aspinwall, as to the presumptions that arise in favor of the holder of this species of paper.

Why shall such instruments not be regarded as having the qualities of negotiable paper? When issued by corporations, as they always are, they are necessarily under seal; but they do not from that fact alone become specialties. A corporation, if speaking or acting in form, can speak or act only by the medium of a seal. It is the way in which as an artificial person it acts, or expresses itself; as natural ones express themselves by handwriting simply.

Mr. Justice GRIER delivered the opinion of the court:

title: Mercer County v. Hacket


text: Talk:Mercer County v. Hacket

title: Talk:Mercer County v. Hacket


text:
Mercer County v. Hacket/Opinion of the Court

The bonds declare on their face that the faith, credit, and property of the county is solemnly pledged, under the authority of certain acts of Assembly, and that in pursuance of said act the bonds were signed by the commissioners of the county. They are on their face complete and perfect; exhibiting no defect in form or substance; and the evidence offered is to show the recitals on the bonds are not true; not that no law exists to authorize their issue, but that the bonds were not made 'in pursuance of the acts of Assembly' authorizing them.

We have decided in the case of Commissioners of Knox County v. Aspinwall, that where the bonds on their face import a compliance with the law under which they were issued, the purchaser is not bound to look further. The decision of the board of commissioners may not be conclusive in a direct proceeding to inquire into the facts before the rights and interests of other parties had attached; but after the authority has been executed, the stock subscribed, and the bonds issued and in the hands of innocent holders, it would be too late, even in a direct proceeding, to call it in question.

The case of Mercer County v. The Railroad has been cited as governing this case. But on examination it will be found not to contradict the doctrine we have just stated. That was a bill in equity, praying an injunction against the issuing of a portion of the bonds not yet delivered over to the company, or negotiated by them. It charged that the commissioners had not pursued the conditions, limitations, and restrictions of the act that authorized their issue; that, by the act, 'all such subscriptions shall be made after and not before the amount of such subscriptions shall have been designated, advised, and recommended by a grand jury,' whereas the grand jury only 'recommended that the commissioners of Mercer County subscribe to the capital stock of the Pittsburg and Erie Railroad, to such amount and under such restrictions as may be required by the act of Assembly, by authorizing them to subscribe, to an amount not exceeding $150,000.' The bill charged also most gross frauds perpetrated by the company, which fully justified the decree of the court, without resorting to the very ingenious and rather astute criticism of the phraseology of the grand jury. It is true they recommend only, and have not used the words 'designate and advise' a subscription not to exceed $150,000. It would require no great latitude of construction to treat this, as the commissioners might justly do, as a substantial compliance with the act. But it would be contrary to good faith and common justice to permit them to allege a newly discovered construction of an equivocal power, after they have sold the bonds, and they have passed (as is admitted in this case) into the hands of bon a fide purchasers for value. It is proper to state that the construction given has the assent of only two of the judges of that learned court, so that it has not the force of precedent even if it applied to this case. But it is due also to them to say, that they intimate no opinion as to how far the reasons given for enjoining the further issue of the bonds ought to affect their validity in the hands of 'innocent holders.'

The proviso to the act authorizing the subscription declares, 'that the acceptance of this act shall be deemed also an acceptance of the provisions of the act passed the eleventh day of May, 1851, entitled 'An act fixing the gauges of railroads in the County of Erie." Now it is very plain that the acceptance of the bonds authorized by this act, operated per se as an acceptance of the gauge law. It needed no resolution of the railroad corporation on their minutes. They were estopped by law after receipt of the bonds, until they were afterwards released by statute from the condition. But if that were not sufficient, it may be stated as a matter of history, that on the 24th of December, 1851, the stockholders passed a resolution 'accepting and agreeing to be bound by the provisions of the act aforesaid, being an act fixing the gauge of railroads in Erie County.' This fact, though overlooked in the case last mentioned, was afterwards brought to the notice of the same court, on the trial of a subsequent cause between the same parties. As any subsequent resolution of the railroad company refusing compliance with this condition annexed by statute to their acceptance of the county subscriptions would be fraudulent and void, the court did not err in refusing to admit the evidence offered, or to permit the defendants to prove that the recitals of their bonds were untrue.

2. Can evidence of the fraud practised by the railroad company to whom these bonds were delivered, and by whom they were paid to bon a fide holders for value, or the fact that they were negotiated at less than their par value, be received to defeat the recovery of the plaintiff below?

