Court : US Supreme Court
Decided on : Apr-25-1898
Galveston, H. & S.A. Ry. Co. v. Texas - 170 U.S. 226 (1898) U.S. Supreme Court Galveston, H. & S.A. Ry. Co. v. Texas, 170 U.S. 226 (1898) Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway Company v. Texas No. 421 Argued January 21, 24, 1898 Decided April 25, 1898 170 U.S. 226 ERROR TO THE COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH SUPREME JUDICIAL DISTRICT OF THE STATE OF TEXAS Syllabus When it does not appear from the plaintiff's statement of his case that the suit was one arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States, a petition to remove the cause into the Circuit Court of the United States should be overruled. The provision in the Constitution of Texas of 1869 that the legislature should not thereafter grant lands to any person or persons, as enforced against the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway Company, the successor of the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railway Company, which had received grants of public land under previous legislation to enco...
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
Decided on : May-09-1898
Stuart v. Easton - 170 U.S. 383 (1898) U.S. Supreme Court Stuart v. Easton, 170 U.S. 383 (1892) Stuart v. Easton No. 197 Argued April 12-13, 1898 Decided May 9, 1898 170 U.S. 383 CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT Syllabus The construction and legal effect of a patent for land is matter for the court, and evidence to aid in that construction is incompetent. The clear intent of the Act of the Province of Pennsylvania of March 11, 1752, authorizing trustees to acquire the land in question, was that while the legal estate in fee in the land should be acquired by the trustees, the beneficial use or equitable estate was to be in the inhabitants of the county, and the provision following the authorization to acquire the land, "and thereon to erect and build a courthouse and prison," was Page 170 U. S. 384 no more than a direction to the trustees as to the use to be made of the land after it had been acquired. The language of the habendum that t...
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
Decided on : Mar-21-1898
United States ex Rel. Bernardin v. Butterworth - 169 U.S. 600 (1898) U.S. Supreme Court United States ex Rel. Bernardin v. Butterworth, 169 U.S. 600 (1898) United States ex Rel. Bernardin v. Butterworth No. 403 Submitted February 21, 1898 Decided March 21, 1898 169 U.S. 600 ERROR TO THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Syllabus A suit to compel the Commissioner of Patents to issue a patent abates by the death of the Commissioner, and cannot be revived so as to bring in his successor, although the latter gives his consent. The Act of Maryland of 1785, c. 80, is not applicable to such a case. Page 169 U. S. 601 This was a motion to substitute Mr. Duell, Commissioner of Patents as defendant in the place of Mr. Butterworth, Commissioner, deceased. The case is stated in the opinion. MR. JUSTICE SHIRAS delivered the opinion of the Court. On March 23, 1895, John S. Seymour, Commissioner of Patents, on appeal in an interference proceeding between the applications o...
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
Decided on : Apr-11-1898
New York Indians v. United States - 170 U.S. 1 (1898) U.S. Supreme Court New York Indians v. United States, 170 U.S. 1 (1898) New York Indians v. United States No. 106 Argued March 2-3, 1898 Decided April 11, 1898 170 U.S. 1 APPEAL FROM THE COURT OF CLAIMS Syllabus The provision in the Treaty of June 15, 1838, with the New York Indians, that the United States will set apart as a permanent home for them the tract therein described in what afterwards became the State of Kansas, was intended to invest a present legal title thereto in the Indians, which title has not been forfeited and has not been reinvested in the United States, and the Indians are not estopped from claiming the benefit of such reservation. It appears by the records of the proceedings of the Senate that several amendments were there made to said treaty, including a new article; that the ratification was made subject to a proviso, the text of which is stated in the opinion of the Court, and that in the officia...
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
Decided on : May-02-1898
Shaw v. Kellogg - 170 U.S. 312 (1898) U.S. Supreme Court Shaw v. Kellogg, 170 U.S. 312 (1898) Shaw v. Kellogg No. 154 Submitted February 28, 1898 Decided May 2, 1898 170 U.S. 312 CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT Syllabus In 1860, Congress granted a quantity of land in New Mexico in fulfillment of a grant of nonmineral lands made by Mexico before its transfer, the land to be selected by the grantees and the Surveyor General to survey and locate the land selected, and thus determine whether it was such as the grantees might select. The grantees made their selection, and after considerable correspondence as to the forms of the application and as to the evidence that the selected lands were not mineral lands, the Surveyor General, under the direction of the Land Department, approved the selection, and made the survey and location. The Land Department approved the survey, field notes and plat, and the parties were notified thereof, but no patent ...
