William Fenn, Plaintiff In Error v. Peter Holme

• Decision Date: 01 December 1858
• Citation: 16 L.Ed. 198,21 How. 481,62 U.S. 481
• Parties: WILLIAM FENN, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR, v. PETER H. HOLME
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

62 U.S. 481

21 How. 481

16 L.Ed. 198

WILLIAM FENN, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR, v. PETER H. HOLME.

December Term, 1858

THIS case was brought up by writ of error from the Circuit Court of the United States for the district of Missouri.

The case is explained in the opinion of the court.

It was argued by Mr. Gibson and Mr. Gamble for the plaintiff in error, and by Mr. Leonard for the defendant; but the point upon which the decision of this court turned did not attract the attention of the counsel.

Mr. Justice DANIEL delivered the opinion of the court.

The defendant in error, as a citizen of the State of Illinois, instituted an action of ejectment against the plaintiff in the court above mentioned, and obtained a verdict and judgment against him for a tract of land, described in the declaration as a tract of land situated in St. Louis county, being the same tract of land known as United States survey No. 2,489, and located by virtue of a New Madrid certificate No. 105, and containing six hundred and forty acres.

Both the plaintiff and defendant in the Circuit Court trace the origin of their titles to the settlement claim of one James Y. O'Carroll, who, it is stated, obtained permission as early as the 6th of September, 1803, from the Spanish authorities, to settle on the vacant lands in Upper Louisiana, and who, in virtue of that permission, and on proof by one Ruddell of actual inhabitancy and cultivation prior to the 20th of December, 1803, claimed the quantity of one thousand arpens of land near the Mississippi, in the district of New Madrid. Upon this application, the land commissioners, on the 13th of March, 1806, made a decision by which they granted to the claimant one thousand arpens of land, situated as aforesaid, provided so much be found vacant there.

On the 14th of December, 1810, the commissioners, acting again on the claim of O'Carroll for one thousand arpens, declare that the board grant to James Y. O'Carroll three hundred and fifty acres of land, and order that the same be surveyed as nearly in a square as may be, so as to include his improvements. The claim thus allowed by the commissioners was, by the operation of the 4th section of the act of Congress approved March 3, 1813, enlarged and extended to the quantity of six hundred and forty acres. (Vide Stat. at Large, p. 813, vol. 2.)

In the year 1812, a portion of the lands in the county of New Madrid having been injured by earthquakes, Congress, by an act approved on the 17th of February, 1815, provided that 'any person or persons owning lands in the county of New Madrid, in the Missouri Territory, with the extent the said county had on the 10th day of November, 1812, and whose lands have been materially injured by earthquakes, shall be and they hereby are authorized to locate the like quantity of land on any of the public lands of the said Territory, the sale of which is authorized by law.' (Stat. at L., vol. 3, p. 211.)

On the 30th of November, 1815, the recorder of land titles for Missouri, upon evidence produced to him that the six hundred and forty acre grant to James Y. O'Carroll had been materially injured by earthquakes, in virtue of the act of Congress of 1815, granted to said O'Carroll New Madrid certificate No. 105, by which the grantee was authorized to locate six hundred and forty acres of land on any of the public lands in the Territory of Missouri, the sale of which was authorized by law. Upon the conflicting claims asserted under this New Madrid certificate, and upon the ascertainment of the locations attempted in virtue of its authority, this controversy has arisen.

Each party to this controversy professes to deduce title from the settlement right of O'Carroll, through mesne conveyances proceeding from him. With respect to the construction of these conveyances, several prayers have been presented by both plaintiff and defendant, and opinions as to their effect have been expressed by the Circuit Court; but as to the rights really conferred, or intended to be conferred, by these transactions, it would, according to the view of this cause taken by this court, be not merely useless, but premature and irregular to discuss, and much more so to undertake to determine them.

This is an attempt to assert at law, and by a legal remedy, a right to real property—an action of ejectment to establish the right of possession in land.

That the plaintiff in ejectment must in all cases prove a legal title to the premises in himself, at the time of the demise laid in the declaration, and that evidence of an equitable estate will not be sufficient for a recovery, are principles so elementary and so familiar to the profession as to render unnecessary the citation of authority in support of them. Such authority may however, be seen in the cases of Goodtitle v. Jones, 7 T. R., 49; of Doe v. Wroot, 5 East., 132; and of Roe v. Head, 8 T. R., 118. This legal title the plaintiff must establish either upon a connected documentary chain of evidence, or upon proofs of possession of sufficient duration to warrant the legal conclusion of the existence of such written title.

By the Constitution of the United States, and by the acts of Congress organizing the Federal courts, and defining and in vesting the jurisdiction of these tribunals, the distinction between common-law and equity jurisdiction has been explicitly declared and carefully defined and established. Thus, in section 2, article 3, of the Constitution, it is declared that 'the judicial power of the United States shall extend to all cases in law and equity arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States,' &c.

In the act of Congress 'to establish the judicial courts of the United States,' this distribution of law and equity powers is frequently referred to; and by the 16th section of that act, as if to place the distinction between those powers beyond misapprehension, it is provided 'that suits in equity shall not be maintained in either of the courts of the United States in any case where plain, adequate, and complete remedy may be had at law,' at the same time affirming and separating the two classes or sources of judicial authority. In every instance in which this court has expounded the phrases, proceedings at the common law and proceedings in equity, with reference to the exercise of the judicial powers of the courts of the United States, they will be found to have interpreted the former as signifying the application of the definitions and principles and rules of the common law to rights and obligations essentially legal; and the latter, as meaning the administration with reference to equitable as contradistinguished from legal rights, of the equity...