Giles v. Little
| Decision Date | 07 April 1890 |
| Citation | 33 L.Ed. 1062,10 S.Ct. 623,134 U.S. 645 |
| Parties | GILES et al. v. LITTLE et al. 1 |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
[Statement of Case from pages 645-648 intentionally omitted] J. M. Woolworth, for plaintiffs in error.
T. M. Marquette, Nathan S. Harwood, and John H. Ames, for defendants in error.
Mr. Justice GRAY, after stating the facts as above, delivered the opinion of the court.
The real question in controversy between the parties is of the extent of the estate and power which Mrs. Dawson took under the will of her husband. In Giles v. Little, 104 U. S. 291, this court held that she took only an estate for life, determinable by her marrying again, and no power to convey a greater estate than she had herself. In the case at bar, the supreme court of Nebraska, declining to follow that decision, and basing its judgment largely upon the statutes of the state, held that she took an estate in fee, determinable upon her marriage, with power during her widowhood, at her discretion, to convey in fee any part of the land, and that the devise over in case of her marrying again passed to the children only what remained unconveyed. Little v. Giles, 25 Neb. 313, 41 N. W. Rep. 186. The question of the true construction of the will, in this respect, depends wholly upon general rules of law, and upon the local statutes, and in no degree upon the constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States; and the disregard by the state court of the opinion of this court upon the question in a former suit does not give this court jurisdiction to review the judgment of the state court in this case. Bank v. Cooper, 120 U. S. 778, 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 777; San Francisco v. Scott. 111 U. S. 768, 4 Sup. Ct. Rep. 688; San Francisco v. Itsell, 133 U. S. 65, ante, 241. If the state court had refused to give due effect to a final judgment of any court of the United States in a case between the same parties, a federal question would have been presented which might have been brought to this court for review. Dupasseur v. Rochereau, 21 Wall. 130; Crescent City Co. v. Butchers' Union Co., 120 U. S. 141, 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 472. But this record presents no such state of things. The case of Giles v. Little, 104 U. S. 291, was indeed between one of the present defendants and one of the present plaintiffs, and concerned the title to a lot of land now claimed by the latter; but the judgment of this court only reversed a judgment of the circuit court of the United States sustaining a demurrer to the petition, and remanded the case to that court for further proceedings, and, as appears by the record given in evidence at the trial of the case at bar, the petition was afterwards, and before final judgment, dismissed, on the motion of the plaintiff, without prejudice to a new action. So that nothing was finally adjudged in that case, even as between the parties to it. Bucher v. Railroad Co., 125 U. S. 555, 578,...
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