The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1889-05-15
A LONG LITIGATION ENDED
BY THE SUPREME COURTS DECISION.
The Executors of the VIII of Myra Clark
Gaines in the Celebrated Suit Against
the City of New Orleans Awarded
the sum OF S576,OOO.

WASHINGTON, May BIN an opinion by
Justice Bradley, the supreme court awarded
the executors of the will of Myra Clark Gaines
the sum of $4,000 against the city of New
Orleans for the use of property sold by the
city. but recovered by Mrs. Gaines after long
litigation. The judgment OF the lower court
awarding the executors 81 100000 for the use of
the unimproved property sold by the city was
not concurred in.
This case probably has been the most inter-
esting, the hardest contested and the most pro-
longed known to the judicial history of this
country. Over thirty years ago Justice Waite
of the supreme court said that when the his
torian of the American bar should come to
write up the case it would be registered as the
most remarkable in the history of our courts.
The case had then been before the supreme
court five times in one form or another, and has
now been decided as many times again. The
first suit in the case was brought by Mrs.
Gaines (then the wife of Gen. Whitney, IN
1884, and since that time decision has followed
decision in regard to it until it
has become by-word that there
was always Gaines case pending.
The first suit sought to recover was what was
known as the Evariste Blanc tract in New Or
leans. Blanc bought the tract for about $500
from the executors of Gen. Daniel Clark,
prominent citizen of New Orleans. He sold it
and some other lands to the city of New Or
leans for $4,000, and the city subdivided the
tract, and sold it to a number of persons for
between six and seven hundred thousand dol
lars, agreeing to defend all questions of title,
Mrs. Gaines having a few months before
claimed it. The grounds upon which Mrs.
Gaines set up her claim were that she was the
child of Gen. Clark by secret marriage be-
tween him and Zuline Carriere, a woman we'll
known in the city, and that Gen. Clark had left
a later will than the one under which the
property had been sold. This secret mar
riage formed the axis on which the
litigation revolved and the case was fought
with bitterness by both sides. 1t was not until
a few years before that Mrs. Gaines was finally
declared to be the legitimate child as well
the lawful heir of Gen. Clark. Even then the
city of New Orleans did not surrender and
after the war Mrs. Gaines was compelled to
bring a suit for damages In 1881 the circuit
court of the United States for the Louisiana
district gave judgment in her favor for 81, ,925,-
CO.. and il is on an appeal from this judgment
that the case to-day was decided. The present
case. 1t is conceded, exhausts all the resources
of the law and is regarded as a final settlement
OF the litigation. Mrs. Gaines, fighting TO the
very last for her rights is dead and so il is be-
lieved are ali her immediate relatives, except
her daughter-in-law, Hattie L. Whitney. in
whose name, as Administrative of the estate of
Mrs. Gaines, the case stands on the court
docket
Justice Bradley rendered the decision of the
court, which was unanimous. Justice Lamar
and Chief Justice Fuller were not members of
the court at the time the case was argued and
took no part in the decision.