Stevens v. Arnold
| Decision Date | 21 May 1923 |
| Docket Number | No. 200,200 |
| Citation | 262 U.S. 266,67 L.Ed. 974,43 S.Ct. 560 |
| Parties | STEVENS v. ARNOLD et al |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. Harvey F. Carr, of Camden, N. J., and Jackson H. Ralston, Jr., for petitioner.
Mr. Robert H. McCarter, of Newark, N. J., for respondents.
This is a bill to quiet title to land in Atlantic City, New Jersey, brought primarily at lease under a statute of that state. 4 Compiled Stat. p. 5399 (P. L. 1870, p. 20). The suit was begun by Samuel F. Nirdlinger and now is maintained by his executors and trustees (the respondents). He owned a parcel lying to the east of New Hampshire Ave ue, which runs north and south, and to the north of Oriental Avenue which crosses the other avenue at right angles. The defendant owns an adjoining parcel on the other side of New Hampshire Avenue and the land in controversy is a triangular tract having its apex in the southwestern corner of the complainants' lot and spreading south of Oriental Avenue and east of New Hampshire Avenue to the sea. It has been formed by accretion in recent years. The defendant claims title by a former adjudication and by a riparian grant from the State. The District Court entered a decree for Nirdlinger after an elaborate discussion, 262 Fed. 591, and its opinion was adopted and the decree affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals, 273 Fed. 1022.
The former adjudication relied upon by the defendant was in a suit in the State Court brought against him under the same statute for the same purpose as the present one, by Nirdlinger and the Dewey Land Company from which Nirdlinger afterwards purchased a part of his land. The statute allows a person in peaceable possession of lands, claiming to own the same, whose title is disputed, to bring a suit in chancery against any person claiming an interest, calling upon him to set forth his title. After the issues are tried the decree is to settle the rights of all parties and to be conclusive. The complainants in the chancery suit alleged possession and claimed ownership, at first by accretion but by amendment by virtue of two deeds only. The defendant, as here, set up his riparian grant and a claim by accretion. The Chancellor held that the grant from the State could not be impeached collaterally and dismissed the bill. The Court of Errors and Appeals held this to be error but affirmed the decree on the ground that the complainants showed no title; that the deeds did not give the right claimed and that 'all claim by accretion is waived.' Dewey Land Co. v. Stevens, 83 N. J. Eq. 314, 316, 90 Atl. 1040; Id., 83 N. J. Eq. 656, 91 Atl. 934. It would have been intelligible if the Court had held that the complainants' statement of title was immaterial and that it was enough that they showed possession and a claim of ownership. But it being established that, notwithstanding the claim, if the title disclosed is defective the bill must be dismissed, we think that until the Court of Errors and Appeals decides otherwise it must be assumed that the decree is conclusive between the parties that at that time the complainants did not own the land. We cannot imagine that the statute contemplated a series of suits based on coexisting titles produced one after another, and especially when the one now relied upon was waived in the earlier case. We assume that the usual rule applies, and that if the claim to own must be justified, all justifications then existing are in issue. It follows that the plaintiffs' bill must be dismissed.
But plainly the claim of the defendant was not established in the former suit. That appears from the nature of the decree, from the opinion of the Court of Errors and Appeals, and from the admitted fact that it subsequently refused to amend its remittitur so as to establish the defendant's right. See also Dewey Land Co. v. Stevens, 85 N. J. Eq. 374, 96 Atl....
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