This species of bonds is a modern invention, intended to pass by manual delivery, and to have the qualities of negotiable paper; and their value depends mainly upon this character. Being issued by States and corporations, they are necessarily under seal. But there is nothing immoral or contrary to good policy in making them negotiable, if the necessities of commerce require that they should be so. A mere technical dogma of the courts or the common law cannot prohibit the commercial world from inventing or using any species of security not known in the last century. Usage of trade and commerce are acknowledged by courts as part of the common law, although they may have been unknown to Bracton or Blackstone. And this malleability to suit the necessities and usages of the mercantile and commercial world is one of the most valuable characteristics of the common law. When a corporation covenants to pay to bearer and gives a bond with negotiable qualities, and by this means obtains funds for the accomplishment of the useful enterprises of the day, it cannot be allowed to evade the payment by parading some obsolete judicial decision that a bond, for some technical reason, cannot be made payable to bearer.

That these securities are treated as negotiable by the commercial usages of the whole civilized world, and have received the sanctions of judicial recognition, not only in this court, but of nearly every State in the Union, is well known and admitted.

But we have been referred to the case of Diamond v. Lawrence County, for a single decision to the contrary. The learned judge who delivered the opinion of the court in that case says, 'We will not treat these bonds as negotiable securities. On this ground we stand alone. All the courts, American and English, are against us. We know the history of these municipal and county bonds, how the legislature, yielding to popular excitement about railroads, authorized their issue; how grand jurors and county commissioners and city officers were moulded to the purposes of speculators; how recklessly railroad officers abused the overwrought confidence of the public, and what burdens of debt and taxation have resulted to the people,-a moneyed security was thrown upon the market by the paroxysm of the public mind,' &c.

If this decision of that learned court was founded on the construction of the constitution or statute law of the State, or the peculiar law of Pennsylvania as to titles to land, we would have felt bound to follow it. But we have often decided that on questions of mercantile or commercial law, or usages which are not peculiar to any place, we do not feel bound to yield our own judgment, especially if it be fortified by the decision of 'all other English and American courts.' These securities are not peculiar to Pennsylvania, or governed by its statutes or peculiar law.

Although we doubt not the facts stated as to the atrocious frauds which have been practised, in some counties, in issuing and obtaining these bonds, we cannot agree to overrule our own decisions and change the law to suit hard cases. The epidemic insanity of the people, the folly of county officers, the knavery of railroad 'speculators,' are pleas which might have just weight in an application to restrain the issue or negotiation of these bonds, but cannot prevail to authorize their repudiation, after they have been negotiated and have come into the possession of bon a fide holders.

In the case of Woods v. Lawrence County, as a corollary from the principles stated, we have decided, that in a suit brought on the coupons of these bonds by a bon a fide holder, his right to recover is not affected by the fact that the railroad company sold the bonds at a discount, contrary to the provisions of their charter, which forbids the sale of them at less than their par value.

As the evidence offered, and overruled by the court, could not have established a defence to the case made by the plaintiff below, the court did not err in refusing to receive it.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED WITH COSTS.


text: Talk:Mercer County v. Hacket/Opinion of the Court


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Bayne v. Morris

BAYNE & MORRIS having differences with each other, agreed to refer them to arbitrators, who besides being authorized to determine the amount to be paid, were authorized to award upon what terms, as to time and security, the payment should be made. On the 23d of January, 1858, the arbitrators made an award, and on the 26th of the same month made a second one. Both were received in evidence on the trial below, although the pleadings were framed solely with reference to the last one. This adjudged that Morris should pay to Bayne one sum on the 28th of July, 1858; a second sum on the 20th of January, 1859; and a third sum on the 20th of January, 1860; and that to secure the payment of these sums he should give to Bayne a bond with penalty and surety. No bond being given, Bayne, on the 28th of January, 1858, that is to say, before any of the sums awarded to be paid had fallen due, sued Morris in an action of debt; the declaration setting forth, that 'the defendant hath not given the said plaintiff the said bond for the security of the payments aforesaid, although often thereto requested; nor hath he paid the said money nor any part thereof, but the same to pay hath refused; whereby an action hath accrued to the said plaintiff to have the said sums of money or satisfactory security for the payment of the same, to the damage,' &c.

The court below (the Circuit Court for the District of Maryland), instructed the jury that if the suit was brought before either of the sums of money became due, the plaintiff could not recover, and the correctness of this ruling was the point, on error, here.

No considerable objection was taken below to the validity of the second award, that, to wit, of 26th of January.

Mr. Brent for the plaintiff in error, and Mr. Wallis contra.

