Sullivan v. State of Texas
Decision Date | 06 January 1908 |
Docket Number | No. 91,91 |
Citation | 52 L.Ed. 274,28 S.Ct. 215,207 U.S. 416 |
Parties | D. SULLIVAN, Plff. in Err., v. STATE OF TEXAS |
Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
This case comes to us from a state court and our jurisdiction is invoked on the ground of a law of the state charged to work an impairment of the obligation of a contract. The facts are that in 1834 the Mexican state of Tamaulipas granted to Pedro de la Garza a tract of land. The grant, signed by the governor, recited that the grantee had paid the appraised value, $204; that the grant contained
Accompanying the grant was a plat showing an irregular hexagon and a survey made by Antonio Canales, as follows:
The inclination to the southeast of the Olmos creek figured in the survey of the irregular hexagon, which appears depicted, which contains 6 leagues of pasture land for large cattle and 20,782,500 square varas according to the units fixed by the law of the state for agrarian measures. The angular boundaries and most notable places which were defined were the following: A, boundary of the Alcatraz; B, boundary of San Antonio of the waterfall; C, boundary of Sacramento; D, boundary of San Francisco; r, lateral boundary of this pasture and angular of the Santa Rosa de Abajo, called San Pedro; e, lake of the sheep pen; m, n, ponds and heights of the waterfall; o, the little pond. The rectangle h, i, g, l was ceded to this pasture by citizen Pedro Villareal, of which it was defined in the terms which appear in the file of this survey, A. M. B., the Olmos creek. The survey was made with the greatest exactness, remeasuring the cord every half league and correcting the 10 leagues of declination to the northeast, which the compass needle has in these lands. This pasture is bounded on the north by the creek, on the east by the pasture of Paistle, and on the rest by vacant lands.
Carmargo, Dec. 5th, 1832.
Antonio Canales.
Thereafter Tamaulipas became a part of Texas, and that state, on February 10, 1852, passed an act confirming this among other grants. The act of confirmation, so far as is material, provided by § 1 Section 2 of the act is as follows:
In May, 1859, Felix A. Blucher, a deputy district surveyor of the district, made a survey, the field notes and a plat of which were in August, 1869, filed in the General Land Office. The field notes commenced with the statement:
'Field notes of a survey of 8 leagues and 12 labors of land made for Wm. G. Hale and F. J. Parker, the assigness of Pedro de la Garza, this being the quantity of land to which they are entitled by virtue of a grant from the state of Tamaulipas dated on the 3d day of July, A. D. 1834. Surveyed in accordance with an act of the legislature of the state of Texas, approved Feb'y 10th, 1852, and entitled 'An Act to Relinquish the Right of the State to Certain Lands Therein Named, This Being Part of Confirmation Numbered 103 for the County of Starr in Said Act."
This survey was not approved, and the field notes were indorsed by the Commissioner of the General Land Office in these words:
No patent was ever issued for the land or any part of it. On September 3, 1901, the legislature of the state of Texas passed an act, § 11 of which is as follows:
In pursuance of this section this suit was brought, the original petition having been filed September 24, 1902.
The defendant holds title under the original grantee of the state of Tamaulipas, and was, and had been for many years, in possession of the entire tract of over 10 leagues surveyed by Blucher, claiming title to all in his possession. The state, conceding his title to 6 1/2 leagues, contended that all in excess was still its property. The case was tried before the court without a jury and a judgment entered in behalf of the state for three tracts, which the court found to be outside the boundaries of the original Mexican grant. The court of civil appeals in and for the third supreme judicial district...
To continue reading
Request your trial-
State v. Balli, 8187; Motion No. 16405.
...Tex.Civ.App. 171, 94 S.W. 95; State v. Corrigan, 94 S.W. 101; Sullivan v. State, 41 Tex.Civ.App. 89, 95 S.W. 645; Sullivan v. Texas, 207 U.S. 416, 28 S.Ct. 215, 52 L.Ed. 274. We quote again from Clark v. Hills, 67 Tex. 141, 2 S.W. 356, 358: "In cases where the grant of a former government i......
-
Eichelberger v. Eichelberger
...303 U.S. 59, 58 S.Ct. 28, 82 L.Ed. 515 (1937), Reh. denied, 303 U.S. 666, 58 S.Ct. 640, 82 L.Ed. 1123 (1938); Sullivan v. Texas, 207 U.S. 416, 28 S.Ct. 215, 52 L.Ed. 274 (1908). See also Powell v. Texas, 392 U.S. 514, 88 S.Ct. 2145, 20 L.Ed.2d 1254 (1968); Stanford v. Texas, 379 U.S. 476, 8......
-
Prihoda v. McCaughtry
...a State in which a decision could be had"--that is, the highest court that has rendered decision on the merits. Sullivan v. Texas, 207 U.S. 416, 28 S.Ct. 215, 52 L.Ed. 274 (1908); American Railway Express Co. v. Levee, 263 U.S. 19, 20-21, 44 S.Ct. 11, 12-13, 68 L.Ed. 140 (1923). See also Ke......
-
Adam v. Saenger
...of the state in which a judgment could be had. Bacon v. Texas, 163 U.S. 207, 215, 16 S.Ct. 1023, 41 L.Ed. 132; Sullivan v. Texas, 207 U.S. 416, 28 S.Ct. 215, 52 L.Ed. 274; San Antonio Railway Co. v. Wagner, 241 U.S. 476, 36 S.Ct. 626, 60 L.Ed. 1110; American Railway Express Co. v. Levee, 26......