Haltern v. Emmons
| Decision Date | 12 April 1890 |
| Parties | HALTERN v. EMMONS et al. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
Charles S. Johnson, Dist. Atty., for plaintiff.
A. Hew Gamel, for defendants.
(charging jury.) This is an action brought by Theodore Haltern against George T. Emmons and Otto Nelson, to recover the possession of a certain lot of land lying within the town of Sitka; also for damages for the unlawful withholding thereof. It is the duty of the court to give you all necessary information as to the law; but you are instructed that you are the exclusive judges of all questions of fact no matter what statement the court may make in regard to them. Nevertheless, the court's instructions as to law should control you. The action is brought under the statutes of Oregon, applicable to this district, which provide, in substance, that any person who has a legal estate in real property, and a present right to the possession thereof, may recover such possession, with damages for withholding the same, by an action at law. Such action must be commenced against the person in the actual possession of the property at the time, and was properly brought in this case against the defendant Emmons and against the defendant Nelson, his landlord, who is the person who was acting as the owner of the land. The defendant Emmons has pleaded that he was only in possession as tenant of the defendant Nelson, disclaiming any other interest in the premises himself; and your verdict in this case will, in effect, be for or against the plaintiff, or for or against the defendant Nelson alone. If your verdict be for the plaintiff, it should find that he is entitled to the possession of the property described in the complaint and should find the nature and duration of his estate, with damages for withholding the property, up to the time of your verdict, exclusive of the use of permanent improvements made by defendants. And if you find that defendant Nelson, or those under whom he claims, have made permanent improvements upon the property in good faith holding under color of title adversely to the claim of plaintiff, the value of such improvements at the time of trial must be allowed by you as a set-off against such damages. The nature and duration of the estate to be found by you must be such nature and duration as were recognized by the treaty between Russia and the United States, the articles of transfer, and subsequent acts of congress; for further than this it will be impossible to go under existing circumstances. Of course, if you do not find any damages in favor of the plaintiff, the value of improvements made by defendant cuts no figure in the case. If your verdict be for the defendant, it must find that the plaintiff is not entitled to the possession of the property described in the complaint, or any part thereof. This is merely a possessory action, but, to maintain it, plaintiff must have a legal interest in the property and a present right of possession, which existed at the commencement of the suit.
It is not necessary that plaintiff should show a perfect title, but he must recover on the strength of his own title, and not on the defects of that of his adversary. Plaintiff must have had a legal estate at the time of the commencement of the action, as contradistinguished from an equitable title; and, so far as any one could have a legal estate other than an estate in fee-simple in Alaska, he must be considered to have had such, if the same could have been derived from his grantors and predecessors in interest. A legal title may be acquired by adverse possession for such a length of time that the statute of limitations may be invoked to sustain it; that is to say, undisturbed possession may ripen into a legal title, and as against one party a person may have a legal title, though as against the government it may not have been perfected. The title to land in Alaska is in an anomalous position. With the exception of some few titles in fee-simple, which were recognized by the treaty between Russia and the United States, there is no such thing as private ownership of land in fee-simple in the territory. Plaintiff's legal interest, if he has any, was acquired in the following manner, and under the following circumstances: The land in dispute is part of the territory ceded by the imperial government of Russia to the United States,...
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Bolshanin v. Zlobin, 5648-A.
...and the Greco-Russian Church, as in the case of others who had no fee simple title, held by right of possession only. Haltern v. Emmons, D.C.Alaska, 46 F. 452, 454, 456, affirmed 159 U.S. 252, 15 S.Ct. 1039, 40 L.Ed. Further support for this view may be found in the decisions of the Supreme......
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Miller v. United States
...And until such legislation is enacted the `future legislation' is yet to be achieved." Emphasis supplied. See also Haltern v. Emmons, D.C., 46 F. 452, 456, affirmed, 159 U.S. 252, 15 S.Ct. 1039, 40 L.Ed. 142; Carroll v. Price, D.C., 81 F. 137, 139, 140; United States v. Cadzow, 5 Alaska 125......
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