Baker v. Morton

• Decision Date: 01 December 1870
• Parties: BAKER v. MORTON
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

79 U.S. 150

20 L.Ed. 262

12 Wall. 150

BAKER v. MORTON.

December Term, 1870

APPEAL from the Circuit Court for the District of Nebraska; the case was this:

In the spring of 1857 there existed, near Omaha, in the then Territory of Nebraska, an organization known as the Omaha Claim Club. The object and purpose of the club was to nullify the land laws of the United States, to the end that the members of the club, who were engaged in land speculations, might hold and control the public lands in the vicinity of Omaha to the exclusion of actual settlers. The club numbered from 100 to 200 men. It made laws and promulgated decrees to suit its purposes, and enforced their observance with revolvers, guns, bayonets, ropes, and other appliances. It was regularly officered. The sheriff of the county, secretary of the Territory, mayor of the city, and register and receiver of the land office, all held high positions in the club. It had stated meetings, and when any supposed exigency should arrive the band would assemble at an hour's notice and be ready for business. It drove actual settlers from their claims, burned down their cabins, and marched the settlers, surrounded by armed men, to the land office of the United States, and compelled them to withdraw their applications for land. If the subject was obstinate, he was taken to the Missouri River, and, with a rope around his neck, thrown in and pulled out, and thrown in again, and the operation repeated as often as might be necessary in order 'to bring the subject to his senses, so he would agree to abide the law of the land.' The character and objects of the club, while it lasted, were notorious.

In this state of things Baker, in the spring of 1857, settled upon and improved a quarter of a section of land near Omaha; erected a house and continued to occupy it until August 10th, 1857, when he entered the land under the provisions of the pre-emption laws of the United States. Having acquired title, and being thus in possession, one Pierce, at that time a member of this club and a man of influence in it, though then and subsequently a citizen of New York, claimed the land by virtue of its laws and regulations, and taking several members of the club with him, went to Baker's house and demanded a deed of the land. Baker, on the 10th of August, 1857, executed to him such a deed; Pierce, however, suffering Baker to remain in possession either of this or of an adjoining tract (which he had got in the same way that he did this), under some sort of lease. Pierce being thus invested with a paper title, Morton, a respectable banker of New York, where, as already said, Pierce resided, lent him money, and the debt not being paid sued him and got judgment.

In this state of things Baker, in September, 1860, still residing in Nebraska, filed a bill in the Territorial court of that Territory against Pierce as grantee, and Morton as claiming an interest, to set aside the deed as obtained by duress and without consideration. It set forth the respective residences of himself in Nebraska, and of Pierce and Morton in New York; the demand for the deed by Pierce, and execution of it by Baker to him. It alleged that when Pierce and his company demanded the deed, they threatened to take Baker's life by hanging or drowning him if he did not comply with the demand; that the club had posted handbills calling the members together to take action against Baker; and that he made the deed knowing all this, and in actual fear of his life, or of great bodily harm; that he received no consideration whatever for the deed.

Pierce did not appear to the bill, which was taken pro confesso against him, and decree rendered accordingly.

Morton answered, alleging that he had no knowledge as to the circumstances under which the deed had been procured and that he could not answer to the charge, on belief or otherwise; but upon information he denied the same and alleged that the deed was freely and voluntarily made, and that Pierce was the true and lawful owner of the premises, free from all claim.

The cause was heard on pleading and proofs in the District Court for Nebraska Territory, by the then Chief Justice, who rendered a decree dismissing the bill. It was then carried by appeal to the Supreme Court of the Territory, where it was pending when Nebraska was admitted into the Union. Thereupon, owing to the citizenship of the parties—the complainant in the State of Nebraska, and the defendants in New York—and according to the usual rule by which cases that by reason of the character of the parties, belong most naturally to the Federal courts are transferred into those courts, and those which cannot be taken into them are transferred to the State courts, this case was removed into the Circuit Court of the United States. Here it was heard again and a decree given dismissing the bill. The complainant appealed to this court.

The reader who has read and remembers the case of Brown v. Pierce, which came before this court two terms ago and is reported in 7th Wallace, 205, will have seen, of course, that the case is identical in principle and scarcely at all variant in fact from that one.

The facts alleged by the bill being considered by the court, here as there, fully proved by the evidence, the only questions which remained were:

1. Whether a deed executed without any consideration and only because the party making it is put in fear of his life, or of great bodily harm, may be avoided?

2. Whether the case made was one for relief as against Morton, whose good faith in lending his money was not to be questioned.

Messrs. Redeck and Briggs, for the appellant; Mr. Woolworth, contra.

Mr. Justice CLIFFORD delivered the opinion of the court.

Territorial courts are created by an act of Congress, and they usually possess jurisdiction of controversies of a civil nature, without regard to the inquiry whether the controversies, if they had arisen in a State, would have been cognizable in the tribunals of the State or in the Federal courts.¹

By the organic act creating the Territory of Nebraska the judicial power of the Territory was vested in a Supreme Court and certain district courts, and the provision was that the jurisdiction of those courts should be as prescribed and limited by law.²

Whenever a Territory is admitted into the Union as a State the cases pending in the Territorial courts of a Federal character or jurisdiction are transferred to the proper Federal court, but all such as are not cognizable in the Federal courts are transferred to the tribunals of the new State. Pending cases, where the Federal and State courts have concurrent jurisdiction, may be transferred either to the State or Federal courts by either party possessing that option under the existing laws.

On the seventh of September, 1860, the appellant filed his bill of complaint in one of the district courts of the Territory against Roswell G. Pierce and the appellee, in which he alleged that he, the appellant, under the laws of the United States, settled, improved, and entered as a pre-emptor the southwest quarter of section eight, township fifteen north range thirteen east, in the county of Douglas; that the first-named respondent claimed to own the tract so settled, improved, and entered as a pre-emption right by the complainant; that the said respondent made claim to the same, not by virtue of any law of the United States, but by virtue of the rules and regulations of what was known at the time as the Omaha Claim Club, an organization composed of one or two hundred men, the object of which was to protect every claimant, whether resident or non-resident, in holding three hundred and twenty acres of land as a claim upon the public lands of the United States; that a few days before he, the complainant, entered the land the said Pierce and his agent and a few other persons, members of the said club, came to the house of the complainant, and that the said Pierce, as the leader of the party, assured the complainant that unless he would agree to deed the tract, in case he preempted the same, to the said Pierce, that he, the said Pierce, with the assistance of the said claim club, would take his life by hanging or drowning him, or in such other manner as the agents of the club might think fit and proper to employ; that on the tenth of August, 1857, he entered the...