Mr. Justice DAVIS, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court:

title: Bayne v. Morris


text: Talk:Bayne v. Morris

title: Talk:Bayne v. Morris


text:
Bayne v. Morris/Opinion of the Court

The court did not pass on the validity of the award as it should have done; but directed the jury to find against the plaintiff, on the ground that the action was premature, neither of the sums awarded to be paid being due when suit was brought.

It is clear that Bayne instituted his action because Morris would not give the security he was required to by the award. And on principle and authority, he had a right to sue when Morris refused to perform any material part of the award. The parties to the submission chose to say to the arbitrators, 'If you order anything to be paid, by one to the other, you must settle how the payment is to be secured.' The arbitrators did decide on the very point submitted to them, and direct the kind of security to be given, and on Morris's failure to give the bond as required he was in default, and a cause of action accrued. He had no right to say to Bayne, 'Wait until the instalments are due, and then I will elect whether or not to keep the award.' The provision for security was equally valid as the order for the payment of money; and it may be nearly as important. The right of action was as perfect, on Morris's refusal to give the penal bond, as it would have been after the credit allowed by the award had expired.

Where goods are sold on credit, and the purchaser agrees to give his note for them, and refuses to do so, it has been held that an action will lie before the credit expires, and that the measure of damages is the price of the goods. The court below, therefore, erred in charging the jury that the right to sue was in abeyance until the time limited by the award for the payment of the money had expired.

Inasmuch as this case is to be remanded, it is proper to say, that in the opinion of the court, the award of the 26th of January is inoperative and void. Arbitrators exhaust their power when they make a final determination on the matters submitted to them. They have no power after having made an award to alter it; the authority conferred on them is then at an end.

Bayne can, if so advised, amend his pleadings and test the correctness of the first award; which not being properly in the case has not been considered by the court, and no opinion is therefore given on the question of its validity.

JUDGMENT REVERSED AND VENIRE AWARDED.

title: Bayne v. Morris/Opinion of the Court


text: Talk:Bayne v. Morris/Opinion of the Court


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Burr v. Des Moines Railroad and Navigation Company

THIS was a writ of error, in an action of ejectment, to the Circuit Court for the District of Iowa; the plaintiff in error having been also plaintiff below.

The record (or document so called), which was brought before the Supreme Court, after reciting the pleadings, and that the parties had appeared and waived a jury, showed that the following judgment had been rendered by the court

'The evidence having been seen and examined by the court, and the arguments of counsel heard, it is now considered and adjudged that the court do find the issue in favor of the defendant, and that the plaintiff take nothing by his petition. Whereupon it is ordered that the defendant recover of the plaintiff his costs in this behalf expended, taxed, &c., and that he have execution therefor.'

Then came a certificate of the clerk to the record, certifying that what preceded the certificate contained 'a true, full, and perfect copy of the plaintiff's petition and replication, of the defendant's answer, and of all the proceedings of the court in the above-named cause.'

After this followed thirty-six pages of printed matter, annexed to which was another certificate of the clerk, certifying, 'that the foregoing twenty pages of print and writing are a true copy of the agreed statement of facts filed in the foregoing cause, as the same remains on file, it being all the evidence upon which the cause was submitted.'

This 'agreed statement of facts' consisted of acts of Congress and statutes of Iowa; of opinions of Attorneys-General of the United States; of decisions of the Secretaries of the Treasury and Interior Departments, and numerous letters between those officers and members of Congress, and other persons interested in the several land grants made by Congress to the State of Iowa for purposes of internal improvement; of various matters admitted by the one party and the other; the whole constituting a perplexing mass of law and evidence. At the close of 'the record' was the following statement:

'If, upon the whole case, the title of the plaintiff to said lands has not failed, but, under the defendants' deed to him, and the subsequent legislation by Congress, he has acquired a good title to said lands, the defendants are entitled to judgment and to costs of suit.

'This cause is submitted, without a jury, upon the foregoing agreed statement of facts; but it is expressly agreed that the matters and things herein stated are only to be taken for what they are legally worth; and that all objections on account of immateriality or irrelevancy are reserved by the parties respectively; and may be urged and considered by the parties, and by the court, upon the argument and in the decision.'

Notwithstanding the reservation of the right to do so, it appeared that no objection had been taken on the trial to the materiality or relevancy of any of the mass of testimony above described, nor to any ruling of the court on the law arising on the facts. The paper just quoted was not signed by counsel, nor entered on the record of the court, nor made a part of the record of the case by bill of exceptions, or in any other manner. In fact, no bill of exceptions was taken in the suit.

The case was argued here, on the large mass of testimony brought up, on its merits and as if the record had been in form, by Mr. Gilbert for the plaintiff in error, and by Messrs. Mason and Tracy on the other side.

