Hurt v. Hollingsworth
| Decision Date | 01 October 1879 |
| Citation | 100 U.S. 100,25 L.Ed. 569 |
| Parties | HURT v. HOLLINGSWORTH |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
ERROR to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Texas.
The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.
Mr. Philip Phillips and Mr. W. Hallett Phillips for the plaintiff in error.
Mr. James Lowndes, contra.
This suit was brought by the plaintiff in a district court of Texas to quiet his title to certain real property situated in Galveston, in that State. On application of the defendant it was removed to the Circuit Court of the United States.
The petition, which is the first pleading in a suit according to the practice which obtains in Texas, sets forth that the plaintiff is the owner of the premises; that he purchased them of one Molsberger and wife, in June, 1874; that those parties acquired them in December, 1865, and had subsequently, until the sale to the plaintiff, claimed and held them as a homestead; that in April, 1867, certain parties designated as Marsh, Denman, & Co. recovered judgment against Molsberger in the County Court of Galveston on a debt contracted in 1866, while the premises constituted the homestead of himself and family; and in October, 1873, under an execution issued thereon, the premises were sold by the sheriff of the county for the sum of $30 to the defendant, Hollingsworth, owe of the members of that firm, and to him the sheriff executed a deed of the premises, which has been recorded in the county.
The petition avers that this deed is a cloud upon the title of the plaintiff, and prays that the cloud may be removed and his title quieted. The defendant filed in the Circuit Court an answer to this petition, in which he admits that the plaintiff was in possession of the premises, and had obtained a deed of them from Molsberger and wife, who had purchased them in 1865, but denies that they constituted a homestead of Molsberger and family continuously from that time until the alleged sale to the plaintiff, or that they were such homestead when the sale was made by the sheriff to him.
The answer then avers that the defendant became the owner of the premises by his purchase; that the plaintiff wrongfully withholds the possession from him, and the rents and profits, which are of the value of $75 a month. He therefore prays that the title may be declared to be in him, and that he may have judgment for the possession of the premises and the value of the rents.
These pleadings were subsequently amended so as to show the value of the property and the amount of its rents, and in some other particulars not material to the question now presented.
The case was considered by counsel and treated by the court as an action at law, and by stipulation made at the December Term of 1875 the parties waived a jury trial and submitted 'the matters therein, as well of facts as of law, to the court.' The evidence was then heard; and at a subsequent term the court gave judgment that the plaintiff take nothing by his action, and that the defendant recover the title and possession of the property, and also the sum of $420, as damages for its use and occupation, and have a writ of possession.
This judgment was subsequently vacated and a rehearing granted, when a motion was made by the plaintiff to transfer the cause, it being one seeking equitable relief, from the law docket of the court, upon the ground that it had been improvidently placed there by the defendant, to the chancery docket, to be there proceeded with according to the rules and practice of the Circuit Court sitting in chancery; and also a motion to take from the files of the court so much of the answer as purported to be 'a cross-suit, reconvention suit, or cross-bill,' because the court, sitting as a law court, had no jurisdiction to grant in that suit the relief prayed by the defendant. These motions were accompanied with a petition for leave to amend the bill of complaint. But the court considering that the case was on its law docket, and had been submitted for its judgment, refused to sustain the motions. In disposing of them it observed that it was a court both of law and equity, and had cognizance of both kinds of cases; that though the cause was an equity cause, the court had cognizance of it, and the question presented was, therefore, simply one of regularity of pleadings and proceedings; that the parties had waived all matters of mere form by going to final hearing on the merits and...
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...forms and modes of proceeding are governed by federal law. Thompson v. Railroad Companies, 6 Wall. 134, 18 L.Ed. 765; Hurt v. Hollingsworth, 100 U.S. 100, 25 L.Ed. 569; West v. Smith, 101 U.S. 263, 25 L.Ed. 809; King v. Worthington, 104 U.S. 44, 26 L.Ed. 652; Ex parte Fisk, 113 U.S. 713, 5 ......
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... ... must be separated into distinct actions at law and suits in ... equity in the national courts. Hurt v ... Hollingsworth, 100 U.S. 100, 103, 25 L.Ed. 569; ... Cherokee Nation v. Southern Kansas Ry. Co., 135 U.S ... 641, 651, 10 Sup.Ct. 965, ... ...
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