Clinton v. Missouri Pacific Railway Company

This case is in many respects anomalous and bristles with points, but it is otherwise not very important. It commenced in a proceeding instituted by the Missouri Pacific Railway Company of Nebraska, under a statute of that state providing for the condemnation of land for the use of railroads. It was begun in the county court of Cass county, Nebraska, by which a commission was appointed to make the assessment of damages. From this assessment, after it was returned to the county court, Samuel Clinton, some of whose land was taken, appealed to the district court of said county. In that court he made a motion, which was successful, to remove the case into the circuit court of the United States for the district of Nebraska. In this latter court a motion was made to remand the case to the district court of Cass county, which seems never to have been acted upon, but, on a motion made by the railway company to dismiss the appeal,-meaning thereby the appeal from the county court to the district court of Cass county,-the circuit court granted the motion, and dismissed the appeal. The matter, therefore, not being remanded to the state court, the circuit court of the United States deciding that no valid appeal had been taken from the county to the district court of Cass county, the dismissal of the appeal was, of course, an end of the case. To this judgment of dismissal the present writ of error is prosecuted.

The only error assigned by the plaintiff here is in the following language: 'The court below sustained the motion to dismiss solely upon the ground that the appeal had not been taken within the statutory time of sixty days after the assessment, deciding that the time commenced to run from the day when the commissioners met and viewed the land, and not from the date of the return of their assessment. This is the only error relied upo by plaintiff in error.'

John M. Thurston, for plaintiff in error.

John F. Dillon, for defendant in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 471-473 intentionally omitted]

MILLER, J.