Mr. Justice MILLER, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court:


text: Talk:Burr v. Des Moines Railroad and Navigation Company


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Burr v. Des Moines Railroad and Navigation Company/Opinion of the Court

It is very clear that a paper not signed by counsel, nor entered on the record of the court, nor made part of the record of the case by bill of exceptions, or in any other manner, cannot be considered by this court as the foundation on which it is to affirm or reverse the case. It is probable, from the language of the closing paragraph, that the parties considered it as an agreed statement of facts, on which the court below might decide the law, and on which this court would review that decision. And it is quite true that this court has decided, in the case of The United States v. Eliason, and in several cases since that one, that this may be done.

But in order to bring such a case properly before this court, two things are essential, which are wanting in the present case.

1. The agreed statement of facts must, in some manner in the court below, be made a part of the record of the case. The case of The United States v. Eliason shows, that it was strongly urged upon this court that it had been laid down by Sir Wm. Blackstone in his Commentaries, and by Stephen in his Treatise on Pleadings, that error did not lie on such a statement. The court, however, said that the reason for this was, that in the English practice, the agreed statement was not like a special verdict entered on the record, and the appellate court could not therefore notice it. But that in the practice of our courts such agreements are signed by 'the counsel, and spread upon the record at large as part thereof.' And thus they become technically a part of the record, into which the appellate court look, with the other parts of it, to ascertain if there be error.

2. The statement of facts on which this court will inquire, if there is or is not error in the application of the law to them, is a statement of the ultimate facts or propositions which the evidence is intended to establish, and not the evidence on which those ultimate facts are supposed to rest. The statement must be sufficient in itself, without inferences or comparisons, or balancing of testimony, or weighing evidence, to justify the application of the legal principles which must determine the case. It must leave none of the functions of a jury to be discharged by this court, but must have all the sufficiency, fulness, and perspicuity of a special verdict. If it requires of the court to weigh conflicting testimony, or to balance admitted facts, and deduce from these the propositions of fact on which alone a legal conclusion can rest, then it is not such a statement as this court can act upon. The paper before us 'is evidence of facts, and not the facts themselves as agreed or found.' It is obvious that if the whole of this paper were presented by a jury as a special verdict, it would be objectionable, as presenting the evidence of facts, and not the facts themselves, which must determine the issue.

Cases of a character nearly allied to this have been frequently before this court, and although the opinions delivered are not always reconcilable in every respect, it is believed that they speak but one language as to the two propositions here laid down.

The paper which we have been considering being rejected, there is nothing before the court by which it can determine whether the judgment of the court below is right or wrong.

The legal presumption is in favor of the correctness of that judgment, but as the parties here have all considered the case as turning on the evidence which we have refused to consider, and have so argued it, and as it was, no doubt, prepared with a view to obtaining the opinion of this court on the case there stated, we have determined to dismiss the writ of error, thus leaving the parties at liberty, if they can do so by a proper agreement in the court below, to remove the difficulties which now prevent this court from reviewing the case.

CASE DISMISSED WITH COSTS.


text: Talk:Burr v. Des Moines Railroad and Navigation Company/Opinion of the Court


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United States v. Sepulveda

BY acts of Congress, of March 3d, 1851, and of August 31st, 1852, the District Courts of the United States for California, were authorized, on appeal from the Board of Land Commissioners, which body was empowered to settle any claim to land in California that any person might set up by virtue of any right or title derived from the Spanish or Mexican government,-'to decide upon the validity of the said claim.' One of the statutes proceeded to enact for 'all claims finally confirmed by the said commissioners, a patent shall issue to the claimant upon his presenting to the land office an authentic certificate of such confirmation; and a plat or survey of the said land duly approved by the Surveyor-General of California, whose duty,' the act goes on to say, 'it shall be to cause all private claims which shall be finally confirmed, to be accurately surveyed and to furnish plats of the same.' By a third act,-the act of June 14th, 1860, -new powers were given to the District Courts of California, and they now received authority to order into court 'any survey' of private claims, and to decide on it.

But this act did not in any express terms, perhaps in no terms at all, extend to surveys made prior to its passage, except they happened to be 'surveys previously made and approved by the Surveyor-General, which had been at the passage of the act returned into the District Court, or in relation to which proceedings were then pending for the purpose of contesting or reforming the same;' a class of surveys within which the present one did not come.

