Gibson v. Chouteau (75 U.S. 314)

ON motion to dismiss a writ of error to the Supreme Court of Missouri. The case purported to be brought here, under the 25th section of the Judiciary Act, which gives this court jurisdiction to review judgments in the highest court of a State, where there has been drawn in question the validity of an authority exercised under the United States, and the decree is against such validity, or where there is drawn in question the construction of any statute of, or commission exercised under the United States, and the decree is against the title, right, or privilege, or exemption specially set up; OR, where there is drawn in question the validity of a statute of, or an authority exercised under any State on the ground of their being repugnant to the laws of the United States, and the decision is in favor of such their validity.

The record showed that the plaintiff below, who was also plaintiff here, filed his petition in the Land Court of St. Louis, to recover of the defendants a tract of sixty-four acres of land. The petitions stated that Mrs. Mary McRee was, prior to August 20th, 1862, invested with the title by the United States, and that on the day mentioned, she conveyed the same to him.

The defendant's answer denied the plaintiff's right to the possession, denied that he had the title, denied Mrs. McRee's title, set up the statute of limitations, and alleged, that the title acquired by the plaintiff was so acquired as agent of the defendants, and in fraud of their rights. To this, the plaintiff filed two or three replications, going into a minute history of the transaction in which the fraud was supposed to have originated, and denying it wholly.

On these pleadings, the case was tried by the court without a jury, and the issue was found for plaintiff, his damages assessed at six hundred dollars, and judgment rendered for that sum, and for the possession of the land. A bill of exceptions, which, in the record, made eighty printed pages, was signed, filled with surveys, deeds, decrees, and testimony of witnesses, some of which was evidently directed to the questions of fraud made in the pleadings. It also contained some ten or twelve prayers for instructions by the plaintiff, which were refused by the court, as rulings of law, which relate to the validity of plaintiff's title; also, an instruction given by the court to the effect, that the patent of the United States to Mrs. McRee invested her with the title which her deed transferred to the plaintiff, and that the patent having issued within the ten years next preceding the commencement of the suit, the statute of limitations could not be relied on as a bar.

On this record, the case was carried to the Supreme Court of the State, where it was 'affirmed in all things' on December 3d, 1866. There days after this, a motion for rehearing was filed. This was, in fact, an argument of counsel. It cited decisions and urged reasons to show, that the statute should be regarded as a bar; decisions and reasons which it alleged that the court had not sufficiently weighed. The motion for rehearing was granted on the 10th day of the same month, and the judgment of affirmance set aside, and the cause ordered to be docketed for a rehearing. This rehearing was had in March, 1867, and in April, the following judgment was entered:

'Now, again come the parties aforesaid, by their respective attorneys, and the court being now sufficiently advised of and concerning the premises, doth consider and adjudge that the judgment rendered herein by the said St. Louis Land Court be reversed, annulled, and for naught held and esteemed; that the respondent take nothing by his suit in this behalf, but that the appellants go thereof without day, and recover of the said respondents their costs and charges herein expended, and have execution therefor. Opinion filed.'

It is proper to state that, by the code of practice in the State courts of Missouri, an equitable defence may be set up in a common law action, there being no separate chancery jurisdiction in those courts.

The matter which, on this case, the plaintiff conceived to have been decided against him in the Supreme Court of Missouri, and which, as he assumed, gave this court jurisdiction, was, that the statute of limitations of Missouri ran against the title of the plaintiff, while the same was in the United States, and before it had been transferred by the patent of 1862 to Mrs. McRee. And the question which was before this court, on review for its consideration, was, whether it appeared from this record, either by express words or by necessary legal intendment, that the court did decide that proposition. If it did, then this court had jurisdiction under the already quoted 25th section of the Judiciary Act.

Messrs. McPherson and Gibson, for the plaintiff in error, contended that it did, sufficiently and to a reasonable intent, so appear; a matter made even more plain, as they argued, by reference to the opinion of the court and by the motion for rehearing.

Messrs. Glover and Hill, contra.

Mr. Justice MILLER delivered the opinion of the court.