Court Opinion

ID: 9417553
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 20:24:48.26947+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:45.196419
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Gray,
Mr. Justice Brown and myself dissent in this case also, as in the preceding, on the merits: for the' reason stated therein. This further fact is worthy of notice. The tract originally patented consisted of a fractional quarter section, containing only four and jf, acres. It appears that at the time of the survey and patent, and now, there was and is a tongue of land extending out beyond the surveyed land into the lake, containing about twenty-five acres; • so that by purchasing this little piece of' four acres and a fraction, at the government price, the purchaser, as it is held, took title not merely to the land surveyed, but to the .twenty-five acres of *416dry land outside of the survey, as .well as .the large area of land under the lake and in front of the bank. This result is certainly suggestive.
On the question of removal it appears that in this action, one of ejectment, there were present as defendants a tenant and his landlord, the latter coming in on his own motion, after suit was commenced. The tenant and the plaintiff were citizens of the same State. The Illinois statute of ejectment bearing upon the question of parties defendant is as follows: “ If the premises for which the action is brought are actually occupied by any person, such actual occupant shall be named defendant in the suit, and all other persons claiming title or interest to or in the same may also be joined as defendants.” Starr & Curtiss’ Stat. 981, sec. 6. The defendant was therefore a necessary party. In Phelps v. Oaks, 117 U. S. 236, which was also an action of ejectment, tenant and landlord being parties defendant, the latter coming in as here after the commencement of the suit, this court held that “ the plaintiff has a real and substantial ‘controversy’ with the defendant (the tenant) within the meaning of the act for removal of causes from state courts, which continues after his landlord is summoned in and becomes a party for the purpose of protecting his own interests.” This decision seems to us to forbid a removal on the ground of citizenship.
■ So far as a Federal question is concerned, "it is familiar, law that ejectment turps on the plaintiff’s title. If that be good, he is entitled to.recover; if it fails, then it is immaterial what claim or title defendant may have, the verdict must be in his favor. “ If there is any exception to the rule that in an action to recover possession of land the plaintiff must recover on the strength of his own title and that the defendant in possession can lawfully say, until you show some title, you have no right to disturb me, it has not been pointed out to us.” Reynolds v. Mining Company, 116 U. S. 687, 692.
If plaintiff’s first grantor, by his patent from the government for the land on the bank, took title to the centre of the lake, he was entitled to judgment for possession; and no act of the officers of the land department, subsequently thereto, *417could divest of limit his right or prevent his recovering judgment. On the other hand, if the patent only carried title to the water line, then it is entirely immaterial to the plaintiff what action the officers of the land department may have taken in reference to the premises beyond; the defendant ■would be entitled to judgment; and that irrespectively of the question whether he had any title, or though it was vested in' the State.
'Tt is a novel proposition, that in an action of ejectment, a party defendant cah, by setting up some claim under the laws of the United States, a claim which cannot be inquired into on the trial, because it in no manner affects the plaintiff’s title, which is the subject of dispute, make such unnecessary and irrelevant claim a ground of removal from the State to the Federal court.
We think the case should have,been reversed and remanded to the state court; and in that way an early reexamination might have been had in the Supreme Court of the State on the merits of the principal question.