In 1852, Sepulveda and others presented their claim to the board of commissioners for confirmation of a grant which had been made to them under the Mexican government. In 1853 the board adjudged the claim to be valid, and entered a decree for its confirmation. The case having been removed by appeal to the District Court, the attorney-general gave notice that the appeal would not be prosecuted; and upon motion of the district attorney, in pursuance of such notice, the court ordered that the appeal be dismissed, and that the claimants have leave to proceed upon the decree of the commissioners as upon a final decree. The land, the claim to which was thus confirmed, was now surveyed by direction of the Surveyor-General of the United States for California (as one of the statutes already mentioned directs that in such case it may be), and in 1859 the survey was approved by him. In 1860, the District Court, upon the suggestion of the district attorney that the survey did not conform to the final decree, ordered the Surveyor-General to return into court (as the statute of 1860 plainly gave the court authority to do by a certain class of surveys) a plat of this survey. The court, on hearing, held that there was error in part of the survey, and decreed that certain corrections should be made by a new survey. From this decree the case was now brought here by appeal: the principal question raised by the appeal being, of course, the right of the District Court, under the act of June 14th, 1860, to order the correction of a survey made prior to the passage of the act.

Mr. Wills, in favor of the right, relied on United States v. Fossatt, in this court, as being in point. A motion was made in that case-one similar, in many respects, he remarked, to the present,-to dismiss an appeal; the ground of the motion being that the decrees of the board of commissioners relate only to the question of the validity of the claim, and that by the term 'validity' is meant 'authenticity,' 'legality,' and in some cases, 'interpretation,' but not in any case, 'location,' 'extent,' or 'boundary.' The court asks, 'What are the questions involved in the inquiry into the validity of a claim to land?' and it answers thus: 'It may present questions of the genuineness and authenticity of title, and whether the evidence is forged or fraudulent, or, it may present an inquiry into the authority of the officer to make the grant. . . or, it may disclose questions of the capacity of the grantee to take, or whether the claim has been abandoned or is a subsisting title. But in addition to these questions upon the vitality of title, there may arise questions of the extent, quantity, location, and legal operation, that are equally essential in determining the validity of the claim.' The District Court was accordingly ordered 'to ascertain the external lines of the land.'

Mr. Justice FIELD delivered the opinion of the court:

title: United States v. Sepulveda


text: Talk:United States v. Sepulveda

title: Talk:United States v. Sepulveda


text:
United States v. Sepulveda/Opinion of the Court

The jurisdiction of the District Court to supervise and correct the action of the Surveyor-General in this case is not derived from the act of June 14th, 1860. That act applies to surveys subsequently made, with certain exceptions, within which the present case does not fall. The exceptions embrace only those surveys previously made and approved by the Surveyor-General, which had been, at the passage of the act, returned into the District Courts, or in relation to which proceedings were then pending for the purpose of contesting or reforming the same. The jurisdiction is asserted independent of the act of 1860, upon the authority of the decision of this court in the case of the United States v. Fossatt. In that case the decree had been rendered by the District Court, and it was held that the jurisdiction of the court extended not merely to the determination of questions relating to the genuineness and authenticity of the grant presented, and its efficacy in transferring the title, but also to questions relating to its location and boundaries; and that for the settlement of these latter questions, the power of the court over the case did not terminate until the issue of the patent conformably to its decree.

Previous to the act of 1860, the jurisdiction of the board and of the District Court, on appeal, was derived entirely from the act of March 3d, 1851, and the act of August 31st, 1852; and when the claims presented were adjudged valid and confirmed, the duty devolved upon the Surveyor-General to cause them to be surveyed. 'For all claims finally confirmed,' says the statute, 'by the said commissioners, or by the said District or Supreme Court, a patent shall issue to the claimant upon his presenting to the General Land Office an authentic certificate of such confirmation, and a plat or survey of the said land, duly certified and approved by the Surveyor-General of California, whose duty it shall be to cause all private claims which shall be finally confirmed to be accurately surveyed, and to furnish plats of the same.' The action of the surveyor in this respect was not in terms made subject to the control of the board or court; it was only made returnable to the Commissioner of the General Land Office at Washington, who was invested, by the previous legislation of Congress, with a general supervision over the acts of all subordinate officers charged with making surveys. Whatever jurisdiction the District Court may have possessed to enforce the execution by the Surveyor-General of its own decrees, it possessed no control over the execution of the decrees of the board.

