Miller McIntire

• Decision Date: 13 March 1826
• Citation: 11 Wheat. 441,24 U.S. 441,6 L.Ed. 515
• Parties: MILLER'S Heirs against MCINTIRE & Others
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

24 U.S. 441

6 L.Ed. 515

11 Wheat. 441

MILLER'S Heirs against MCINTIRE & Others.

March 13, 1826

By the construction of the act of Kentucky of 1797, granting further time for making surveys, with a proviso, allowing to infants, &c. three years after their several disabilities are removed to complete surveys on their entries; if any one or more of the joint owners be under the disability of infancy, &c. it brings the entry with in the saving of the proviso, as to all of the other owners.

March 3d.

THIS cause was argued by Mr. Sheffey for the appellants, and by Mr. Talbot for the respondents.

March 13th.

Mr. Chief Justice MARSHALL delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is an appeal from a decree of the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Kentucky, by which the bill of the plaintiffs was dismissed pro forma.

An original bill was filed by Miller's heirs, in the year 1808, to obtain from the defendants therein mentioned, the legal title to lands in their possession, to which the plaintiffs claimed the equitable right under a prior entry. The decree made by the Court, in that cause, against several of the defendants, was brought before this Court by appeal, and in that case the Court determined in favour of the entry under which the title of the plaintiffs arose. (2 Wheat. Rep. 316.) An amended bill was filed in 1815, against the present defendants in error, who, in their answer, contend, amont other things, that the title of the plaintiffs has been forfeited by failing to make their survey within the time prescribed by the laws of Virginia; and that the compact between the two States restrained Kentucky from varying in any manner the laws by which titles originating anterior to the separation are to be governed.

Henry Miller, for whom the entry was made, died in March or April, 1796, having first made his last will in writing; by which he devised his lands to be sold for the benefit of all his children, many of whom were minors.

The time allowed for making surveys, by the first law on that subject, had expired, but the time had been prolonged, first by the legislature of Virginia, and afterwards by that of Kentucky, until after the death of Miller, and the act of 1797, which gave still farther time, contained a saving of the rights of infants. In April, 1804, while the saving still existed, the survey was made.

In the case formerly decided in this Court, it was determined that Miller's heirs came within the saving of the act of 1797, but the compact between the two States was not then brought into view, and the counsel for the appellees insist that it applies to this case, and restrains the legislature of Kentucky from prolonging the time for surveying one entry to the prejudice of another. On this point a difference of opinion...