Etta Sanford v. Santiago Ainsa

• Decision Date: 26 May 1913
• Docket Number: No. 504,504
• Parties: ETTA L. SANFORD, Amo S. McKee, Fred McKee, et al., Appts., v. SANTIAGO AINSA, Administrator with the Will Annexed of the Estate of Frank Ely, Deceased
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

228 U.S. 705

33 S.Ct. 704

57 L.Ed. 1033

ETTA L. SANFORD, Amo S. McKee, Fred McKee, et al., Appts.,

v SANTIAGO AINSA, Administrator with the Will Annexed of the Estate of Frank Ely, Deceased.

No. 504.

Argued and submitted May 5, 1913.

Decided May 26, 1913.

Messrs. William C. Prentiss and Fred McKee for appellants.

Mrs. Sarah H. Sorin and Selim M. Franklin for appellee.

Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court:

This was a suit to recover possession of land conveyed by the father of the appellants to them, pending a prior suit prosecuted by the appellee to quiet title in a tract of which this land was part. Richardson v. Ainsa, 218 U. S. 289, 54 L. ed. 1044, 31 Sup. Ct. Rep. 23. The plaintiff (appellee) got a judgment for possession and damages, and the defendant took the case to the supreme court of the territory.

The errors assigned before that court seem to have been, first, the refusal of the court below to strike out a paragraph of the complaint that set up the decree in the former suit, the defendant contending that it appeared on its face to have been entered by a court having no jurisdiction; second, the overruling of a general demurrer; and besides these two, the overruling of a motion for judgment in defendant's favor, and of another motion for a new trial and in arrest of judgment, and the admission of incompetent evidence. The court declined to review the assignments other than the first two, both because they were too general and because the abstract of record before the court did not contain the evidence, and therefore it would have been necessary to examine the original transcript of the reporter's notes, contrary to the rules and practice of the court. Accordingly when the appellant moved for findings of fact in the nature of a special verdict, the motion was denied, and the first contention of the appellants is that the case should be sent back for findings of fact. Nielsen v. Steinfield, 224 U. S. 534, 56 L. ed. 872, 32 Sup. Ct. Rep. 609.

We assume that the findings of fact desired were findings sufficient to open the last-mentioned assignments of error for reconsideration here. But the only findings that the supreme court of the territory could have made in order to submit its rulings to revision would have been to the effect of what we have stated. It was not called on to reverse its decision that by correct local practice the merits were not before it in order to present the merits to this court. Therefore,...