It is true that for the determination of the validity of the claims presented some consideration must have been had of their extent, location, and boundaries. The petitions of the claimants must necessarily have designated, with more or less precision, such extent and location. And where the grants were by metes and bounds, or where proceedings before Mexican authorities, such as took place upon a juridical delivery of possession, had established the boundaries, or where from any other source pending the proceedings for a confirmation the boundaries were indicated, it was proper for the board to declare them in its decrees. And such was the course adopted in numerous instances. But in the majority of cases the grants of the Mexican governors were for a certain specified quantity of land lying within exterior boundaries embracing a much larger tract, and in relation to which no proceedings were ever taken by the former government for its measurement and segregation. In such cases, a confirmation of the claim was only a judicial determination of the right of the claimant to have a specific quantity set apart to him out of a general tract. And the duty of the board was discharged by a confirmation of the claim in the general terms of the grant, leaving the specific quantity designated to be surveyed and laid off by the proper officers of the government, to whom the subject of surveys was intrusted. With the surveys following the decrees of the board the District Court had nothing to do.

The surveys of confirmed Mexican grants, particularly when they are for quantities lying within exterior boundaries embracing larger tracts, involve the consideration of various matters, not properly the subject of judicial inquiry. In numerous instances, the location of the quantity confirmed, whether it shall be on one or the other side of the general tract, may depend upon the past or intended action of the government with reference to the surplus. Portions of the general tract may be required, and, therefore, be properly reserved from the location, for public purposes. The act of 1860 creates a new jurisdiction in the court, which cannot be assumed independent of the act, and under it should be exercised only in cases coming clearly within its language.

The decree of the District Court revising the action of the Surveyor-General and correcting his survey, must, therefore, be reversed, and the court directed to dismiss the proceedings for want of jurisdiction. If the survey does not conform to the decree of the board, the remedy must be sought from the Commissioner of the General Land Office before the patent issues, and not in the District Court.

DECREE ACCORDINGLY.


text: Talk:United States v. Sepulveda/Opinion of the Court


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State of Minnesota v. Bachelder

1. Neither the Act of Congress of 83d arch, 1849—the organic law of the Territory of Minnesota, which declared that when the public lands in that Territory shall be surveyed, certain sections, designated by numbers, shall be and "hereby are" "reserved for the purpose of being applied to schools"—nor the subsequent act of February 26th, 1857, providing for the admission of that Territory into the Union—and making the same reservation for the same object—amounts so completely to a "dedication," in the stricter legal sense of that word, of these sections to school purposes, that Congress, with the assent of the Territorial legislature, could not bring them within the terms of the Pre-emption Act of 1841, and give them to settlers who, on the faith of that act, which had been extended in 1854 to this Territory, had settled on and improved them.

2. The decisions of the receiver and register of lands for the Territory of Minnesota are not of conclusive efficacy. They may be inquired into and declared inoperative by courts.

8. Error will lie to the Supreme Court of a State, under the 25th section of the Judiciary Act, where a statute of the United States is technically in issue in the pleadings, or is relied on in them and is decided against by rulings asked for and refused, even though the case may have been disposed of generally by the court on other grounds.

THIS was a writ of error to the Supreme Court of the State of Minnesota, and was taken under the 25th section of the Judiciary Act of 1789, which gives a writ of error here in any case where is drawn in question any clause of the Constitution, or of a treaty, or statute, or commission, held under the United States, and the decision is against the right, title, privilege or exemption specially set up or claimed by either party under such clause of the Constitution, treaty, statute or commission.

The case was thus: By the act of March 3d, 1849, the organic law of the Territory of Minnesota, was enacted "that [p110] when the lands in said Territory shall be surveyed, sections 16 and 36 shall be and the same hereby are reserved for the purpose of being applied to schools." A subsequent act, that of February 26th, 1857, providing for the admission of this Territory into the Union, repeats this enactment, declaring that these same numbered sections of the public lands (and in case either of said sections or any part of them has been sold or otherwise disposed of, other lands equivalent thereto and as contiguous as may be), shall be granted to said State for the use of schools.

Notwithstanding this intended devotion to purposes of education of these sections Nos. 16 and 36, Congress, by an act of 1854, declared that the provisions of what is known as the Pre-emption Act of 1841, should extend to lands in Minnesota. The result was that great numbers of persons settled all over the State, and not unfrequently settled, in different townships, upon tracts which, when the tracts came to be surveyed, proved to bear the numbers 16 and 36. In consequence of this state of things, the Territorial legislature of Minnesota presented a memorial to Congress for a remedy. The memorial stated, that by reason of the extension of the Pre-emption Act to Minnesota, many settlers had settled and made improvements by the erection of costly buildings and otherwise upon farms, which, when the government surveys were made, were found to be included within the school sections, and that it would be unjust to compel these persons to repurchase or lose their improvements thus made in good faith and with the expectation of a pre-emption of the lot, and recommended the passage of a law which should meet the hardship of such cases. Accordingly, on the 3d of March, 1857, that is to say, after the above-mentioned act, providing for the admission of the Territory into the Union, but before the acceptance of that act by the Convention of the State, and so before the actual incorporation of the State into the Union, Congress passed a joint resolution, which provided, that where any settlements by [p111] the erection of a dwelling-house, or the cultivation of any portion of the land, shall have been or shall be made upon these 16th or 36th sections, before the said sections shall have been or shall be surveyed, & c.; and if such settlers can bring themselves within the Pre-emption Act, then the right of preference to such sections or portions of them so settled and occupied shall be in them, the same as if such sections had not been previously reserved.

