Indian Land & Trust Co. v. Shoenfelt

• Decision Date: 04 March 1905
• Docket Number: 2,077.
• Citation: 135 F. 484
• Parties: INDIAN LAND & TRUST CO. v. SHOENFELT et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

135 F. 484

INDIAN LAND & TRUST CO. v. SHOENFELT et al.

No. 2,077.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

March 4, 1905

Syllabus by the Court

The Constitution and act of Congress deny the national courts' jurisdiction in equity where the complainant has a plain, adequate, and complete remedy at law.

A court of equity has no jurisdiction to enjoin a single trespass upon agricultural land where the probable injury is not shown to be destructive of any part of the real property or irremediable, because an action at law for damages will afford adequate satisfaction.

The averment of irreparable injury is futile, in the absence of allegations of facts from which the court can see that irremediable mischief may be apprehended from the threatened wrong.

Averments in a bill that the owner of a leasehold estate for five years in 200 acres of agricultural land, upon which its tenant had planted a crop, is, with his tenant, about to be removed from 80 acres of the land by one without right, that the complainant paid $150 for the leasehold and $80 for the improvements on the premises, and that it will suffer irreparable injury from the threatened eviction, state no ground of equitable cognizance.

Where a court of equity has no jurisdiction of a suit, the decree of dismissal must expressly adjudge that it is rendered upon that ground, or must expressly provide that it is made without prejudice.

A general decree of dismissal, without more, renders all the issues presented in the case res adjudicata, and constitutes a bar to an action at law for the same cause.

The Indian Land & Trust Company, a corporation, exhibited its bill in equity against J. Blair Shoenfelt, United States Indian agent, Samantha Barnett, and T. A. Barnett, the guardian of Sally Hodge, a minor, in the United States Court in the Indian Territory, in the Western District at Muskogee. The material averments of he bill disclosed these facts: In August, 1902, Samantha Barnett, the mother of the minor Sally Hodge, and one Luke Nevins, her stepfather, leased to the complainant, a corporation, for the term of five years from January 1, 1903, and for a rental of $150, and any improvements there might be upon the premises at the end of the term, 200 acres of land, 80 acres of which were owned by Sally Hodge and 120 by Samantha Barnett. Barnett claimed to have some improvements upon this land, and the complainant paid him $80 for them. Thereupon the trust company leased the land to one Heytz, who planted a crop upon it. At the instance of Samantha Barnett, letters of guardianship of Sally Hodge, the minor, were issued by the court to Barnett. Barnett and Samantha Barnett were insolvent. Shoenfelt, the United States Indian agent, threatened to remove the complainant and its tenant from the 80 acres of land owned by Sally Hodge at the instigation of Barnett and Samantha Barnett, and such a removal would irreparably injure the complainant. Samantha Barnett and Sally Hodge were Creek Indians, who had been in possession of the land as their allotments for more than a year, and Shoenfelt, as Indian agent, had no jurisdiction or authority to remove the complainant or its tenant therefrom. The prayer of the trust company was that the defendants should be enjoined from interfering with the possession of the land, and that Shoenfelt, the Indian agent, should be forbidden from taking the possession of it from the complainant and delivering it to the defendant Barnett, as the guardian of Sally Hodge, the minor. A general demurrer to this bill was sustained, and the suit was dismissed. The United States Court of Appeals for the Indian Territory affirmed this decree, and its decree of affirmance is here challenged by appeal.

Preston C. West, for appellant.

Horace L. Dyer (David P. Dyer and Bert D. Nortoni, on the brief) for appellees.

Before SANBORN and VAN DEVANTER, Circuit Judges, and PHILIPS District Judge.

SANBORN Circuit Judge, after stating the case as above.

The seventh amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which has been extended over the Indian Territory by act of Congress (26 Stat.pp. 81-96, c. 182, Sec. 31), provides that 'in suits at common law where the value in controversy exceeds twenty dollars the right to trial by jury shall be preserved and no fact tried by jury shall be otherwise re-examined by any court in the United States than according to the rules of the common law. ' Congress has enacted that 'suits in equity shall not be sustained in either of the courts of the United States in any case where a plain, adequate and complete remedy may be had at law. ' Rev. St. Sec. 723 (U.S.Comp.St. 1901, p. 583). In Hipp v. Babin, 19 How. 271, 278, 15 L.Ed. 633, the Supreme Court, declared that 'whenever a court of law is competent to take cognizance of a right, and has power to proceed to a judgment which affords a plain, adequate, and complete remedy, without the aid of a court of equity, the plaintiff must proceed at law, because the defendant has a constitutional right to a trial by jury. ' Thomas v. Council Bluffs Canning Co., 34 C.C.A. 428, 431, 92 F. 422, 424. Although this objection to the jurisdiction in equity of a national court is not made by demurrer, plea, or answer, or suggested by counsel, it is the duty of the court, where it clearly exists, to recognize it of its own motion and to give it effect. Lewis v. Cocks, 23 Wall. 466, 470, 23 L.Ed. 70; Hipp v. Babin, 19 How. 271, 278, 15 L.Ed. 633.

A court of equity has no jurisdiction to enjoin a single trespass upon agricultural land where the probable injury is not shown to be destructive of any part of the real property, or irremediable, and an action at law for damages will...