Hugh Stevenson v. William Fain

• Decision Date: 07 November 1904
• Docket Number: No. 8,8
• Citation: 25 S.Ct. 6,195 U.S. 165,49 L.Ed. 142
• Parties: HUGH STEVENSON, Matilda C. Alloway, Paul E. Stevenson, et all., Appts . v. WILLIAM FAIN, John Fain, Robert Fain, et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

195 U.S. 165

25 S.Ct. 6

49 L.Ed. 142

HUGH STEVENSON, Matilda C. Alloway, Paul E. Stevenson, et all., Appts.

v WILLIAM FAIN, John Fain, Robert Fain, et al.

No. 8.

Argued and submitted October 18, 19, 1904.

Decided November 7, 1904.

Messrs.

This was a bill filed by Stevenson and others, citizens and residents of New York and Rhode Island, against Fain and others, citizens and residents of North Carolina and Georgia, in the circuit court of the United States for the eastern district of Tennessee, to remove a cloud upon the title to a body of wild lands lying adjacent to the boundary between Tennessee and North Carolina.

Complainants claimed title under grants from the state of Tennessee, and alleged that the lands lay wholly in Monroe county, Tennessee. Defendants alleged that the lands lay wholly within the county of Cherokee, in the state of North Carolina, and that they were lawfully granted to their ancestor by that state.

The issue involved the true boundary line between North Carolina and Tennessee. The circuit court held that the lands lay in the state of North Carolina, and that the title was in defendants, and dismissed the bill.

Thereupon an appeal was taken to the circuit court of appeals for the sixth circuit, and, on hearing, the decree of the circuit court was affirmed. 53 C. C. A. 467, 116 Fed. 147.

From the decree of the circuit court of appeals this appeal was prosecuted.

T. S. Webb, Hu. L. McClung, Charles Seymour, and L. M. G. Baker for appellants.

Messrs. John W. Green and Samuel G. Shields for appellees.

Mr. Chief Justice Fuller delivered the opinion of the court:

If the jurisdiction of the circuit court was dependent entirely on diversity of citizenship, the decree of the circuit court of appeals was final, and this appeal cannot be maintained. The contention of appellants is that it was not so dependent because jurisdiction also existed in that the parties claimed under grants from different states, to which it is replied that, under the Constitution and laws, the circuit courts are not vested with jurisdiction on that ground except when the parties are citizens of the same state.

By § 1 of article 3 of the Constitution it is provided that "the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may, from time to time, ordain and establish." And by § 2 that "the judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority; to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls; to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; to controversies to which the United States shall be a party; to controversies between two or more states, between a state and citizens of another state, between citizens of different states, between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants of different states, and between a state, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens, or subjects. 2. In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations, as the Congress shall make."

The Supreme Court alone "possesses jurisdiction derived immediately from the Constitution, and of which the legislative power cannot deprive it" (United States v. Hudson, 7 Cranch, 32, 3 L. ed. 259), but the jurisdiction of the circuit courts depends upon some act of Congress (Turner v. Bank of North America, 4 Dall. 8, 10, 1 L. ed. 718, 719; M'Intire v. Wood, 7 Cranch, 504, 506, 3 L. ed. 420, 421).

The use of the word "controversies" as in contradistinction to the word "cases," and the omission of the word 'all' in respect of controversies, left it to Congress to define the controversies over which the courts it was empowered to ordain and establish might exercise jurisdiction, and the manner in which it was to be done.

By the 11th section of the judiciary act of September 24, 1789, it was provided that the circuit courts of the United States should "have original cognizance, concurrent with the courts of the several states, of all suits of a civil nature, at common law or in equity, where the matter in dispute exceeds, exclusive of costs, the sum or value of five hundred dollars, and the United States are plaintiffs or petitioners, or an alien is a party, or the suit is between a citizen of the state where the suit is brought and a citizen of another state." [1 Stat. at L. 78, chap. 20.]

In Bank of United States v. Deveaux, 5 Cranch, 61, 85, 3 L. ed. 38, 44, Mr. Chief Justice Marshall said:

"The judicial power of the United States, as defined in the Constitution, is dependent, 1st, on the nature of the case; and, 2d, on the character of the parties. By the judicial act, the jurisdiction of the circuit court is extended to cases where the constitutional right to plead and be impleaded, in the courts of the Union, depends on the character of the parties; but where that right depends on the nature of the case, the circuit courts derive no jurisdiction from that act, except in the single case of a controversy between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants from different states."

And that jurisdiction was conferred by the 12th section of the act, which provided that "if in any action commenced in a state...