The present suit arose accordingly out of this condition of the law, and was an ejectment for a tract numbered 16, by the State of Minnesota, in behalf of its schools, against one Bachelder, the defendant, who claimed under the rights given by the joint resolution just above set forth. Bachelder set up as his defence pre-emption certificates and a patent, dated August 15th, 1857, to two persons of the name of Mills,—L. and J. Mills,—from whom he showed title to himself.

To this the plaintiff replied, that these had all been obtained by fraud and misrepresentations; that the Millses did not settle on the premises, did not build a house there, nor make any improvements prior to the government survey of the sections; that in granting the papers which he had granted, the register and receiver had been deceived as well by misrepresentations of the Millses as by the false oath of one George Dazner, whom they produced to swear to facts which did not exist, but whose existence was necessary to bring the parties within the Pre-emption Act. But the court, neither on a demurrer by the State of Minnesota to a replication by Bachelder, nor on its offers to prove these facts before a jury, considered them as making a reply to the case of the defendants, as exhibited by his certificates and patents; ruling in effect that the decision of the register and receiver could not be reviewed nor inquired into by the court, and that the remedy of the State was through the commissioner of said office or the Secretary of the Interior.

The statutes of the United States devoting the sections to school purposes were put technically in the pleadings; their binding force relied on by counsel and pressed upon the [p112] court, and rulings under them asked for and refused, and the refusal excepted to; but although, by being set out in the pleadings and exceptions, and by rulings against them, they were technically drawn in question and decided against, yet the actual ground of the decision was as just stated rather than specially against the statutes.

The correctness of the view taken by the court below, as to the effect of the register and receiver's acts, as also the right of the State to have a writ of error from this court to the Supreme Court of Minnesota, when the statutes of the United States had not been otherwise drawn in question than as mentioned, were now the questions here; the former question being made by the plaintiff in error, the State of Minnesota, and the latter by the other side.

Mr. Cole, A. G., of Minnesota, for the plaintiff: The joint resolution of Congress is void. It cannot divest a title which the United States had previously granted. The organic act of the Territory constituted a dedication to public uses, perpetual and irrevocable, and whatever might have been its effect upon the naked fee, at least divested Congress of all power of disposition over the subject-matter, so far as such disposition should tend to impair the public rights created by that act. The doctrine of dedications was first announced in Strange's Reports, A.D. 1725, and applied to highways. Since then it has been vastly extended. The donations of magnificent domains, by Congress, for the promotion of learning and the liberal arts in the rising communities of the West, afford instances not the least striking and interesting of such extension, and have induced more liberal views. Thus the doctrine has in New York been applied to a public square. So it has also in Vermont. In the former State it has been extended to a gift for religious purposes; while in Pennsylvania it reaches any property devoted to purposes of general education.

[p113] If dedicated, the power of Congress over it was gone. In Wilcox v. Jackson (13 Peters, 498), the court say: "Whenever a tract of land shall have been once legally appropriated to any purpose, from that moment the land thus appropriated becomes reserved from the mass of the public lands, and no subsequent law or proclamation, or sale, would be construed to embrace it or to operate upon it, although no reservation were made of it." And in the same case the court signify that "the same principle will apply to any land which by authority of law shall have been severed from the public mass."

Neither is the case helped by the memorial from the Territorial legislature. The organic act (§ 18), indicates an intention to consecrate these lands for the benefit of the generations who should in future inhabit the State; and while divesting Congress of all power of disposition over them, to withhold it from any other body then in existence. They are reserved "for the purpose of being applied to schools in said Territory, and in the States and Territories hereafter to be erected out of the same." They were not granted to the Territory, and were in no sense its property.

For the defendant: The error of the argument is in assuming this to be a "dedication" in the legal meaning of the word. In Post v. Piersoll, long since the time of Strange, the Supreme Court of New York decided that a dedication must be confined to a highway. It may have been much extended since, but this is not within the legal meaning of the word.

