Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/151/658
Timestamp: 2016-08-29 03:55:43
Document Index: 524878112

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2392', '§ 19', '§ 692', '§ 1', '§ 3', '§ 691', 'art, 17', '§ 25', '§ 2', '§ 709', '§ 5']

DOWER et al. v. RICHARDS et al. | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute
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151 U.S. 658 (14 S.Ct. 452, 38 L.Ed. 305)
DOWER et al. v. RICHARDS et al.
[HTML] H. L. Gear, for plaintiffs in error.
The defendants, in their answer, alleged that Harriet Dower, of whom the other defendants were servants, was the owner and in possession, and entitled to the possession, of a quartz ledge and mine, called the 'Wagner Ledge,' situated partly upon and crossing the lots demanded; that Richards had no other right of possession than under a town-site patent granted by the United States to the city of Nevada in 1869; that the ledge was known to be a gold-bearing ledge, and was held and worked as such long prior and subsequent to that patent, and was by the laws of the United States excepted from that patent; and that Harriet Dower had located the ledge, and was engaged in working it, including 300 feet on either side thereof, under those laws. The laws relied on by the defendants were the acts of July 26, 1866, c. 262; March 2, 1867, c. 177, (
14 Stat. 251, 541;) June 8, 1868, c. 53, (
15 Stat. 67;) May 10, 1872, c. 152, (
17 Stat. 91;) Rev. St. § 2392.
In the first judiciary act the whole appellate jurisdiction of this court was limited to matters of law. While an appeal lay from the district court to the circuit court in admiralty cases, neither the judgments or decrees of the circuit court, whether in law, equity, or admiralty, nor judgments or decrees of the highest court of a state, could be reviewed by this court, except by writ of error. Act Sept. 24, 1789, c. 20, §§ 19, 22-25, (
1 Stat. 83-86.) Under that act it was held that a decree in admiralty could not be reviewed by this court in matter of fact; and Chief Justice Ellsworth, after laying down the rule that the appellate jurisdiction of this court could only be exercised within the regulations prescribed by congress, said: 'It is to be considered, then, that the judicial statute of the United States speaks of an 'appeal' and of a 'writ of error;' but it does not confound the terms, nor use them promiscuously. They are to be understood, when used, according to their ordinary acceptation, unless something appears in the act itself to control, modify, or change the fixed and technical sense which they have previously borne. An appeal is a process of civil-law origin, and removes a cause entirely, subjecting the fact, as well as the law, to a review and retrial; but a writ of error is a process of commonlaw origin, and it removes nothing for re-examination but the law.' Wiscart v. D'Auchy, 3 Dall. 327; The Perseverance, 3 Dall. 336; The Charles Carter, 4 Dall. 22.
In 1803 congress substituted an appeal from the circuit court to this court, instead of a writ of error, in cases in equity and in admiralty; and upon such an appeal the facts as well as the law were open to review in both those classes of cases until 1875, when the appeal in admiralty was restricted to questions of law. Act March 3, 1803, c. 40, (
2 Stat. 244;) The San Pedro, 2 Wheat. 132; The Baltimore, 8 Wall. 377; Rev. St. § 692; Act Feb. 16, 1875, c. 77, § 1, (
18 Stat. 315;) The Francis Wright, 105 U. S. 381.
Judgments of the circuit court in actions at law have remained reviewable by writ of error only. Jones v. La Valette, 5 Wall. 579; Act July 4, 1840, c. 43, § 3, (
5 Stat. 393;) Rev. St. § 691. Upon such a writ of error, this court, as is well settled, cannot review a decision of a question of fact, even if by the local practice, as in Louisiana, the law and the facts are tried together by the judge without a jury.
In a petitory action, in the nature of ejectment, to recover land in Louisiana, the subject was fully explained by Chief Justice Taney, who (according to the original opinion on file, misprinted in some particulars in the official report) said: 'According to the laws of that state, unless one of the parties demands a trial by jury, the court decides the fact as well as the law; and, if the judgment is removed to a higher court for revision, the decision upon the fact as well as the law is open for examination in the appellate court. The record transmitted to the superior court, therefore, in the state practice, necessarily contains all the evidence offered in the inferior court; and, as there is no distinction between courts of law and courts of equity, the legal and equitable rights of the parties are tried and decided in the same proceeding. In the courts of the United States, however, the distinction between courts of law and of equity is preserved in Louisiana as well as in the other states; and the removal of the case from the circuit court to this court is regulated by act of congress, and not by the practice of Louisiana; and the writ of error, by which, alone, a case can be removed from a circuit court when sitting as a court of law, brings up for revision here nothing but questions of law; and if the case has been tried according to the Louisiana practice, without the intervention of a jury, the decisions of the circuit court upon questions of fact are as conclusive as if they had been found by the jury.' The chief justice stated that, upon the first argument of the case at a former term, the court, its attention 'not having been drawn to the difference between an appeal in the state practice and the writ of error from this court,' and being of opinion that the weight of evidence was against the authenticity of an instrument under which one of the parties claimed title, and which the circuit court had held to be authentic, therefore reversed the judgment of that court; but that this court, upon reconsideration, was 'unanimously of opinion that the decision of the circuit court upon this question of fact must, like the finding of a jury, be regarded as conclusive; that the writ of error can bring up nothing but questions of law; and that, in deciding the question of title in this court, the paper referred to must be treated and considered as authentic and sufficiently proved,'and had therefore ordered the case to be reargued. U. S. v. King, 7 How. 833, 844, 845. Upon the final argument, while four of the justices dissented from the opinion of the court upon the principal question of law presented by the record, none of them differed from the chief justice on the question of practice; and Mr. Justice Wayne, who delivered the principal dissenting opinion, said: 'No point has been more repeatedly and authoritatively settled than that this court will not, upon a writ of error, revise or give judgment as to the facts, but takes them as found by the court below, and as they are exhibited by the record.' 7 How. 865. See, also, Parks v. Turner, 12 How. 39, 43; Arthur v. Hart, 17 How. 6, 12; Lanfear v. Hunley, 4 Wall. 204, 209; Generes v. Campbell, 11 Wall. 193; Jeffries v. Insurance Co., 110 U. S. 305, 309, 4 Sup. Ct. 8.
The only appellate jurisdiction which has ever been conferred by congress upon this court to review the judgments or decrees, at law or in equity, of the highest court of a state, has been by writ of error. Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 410; Verden v. Coleman, 22 How. 192; Act Sept. 24, 1789, c. 20, § 25, (
1 Stat. 85;) Act Feb. 5, 1867, c. 28, § 2, (
14 Stat. 386;) Rev. St. § 709; Act March 3, 1891, c. 517, § 5, (