Smith v. Adsit (83 U.S. 185)/Opinion of the Court

A decree was entered in the State court where the bill was filed, against Adsit for $6829, and the bill dismissed as to the other defendants. He then appealed to the Supreme Court of the State, where the decree against him was reversed, and the bill was dismissed as to him, as the record shows, for want of jurisdiction.

In view of this we do not perceive that we have any authority to review the judgment of the State court. Plainly, if there be any Federal question in the case it is because the plaintiff claimed some title, right, privilege, or immunity under the act of Congress to which reference was made in his bill, and because the decision of the court was against the title, right, privilege, or immunity thus set up or claimed. Such a claim and such a decision must appear in the record. But we think this does not appear. It must be admitted that the question whether the sale of the land warrant by Holmes to Adsit, if made before the warrant issued, as charged in the bill, was not a nullity, may have been presented, but it does not appear that such a question was decided, much less that it was decided adversely to the plaintiff in error. Nothing is more certain than that to give this court jurisdiction to review the judgment of a State court, the record must show, either expressly or by necessary intendment, not only that a Federal question was raised, but that it was decided adversely to the party who has caused the case to be removed here.

The doctrine was plainly stated in Crowell v. Randell, and it has been repeated in numerous later decisions. Indeed it is the express requirement of the twenty-fifth section of the Judiciary Act, and of the act of February 14th, 1867. And the rulings of this court have gone further. In Parmelee v. Lawrence, it was said it must appear that the question must have been necessarily involved in the decision, and that the State court could not have given a judgment without deciding it. In Williams v. Norris, it was held not to be enough that the construction of an act of Congress was drawn in question, and that the decision was against the title of the party, but that it must also appear that the title depended on that act. And in Rector v. Ashley, it was laid down that if the judgment of the State court can be sustained on other grounds than those which are of Federal cognizance, this court will not revise it, though a Federal question may also have been decided therein, and decided erroneously. These decisions go much further than is necessary to sustain our judgment now.

As we have seen, the bill was dismissed for want of jurisdiction. The judgment of the court respecting the extent of its equitable jurisdiction is, of course, not reviewable here. The record does not inform us what other questions, if any, were decided. It nowhere appears that the sale from Holmes to Adsit was ruled to be valid, notwithstanding the act of Congress which declared that sales of bounty-rights, made or executed prior to the issue of land warrants therefor, shall be null and void. Nor was it necessary to the decree that was entered that such a decision should have been made. After the land had been sold by Adsit to bon a fide purchasers without notice, which had been decreed in the court below, from which decree there was no appeal-after it had thus been settled that there was no continuing trust in the land-it may well have been determined that the plaintiff's remedy against Adsit was at law, and not in equity, even if the sale from Holmes to him was utterly void. But whatever may have been the reasons for the decision, whether the court had jurisdiction of the case or not, is a question exclusively for the judgment of the State court.

We need not pursue the subject further. It is enough that it does not appear the claim of the plaintiff, that the sale of Holmes to Adsit was a nullity because of the act of Congress, was necessarily involved in the decision, or that the sale was decided to be valid, or that the same decree would not have been made if the invalidity of the sale had been acknowledged.

WRIT DISMISSED.