No writ of error lies here from the Supreme Court of Minnesota; for no statute of the United States has been drawn in question and decided against. The court ruled that it could not go behind the acts of the register and receiver, and so disposed of the case. The fact that the statutes of the United States were presented in the pleadings and were disposed of adversely by a judgment which was based on other grounds, the argument from the statutes falling, in fact, only with the case generally, is not enough.

[p114] Reply: Crowell v. Randall (10 Peters, 368), decides, "that it is not necessary that the question should appear on the record to have been raised, and the decision made in direct and positive terms, but that it is sufficient if it appear by clear and necessary intendment that the question must have been raised and must have been decided in order to have induced the judgment." Neither is it necessary that the treaty or act of Congress under which the party claims shall be specially pleaded or spread upon the record. Hickey v. Starke (1 Peters, 94).

The converse of the rule holds also true. Here the statutes were drawn in question, by being on the record and issue so taken to them, or by being made the subject of a request for rulings not given; a fact apparent in the bill of exceptions. When judgment was given against the State, or the rulings refused, they were decided "against," in the most exact and authoritative form of legal understanding.

title: State of Minnesota v. Bachelder


text: Talk:State of Minnesota v. Bachelder

title: Talk:State of Minnesota v. Bachelder


text:
State of Minnesota v. Bachelder/Opinion of the Court

Mr. Justice NELSON delivered the opinion of the court:

It is not important to inquire as to the power of Congress to pass this law independently of any application from the Territorial legislature, as the assent of the people through their convention, by coming into the Union as a State, upon the terms proposed, must be regarded as binding the State. The right of the State to the school sections within it must, therefore, be subject to the modification contained in the joint resolution, and that modification is, that in case a person shall have made a settlement upon any school section, by the erection of a dwelling-house on the same, or the cultivation of any portion of it before the survey; and further, can bring himself within the provisions of the Pre-emption Act of 1841, he shall be entitled to the section thus improved, in preference to any title of the State.

This was the state of the law in respect to these school sections in Minnesota, at the time of the application of L. and J. Mills to the register and receiver for the pre-emption of the premises in question, and of the issuing of the patent certificates by them, August 15th, 1857.

[p115] As we have seen, the defendant, who claims under L. and J. N. Mills, relies on these patent certificates and the patents issued in pursuance thereof.

To these the plaintiff replies that they were obtained by fraud and misrepresentation; that L. and J. Mills did not settle on the premises, nor erect a dwelling-house thereon, nor make any improvements on the same, previous to the survey of the sections by the government; and besides their false representations to the register and receiver, they procured one George Dazner to make a false affidavit as evidence of the settlements, erection of the dwelling-houses and improvements before these officers. The court below refused to give any effect to these facts as set forth in the pleadings, or as offered to be proved on the issues of fact before the jury, and the ground taken to uphold these rulings is, that the decision of the register and receiver and certificates issued were conclusive upon the court, and not revisable or to be inquired into; and that the remedy of the party aggrieved was by an application to the Commissioner of the Land Office or Secretary of the Interior.

These questions have been so often before this court, and were so fully considered in the last case (Lindsey et al. v. Hawes et al.), where the authorities are collected, that it would be a waste of time to re-examine them.

A court of equity will look into the proceedings before the register and receiver, and even into those of the land office or other offices, where the right of property of the party is involved, and correct errors of law or of fact to his prejudice. The proceedings are ex parte and summary before these officers, and no notice is contemplated or provided for by the pre-emption laws as to parties holding adverse interests, nor do they contemplate a litigation of the right between the applicant for a pre-emption claim with a third party. The question as contemplated is between the settler and the government, and if a compliance with the conditions is shown to the satisfaction of the officers, the patent certificate is granted.

[p116] The court below, therefore, erred in their rulings on the demurrer, and also on the trial of the issues in fact.

A point is made under the 25th section of the Judiciary Act, that this court has no jurisdiction to reverse the judgment of the court below. But the right of the State to these school sections rests upon acts of Congress, which were set up and relied on in this case, and the decision of the court below against it.

The judgment of the court below is reversed, with costs, and the cause remanded, with directions to enter judgment overruling the demurrer to plaintiff's replications, and to issue venire de novo, &c.


text: Talk:State of Minnesota v. Bachelder/Opinion of the Court


text: Bridge Proprietors v. Hoboken Company

title: Bridge Proprietors v. Hoboken Company


text: Talk:Bridge Proprietors v. Hoboken Company