Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/184/669.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 18:57:21+00:00

Document:
[184 U.S. 669, 670] This is an appeal from an order of the district court of the United States for the northern district of California sustaining a demurrer to and dismissing the petition of the appellants, interveners, who prayed that a certain decree of the above-named district court, made on November 30, 1859, be ordered to be executed.
From this decree the United States appealed to this court, which affirmed the decree of the district court (1857). United States v. Peralta, 19 How. 343, 15 L. ed. 678. Two controversies were decided: First, that the officers issuing the grant had power to make grants of land; and, second, that the northern boundary of the land extended beyond San Antonio creek, according to the claim of the petitioners. Upon the mandate of this court being filed in the district court, a final decree was entered therein on November 30, 1859, slightly amending its former decree in substantial compliance with such mandate. This decree is still in force.
Afterwards, and on August 10, 1860, the surveyor general returned into court a corrected plat of a survey, purporting to be in conformity with the decree of November 30, 1859. Thereupon, and on October 8, 1860, one Carpentier and others filed [184 U.S. 669, 671] a petition of intervention, in which they claimed adversely so much land as lay under the waters of the estuary of San Antonio, up to the highest tide lands, through mesne conveyances from the state of California, and afterwards filed in court their exceptions to the survey. The United States also filed exceptions thereto. The litigation thus inaugurated continued for more than ten years, and finally resulted in a decree of the district court, August 4, 1871, approving a modified survey of the tract, a certified plat of which had been filed in the clerk's office. An appeal was taken from this decree by the United States to the circuit court for the ninth judicial circuit, by which court the appeal was dismissed July 31, 1874, and a decree entered that the claimants have leave to proceed under the decree confirming the survey as a final decree. The Commissioner of the General Land Office thereupon caused to be prepared and recorded a patent of the United States for that portion of the lands included in the survey.
Thirty-seven years after the entry of the years after the dismissal of the above appeal in the circuit court, the successors in title of one of the Peraltas presented to the Commissioner of the General Land Office, September 2, 1896, a plat of a survey of the rancho San Antonio made by the surveyor general of California, November 25, 1895, under the act of Congress of July 23, 1866 (14 Stat. at L. 218, chap. 219), with certified copies of the decree of November 30, 1859, with a request that he issue to the petitioners a patent in accordance with such plat of survey, which the Commissioner declined to do, September 22, 1896, and the Secretary of the Interior affirmed his decision. The appellants thereupon, and on July 27, 1899, filed in the district court for the northern district of California a petition of intervention in the original case of the United States v. Peralta, praying that the decree of November 30, 1859, might be ordered to be executed; that the government be required to issue to the appellants its patent for so much of the lands of the rancho as had not theretofore been patented to them, or any of them. The United States demurred to the petition, which on January 29, 1900, was dismissed. [99 Fed. 618.] [184 U.S. 669, 672] This was followed by another similar petition, filed March 29, 1900, based upon the survey of 1895, which was also demurred to, and resulted in a decree, rendered May 28, 1900, sustaining the demurrer and dismissing the petition. Whereupon petitioners appealed to this court.
Messrs. James T. Boyd, George A. King, Boyd & Fifield, and Thayer & Rankin for appellants.
Messrs. Matthew G. Reynolds and Solicitor General Richards for appellee.
The appeal in this case is taken from the decree of May 28, 1900, sustaining the demurrer to, and dismissing the petition of, the appellants, which was filed March 29, 1900.
Our jurisdiction of this appeal depends upon certain statutes, which it becomes necessary to consider. By the original act of March 3, 1851 (9 Stat. at L. 631, chap. 41), to ascertain and settle the private land claims in the state of California, a commission of three persons was constituted ( 1) to settle such claims, whose duty it was ( 8) to decide upon their validity and to certify the same, with their reasons, to the district attorney of the United States. By 9 an appeal was given to the district court, which was empowered to review the decision of the commissioners, and to decide upon the validity of such claim. By 10 the district court was required, on application of the party against whom judgment was rendered, to grant an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States. It was held in United States v. Fossatt, 21 How. 445, 16 L. ed. 186, that the jurisdiction of the board of commissioners extended, not only to the adjudication of questions relating to the genuineness and authenticity of the grant, but also to all questions relating to its location and boundaries; and that it did not terminate until the issue of a patent conformable to the decree.
It appears perfectly clear from 3 that the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court was taken away, except as to cases where an appeal had already been taken. With this exception appeals must be taken under that act to the circuit court. The law remained in that condition until the passage of the court of appeals act of March 3, 1891 (26 Stat. at L. 826, chap. 517), by the 5th section of which appeals can only be taken directly from the district court to this court in cases where the jurisdiction of the district court is in issue, in prize cases, criminal cases, constitutional cases, or cases involving the validity or construction of a treaty. As to all other cases, by 6 appeal must be taken to the circuit court of appeals. As we said in McLish v. Roff, 141 U.S. 661 , 35 L. ed. 893, 12 Sup. Ct. Rep. 118, this act provides for the distribution of the entire appellate jurisdiction of our national judicial system between the Supreme Court and the circuit court of appeals. As this case does not fall within any of the classes excepted by 5, it is clear that if any appeal will lie at all, it should have been taken to the circuit court [184 U.S. 669, 674] of appeals, and that we have no jurisdiction to enforce the execution of this decree by appeal from the district court. If the decree of November 30, 1859, rendered by the district court in pursuance of the mandate of this court, were not a final decree, it became final either August 4, 1871, when the modified survey was approved, and an appeal was taken to the circuit court and the appeal dismissed by Mr. Justice Field, July 31, 1874, or upon May 28, 1900, from which the appeal was taken in this case.
Similar cases are by no means infrequent in this court. Thus in Yeaton v. United States, 5 Cranch, 281, 3 L. ed. 101, it was held that if the law under which a sentence of forfeiture was inflicted expired or were absolutely repealed after an appeal and before sentence by the appellate court, the sentence must be reversed. See also The Rachel v. United States, 6 Cranch, 329, 3 L. ed. 239; United States v. Preston, 3 Pet. 57, 7 L. ed. 601; Norris v. Crocker, 13 How. 429, 14 L. ed. 210. In Merchants' Ins. Co. v. Ritchie, 5 Wall. 541, 18 L. ed. 540, it was held that the jurisdiction of the circuit courts between citizens of the same state in internal revenue cases, conferred by the act of 1864, was taken away by the act of 1866, and that cases pending at the passage of the act fell with its repeal. Ex parte McCardle, 7 Wall. 506, 19 L. ed. 264. These cases fully establish the proposition that a repealing statute which contains no saving clause operates as well upon pending cases as upon those thereafter commenced.
In the case under consideration there was a saving of suits already begun, but there was an express proviso that, where no appeal had been taken to the Supreme Court, no appeal to that court should be allowed. That law remained unchanged until the court of appeals act of 1891, to which all appeals from circuit or district court must now be taken, with a few specified exceptions.

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