Bicknell v. Comstock
| Decision Date | 19 January 1885 |
| Citation | 28 L.Ed. 962,5 S.Ct. 399,113 U.S. 149 |
| Parties | BICKNELL v. COMSTOCK |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
E. F. Bullard, for plaintiff in error.
A. B. Olmstead, for defendant in error.
This is a writ of error to the circuit court for the Eastern district of New York. The action is for a breach of covenants of warranty in a conveyance of land located in Iowa. It is a manifest attempt to obtain the judgment of this court on one of the complicated phases of the disputed titles growing out of the grants of lands on the Des Moines river to aid in improving the navigation of that river, and in constructing railroads through these lands, with a strong probability of the absence and ignorance of this suit on the part of all the persons really interested in the questions here raised. The plaintiff below (Comstock) is not the original grantee in the deed on whose covenants he sues. He does not allege that he has been evicted under any judicial proceedings from possession of the land, but, on the contrary, it is one of the agreed facts on which the case was heard by the court without a jury that defendant, Bicknell, and those claiming under his deed, including, of course, the plaintiff, have been in actual possession of the land in question ever since May 23, 1862, a period of more than 22 years. We shall be able, however, to decide this case without answering the 24 errors assigned, by considering the thirteenth assignment alone, namely, that, under the facts in this case, the court should have found a perfect title was vested in Bicknell to the lot in question.
One of the facts admitted in the case stated is that: 'It is admitted that on the first day of May, 1869, a patent in due form was executed by the president of the United States, conveying to said Bicknell said lots 3 and 4, which patent was duly recorded in the general land-office on the same day at Washington, D. C., and thereupon the original was transmitted to the United States land-office at Fort Dodge, Iowa, for said Bicknell.' In June, 1878, the commissioner of the general land-office ordered a return of this patent to his office, and thereupon 'tore off the seals and erased the president's name front said patent, and mutilated the record thereof in the general land-office, all without the consent, and against the protest, of the grantees of said Bicknell.' That this action was utterly nugatory, and left the patent of 1869 to Bicknell in as full force as if no such attempt to destroy or nullify it had...
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