Trustees of Internal Imp. Fund of Fla. v. Gleason

• Decision Date: 30 November 1897
• Citation: 23 So. 539,39 Fla. 771
• Parties: TRUSTEES OF INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT FUND OF FLORIDA et al. v. GLEASON.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

23 So. 539

39 Fla. 771

TRUSTEES OF INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT FUND OF FLORIDA et al. v. GLEASON.

Florida Supreme Court

November 30, 1897^[1]

Appeal from circuit court, Dade county; John D. Broome, Judge.

Bill by William H. H. Gleason against the Trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund of Florida and others. Decree for complainant, and defendants appeal. Reversed.

Syllabus by the Court

SYLLABUS

1. Section 1, c. 3884, Laws 1889, brought forward as section 1500 of the Revised Statutes, should be enforced so far only as it can be consistently with the limitations of our constitution; but it is unconstitutional and without force or effect in so far as it undertakes or has the effect of converting the remedy at law by ejectment into an action cognizable in equity. Where the remedy at law by ejectment is clear and adequate, then this statute cannot constitutionally, put such a case into equity, and thereby deprive the defendant of his common-law right of a trial thereof by jury.

2. Where it is apparent to an appellate court that a bill in equity carried to it on appeal makes no case of which a court of equity has jurisdiction, it is proper for it to order a dismissal of the bill for want of equity, even though its equity be not questioned by the pleadings or expressly presented.

COUNSEL P. W. White and F. T. Myers, for appellants.

Robbins & Graham, for appellee.

OPINION

TAYLOR C.J.

In August, 1892, the appellee filed his bill in equity in the circuit court of Dade county against the appellants, under the provisions of section 1500 of the Revised Statutes, the same being section 1 of chapter 3884 of the Laws approved June 4, 1889, alleging therein that he was the owner of all the lands lying above the waters of Biscayne Bay, in section 19, township 53 S., range 42 E., in Dade county, Fla., and that he acquired same by a deed of conveyance in fee from his father, W. H. Gleason, who acquired said land by patent from the United States. The bill alleges that portions of said section 19 have been patented to the state of Florida by the United States since the patent thereof to W. H. Gleason, but were so patented by mistake that the state of Florida has sold and conveyed to several of the defendants various portions of the part patented to her and that these grantees, in turn, have conveyed portions of their purchases from the state to still others of the defendants. The bill alleges the defendants or some of them to be in possession, and prays that the patent to the state of Florida for any portion of said section may be canceled and that all subsequent conveyances by the state of Florida and her grantees to any part thereof may be canceled, and the complainant adjudged to be the rightful owner of the whole of said section, and that he be put into possession thereof.

The Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund and several others of the defendants answered the bill, reserving therein, as a ground of demurrer to the whole bill, the question of its want of equity. The complainant filed divers exceptions, on the ground of impertinence, to various parts of the several answers of the defendants, and brought said exceptions on for hearing; and the court below made orders sustaining the several exceptions to all of said answers, and from these orders the defendants have taken this appeal. The bill is fixed, expressedly, under the provisions of section 1, c. 3884, Laws 1889 (brought forward into the Revised Statutes, as section 1500 thereof). It alleges that the defendants are in possession of the disputed lands, sets up an alleged paramount title thereto in the complainant, and prays an adjudication of such title, and that the...