Rogers v. Jones/Opinion of the Court

In entering the decree of December 23, 1905, the chancellor manifestly proceeded on the decision of the supreme court of Mississippi, reported 85 Miss. 802, 38 So. 742, as did the supreme court in affirming, October 22, 1906, the chancellor's decree. To this decree the pending writ of error was allowed and issued September 18, 1907.

The contention is that, in determining the rights of plaintiffs in error, the Mississippi supreme court put a wrong construction upon the special act of Congress of February 16, 1839, [5 Stat. at L. 317, chap. 27], referring to the time and place for the making of judicial sales in Mississippi, in that it held that the marshal's sale relied on as the foundation of title was made at the wrong place. But the supreme court made other and decisive rulings, as well as that in reference to the place of the alleged sale.

In the first place, that court held that the alleged return on the writ of fieri facias did not describe the lands in controversy, and therefore could not confer title, even though regular and valid. The act of Congress of February 16, 1839, did not attempt to define what is and what is not a good and valid description of real estate, or to make any rule by which a purchaser at a marshal's sale could take possession of lands other than those specifically described in the process. The question of a sufficient description was a question of general law.

In the second place, the court held that, under the Mississippi statute authorizing suits of the character then before the court, plaintiffs in error had not deraigned a title to the lands in controversy, which, under the Mississippi statute under which the suit was instituted, was a fatal objection to the bill.

In the third place, the court held that the claim of plaintiffs in error was barred by the Mississippi statute of limitations, in that it failed to show possession by the plaintiffs, or their ancestor, during the sixty-four years that intervened between the marshal's sale and the bringing of the suit, and did not, as required by the rules of practice in courts of equity in Mississippi, show that it was the defendants or those in privity with them who had fraudulently canceled from plaintiffs the evidence of their claim.

It is true that the supreme court of Mississippi in the subsequent case of Kennedy v. Sanders, 90 Miss. 524, 43 So. 913, decided May 20, 1907, overruled the ruling in Jones v. Rogers, applying the ten-year statute of limitations, and quoting what the court then observed in that regard, said that 'this announcement was not necessary to the decision in Jones v. Rogers, for the court had already held that the complainants in that case had deraigned no title.' And it will have been perceived that this writ of error runs to the judgment of the supreme court of October 22, 1906.

The result is, therefore, that this writ of error comes within the rule that where the disposition of a Federal question was not necessary to the determination of the cause, and the judgment is based on a distinct ground or grounds broad enough to sustain it, over which this court has no jurisdiction, the writ of error cannot be maintained.

Writ of error dismissed.

Mr. Justice White took no part in the consideration and disposition of this case.