William Plested v. Samuel Abbey
| Decision Date | 07 April 1913 |
| Docket Number | No. 156,156 |
| Citation | 228 U.S. 42,57 L.Ed. 724,33 S.Ct. 503 |
| Parties | WILLIAM G. PLESTED and Charles Beuchat, Appts., v. SAMUEL A. ABBEY and John J. Lambert |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. Jesse G. Northcutt, William C. Prentiss, Robert H. Widdicombe, and A. Watson McHendrie for appellants.
Assistant Attorney General Cobb and Solicitor General Bullitt for appellees.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 43-47 intentionally omitted] Mr. Chief Justice White delivered the opinion of the court:
The appellants prosecute this direct appeal from a decree sustaining a demurrer to a bill by them filed, and dismissing the cause for want of jurisdiction. The suit concerned the right of the complainants under the laws of the United States to purchase certain coal lands belonging to the United States, and the defendants were the local land officers of the United States at Pueblo, Colorado.
The theory that the decree dismissing the bill is susceptible of being directly reviewed rests upon the assumption that the controversy, because of its nature and because of the official character of the defendants, was one of exclusive Federal cognizance, and therefore the refusal to exercise jurisdiction necessarily involved a ruling concerning the authority of the court below as a Federal court.
To decide the issue it is essential to consider the averments of the bill and the reasons which led the court below to sustain the demurrer. The bill alleged that in the spring of 1897 the complainants took possession of and commenced the improvement of 240 acres of coal land, the property of the United States, situated within 15 miles of a completed railroad, in Las Animas county, Colorado. In due time, it was averred, they filed in the local land office at Pueblo the declaratory statement authorized by § 2349, Revised Statutes (U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 1440), and on July 1, 1907, tendered $20 per acre for the land, and applied to enter the same under § 2350, Revised Statutes. It was alleged that on January 11, 1908, both the declaratory statement and the application were rejected by the local land office upon the ground that the land had been withdrawn from sale under the coal land laws by a departmental order dated July 26, 1906, and that on appeal the Commissioner of the General Land Office affirmed the action of the local officials, and on a further appeal such decision was approved on January 30, 1909, by the Secretary of the Interior.
The following facts were then averred:
In June, 1910, the land in question, with other land, was restored to entry, and on June 28, 1910, the register notified the complainants in writing that they would be allowed sixty days from the receipt of the communication in which to make a formal claim to the land as to which they had previously filed a notice of claim, and that the price fixed by the United States Geological Survey for certain of the land was $125 per acre, and for the remainder $115 per acre, aggregating $30,000 for the entire tract. It was alleged that soon afterwards the complainants filed in the local land office a written application for the purchase of the land, and by direction of the register a notice of the application was published, and copies thereof were posted as required by statute, and due proof of the performance of such acts was filed in the land office. In September following, in response to communications from the complainants, the local land office notified complainants that payment for the land must be made within thirty days or the application to purchase would be rejected. Within the time fixed a tender of $4,800 was made to the receiver, as being the price fixed by § 2347, Revised Statutes. The receiver refused to accept the money or to give any receipt therefor. The bill then averred that it was the intention of the land officers to refuse to permit the complainants to purchase the land unless they were willing to pay, not the alleged suatutory price, but the sum of $30,000 arbitrarily fixed by the Secretary of the Interior as the price of the lands. The prayer of the bill was for both a restraining and a mandatory injunction, the one forbidding the defendant land officers from carrying out the orders of the Secretary of the Interior and the Commissioner of the General Land Office, and the other commanding the defendant land officers to accept the application of the complainants...
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