James Stillman v. Combel

• Decision Date: 03 April 1905
• Docket Number: No. 174,174
• Citation: 49 L.Ed. 822,25 S.Ct. 480,197 U.S. 436
• Parties: JAMES STILLMAN, Appt. , v. C. B. COMBEL, Independent Executor of the Estate of Stephen Powers, deceased; C. B. Combe, et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

197 U.S. 436

25 S.Ct. 480

49 L.Ed. 822

JAMES STILLMAN, Appt.,

v C. B. COMBEL, Independent Executor of the Estate of Stephen Powers, deceased; C. B. Combe, et al.

No. 174.

Argued March 10, 13, 1905.

Decided April 3, 1905.

Messrs. John A. Garver and James M. Beck for appellant.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 436-437 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Fred Beall, J. D. Childs, and C. L. Bates for appellees.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 437-438 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court:

This is an appeal from a decree of the circuit court, upon the single question of the jurisdiction of that court. The jurisdiction was sustained de bene, on appeal from a preliminary injunction, by the circuit court of appeals. 29 C. C. A. 660, 52 U. S. App. 622, 86 Fed. 202. It is certified that jurisdiction was entertained solely upon the ground that this cause is ancillary to an action at law and the final judgment rendered therein. If that ground fails, it is apparent from the record, and is not disputed, that there is no other. To decide the case it is not necessary to consider anything except the allegations of the bill, and a large part of those may be laid on one side as not material to the question here.

The purpose of the bill is to reach and distribute, to the parties found entitled to the same, the proceeds of a sale to the United States of land which the defendants Stillman (the appellant) and Carson, as administrator, recovered in the above-mentioned action at law. The land was occupied without right by the United States as part of the Fort Brown military reservation, and on March 3, 1885, Congress appropriated $160,000 to pay for the land and its use and occupation, but not until a complete title should be vested in the United States, the full amount of the price to be paid directly to the owners of the property. The next year certain claimants brought suit for the land, in a state court, against Colonel Kellogg, the officer in command of the reservation. The suit was removed to the United States circuit court, the United States intervened, and, for the purpose of settling the title, set up outstanding rights in third persons. Other known claimants, including Stillman and Carson, as administrator, each of whom claimed an undivided half, became or were made parties. By the local practice the respective shares of the parties might have been determined in the action as well as the principal question of the right of all or some of them to recover from Colonel Kellogg. But on July 13, 1887, most, although not all, of the claimants, including Stillman and Carson, made an agreement on which the jurisdiction in the present cause is based.

This agreement recited that the case was likely to be tried the next day, that it was apprehended that unless a perfect title could be adjudged to some of the parties there was danger of losing the appropriation, that in the time available there was little chance of an accurate adjudication of all rights, that it was primarily desirable to have a judgment which would be satisfactory to the department at Washington, and, secondarily, to agree on a method of working out the exact rights of the parties, after judgment, conveyance to the government by those adjudicated to be owners, and payment of the money. It also recited the claims of others not parties to the agreement, and the belief of the contractors that those claims would fail at the trial. Therefore it was agreed that the parties to the contract would unite in procuring a judgment for the whole property in...