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
Decided on : May-31-1898
Pullman's Palace Car Co. v. Central Transp. Co. - 171 U.S. 138 (1898) U.S. Supreme Court Pullman's Palace Car Co. v. Central Transp. Co., 171 U.S. 138 (1898) Pullman's Palace Car Company v. Central Transportation Company No. 141 Argued March 24-25, 1898 Decided May 31, 1898 171 U.S. 138 APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FROM THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA, AND ALSO CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT Syllabus By taking an appeal to the circuit court of appeals, the Pullman Company did not, under the peculiar circumstances of this case, waive its right to appeal to this Court, and the case being now before this Court either on appeal or by the writ of certiorari, it has jurisdiction. In order to authorize a denial of a plaintiffs motion to discontinue a suit in equity, there must be some plain legal prejudice to the defendant, other than the mere prospect of future litigation, rendered possible by the discontinuance. U...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Chennai
Decided on : Aug-10-1898
Reported in : (1898)ILR21Mad433
Subramania Ayyar, J.1. The question raised in these cases is one of considerable importance to a large class of persons who plant and grow, as they are permitted to do by the rules of the Government applicable to the Tinnevelly district, palmyra trees on assessed Government sandy tracts, which abound in some parts of the district and which, though scarcely suited for any other kind of cultivation, are well adapted for the growth of the palmyra palm. The question is when a person grows on a piece of assessed Government land such trees in sufficient numbers and fairly closely over the land, so as to form, in the language of the people accepted by the Revenue authorities themselves, a tope' (paragraphs 3 and 9, Extract M. C, 31st May 1855, No. 655, and paragraph 7, extract from the Proceedings of the Board of Revenue, 6th May 1858, No. 1617, in Exhibit XXXIX), what right does the planter acquire in that piece of land by so planting therein? It is not the case of either party that, when on...
Tag this Judgment!Court : Chennai
Decided on : Oct-28-1898
Reported in : (1898)8MLJ231
H.H. Shephard, C.J.1. The first question is whether any appeal lies under Clause 15 of the Letters Patent from orders passed under the provisions of Section 622 of the Civil Procedure Code. Considering this question with exclusive reference to the language used by the framers of the Letters Patent and the Charter Act, I should have great difficulty in holding that Clause 15, read as it must be with Section 13 of the statute, was intended to give a right of appeal in such matters. In order to hold that orders passed on revision come within the scope of Clause 13 it must be held that they are made by the High Court in the exercise of its appellate jurisdiction. But for the opinion expressed in Allahabad shortly after the passing of the statute and practically acquiesced in by all the High Courts since that time, I should have thought that the power of superintendence conferred on the High Courts by Section 15 of the statute stood quite apart and distinct from their appellate jurisdiction...
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
Decided on : May-09-1898
Westinghouse v. Boyden Power Brake Co. - 170 U.S. 537 (1898) U.S. Supreme Court Westinghouse v. Boyden Power Brake Co., 170 U.S. 537 (1898) Westinghouse v. Boyden Power Brake Company Nos. 116, 99 Argued March 10-11, 1898 Decided May 9, 1898 170 U.S. 537 CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT Syllabus The Boyden device for a fluid-pressure break is not an infringement of patent No. 360,070 issued to George Westinghouse, Jr., March 29, 1887, for a fluid-pressure automatic-brake mechanism. This was a writ of certiorari to review a decree of the circuit court of appeals reversing a decree of the Circuit Court for the District of Maryland, which had sustained in part a bill filed by Westinghouse against the Boyden Power-Brake Company for the infringement of patent No. 360,070, and from which decree both parties had taken an appeal to the circuit court of appeals. The patent in suit, which was issued March 29, 1887, to George Westinghouse, Jr., is for...
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
Decided on : Dec-12-1898
United States v. Loughrey - 172 U.S. 206 (1898) U.S. Supreme Court United States v. Loughrey, 172 U.S. 206 (1898) United States v. Loughrey No. 22 Argued and submitted April 21, 1898 Decided December 12, 1898 172 U.S. 206 ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT Syllabus Under the Act of June 3, 1856, c. 44, 11 Stat. 21, the State of Michigan took the fee of the lands thereby granted, to be thereafter identified, subject to a condition subsequent that if the railroad, to aid in whose construction they were granted, should not be completed within ten years, the lands unsold should revert to the United States; but, until proceedings were taken by Congress to effect such reversion, the legal title to the lands and the ownership of the timber growing upon them remained in the state, and the United States could not maintain an action of trespass against a person unlawfully entering thereon, and cutting and removing timber from the land so granted, and timber...
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