Herrick v. Boquillas Land Cattle Company

• Decision Date: 02 January 1906
• Docket Number: No. 105,105
• Citation: 50 L.Ed. 388,26 S.Ct. 192,200 U.S. 96
• Parties: H. C. HERRICK, A. V. Noyes, Charles Labrosse, Leon Larrieu, W. S. Gray, and Peter Crane, Appts. , v. BOQUILLAS LAND & CATTLE COMPANY
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

200 U.S. 96

26 S.Ct. 192

50 L.Ed. 388

H. C. HERRICK, A. V. Noyes, Charles Labrosse, Leon Larrieu, W. S. Gray, and Peter Crane, Appts.,

v BOQUILLAS LAND & CATTLE COMPANY.

No. 105.

Submitted December 7, 1905.

Decided January 2, 1906.

Mr. Ben Goodrich for appellants.

Mr. Francis J. Henley for appellee.

Mr. Justice White delivered the opinion of the court:

This is an action of ejectment, commenced in August, 1901, by the appellee, to recover a tract of land containing 17,355.86 acres, and damages for the alleged unlawful withholding of possession. It was alleged that the plaintiff was the owner and entitled to the possession of the described land, and that title had been in it or in its grantors and predecessors in interest ever since January 1, 1875; and the defendants thirty in number were alleged to have unlawfully withheld possession of the premises in dispute from about November 28, 1900. Some of the defendants filed disclaimers or failed to answer. The appellants and others jointly answered, relying solely on rights alleged to result from an asserted adverse possession by each of them of a portion of the demanded premises for more than twenty years prior to the bringing of the action. The case was tried to the court without a jury. The court made findings of fact and stated its conclusions of law thereon. Thereupon judgment was entered in favor of the plaintiff. On appeal, the supreme court of the territory affirmed the judgment; and the opinions delivered on the original hearing and on a rehearing are reported in 71 Pac. 924 and 76 Pac. 612. The supreme court adopted the findings of fact made by the trial court. The findings thus adopted as to the title and right of possession of the plaintiff were as follows:

'That on the 8th day of May, A. D. 1833, the Mexican government, by good and sufficient grant, conveyed to plaintiff's grantors and predecessors in interest the lands and premises herein described, being the lands and premises in controversy.

'That on the 14th day of December, in the year of our Lord, one thousand and nine hundred, the government of the United States, by its letters patent, recognized and confirmed the validity of the said grant of lands in plaintiff's complaint, and hereinafter particularly described, to Ygnacio Elias Gonzales and Nepumoceno Felix, and to their heirs, successors in interest, and assigns forever; and found and decreed that W. R. Hearst and Phebe A. Hearst had acquired an undivided interest in such lands and premises of the said two grantees.

'That on the 3d day of July, 1901, the said W. R. Hearst and Phebe A. Hearst, by deed in writing, conveyed all of their said interest in and to the said lands and premises to the plaintiff herein, and that plaintiff has not since disposed of its title so acquired, or any part thereof, to said lands and premises.'

In addition, the trial court, among its conclusions of law, incorporated the following:

'That plaintiff and its predecessors and grantors in interest have been, since the 1st day of January, 1875, and ever since have been, and still are, the owners and entitled to the possession of the lands and premises in plaintiff's complaint, and hereinafter particularly described, and each and every part and portion thereof.'

The supreme court of the territory, in its opinion on the rehearing, held this latter statement to be not a mere conclusion of law, but the finding of an ultimate fact; and the court therefore adopted it as part of the findings of fact upon which it based the decree of affirmance. As to possession by the defendants, it was found as follows:

'That each and every of said defendants in this cause were, on the 14th of December, 1900, and had been for more than ten years next preceding that date, occupying various portions of the said lands and premises, and each and every of the said defendants who have failed to appear and answer herein have, since the last named date, withheld possession of divers portions of said lands and premises from the plaintiff and its grantors and predecessors in interest, and still and now so withhold the same; that since the said December 14, 1900, the annual value of the rents, issues, and profits of that part of said lands and premises so withheld from plaintiff by the said defendants is as follows, to wit: . . .'

This appeal was prosecuted.

On appeal from the supreme court of a territory our jurisdiction, apart from exceptions duly taken to rulings on the admission or rejection of evidence, is limited to determining whether the findings of fact support the judgment. Harrison v. Perea, 168 U. S. 311, 323, 42 L. ed. 478, 482, 18 Sup. Ct. Rep. 129, and cases cited. As on this record there is no question presented as to rulings of the court in re- spect to the admission or rejection of evidence, we can alone consider the sufficiency of the findings.

The errors assigned are sixteen in number, and resolve themselves into three classes:

1. Those which assert that the supreme court of the territory refused to consider the findings made by the trial court, and this embraces the 1st, 2d, and 5th assignments. But these assignments disregard the opinion of the supreme court of the territory, delivered on the rehearing, and do not require further notice.

2. Those which question the sufficiency of the evidence to support the findings of fact. These are numbered 8 and 13, and likewise need not be further referred to, as they address themselves to a matter not open for our consideration.

3. Assignments which, in various modes of statement, attack the sufficiency of the findings made by the trial court, and adopted by the supreme court of the territory, which include all of the assignments not already disposed of.

The contentions concerning the insufficiency of the findings to support the judgment are resolvable into two propositions, which we shall separately consider:

First. That, irrespective of the adequacy or inadequacy of the possession asserted by the defendants below, the findings are insufficient to sustair the legal conclusion of title in the plaintiff. This proposition rests upon the premise that the matter included...