Court Opinion

ID: 9417382
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 20:12:10.059726+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:40.981027
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief Justice Waite,
with whom concurred Harlan, Woods, and Blatchford, JJ., dissenting.
I am unable to agree to this judgment. In my opinion the act of March 3d, 1877, granted a new right to the .occupants of the Hot Springs Reservation, and provided a special tribunal for the settlement of all controversies between conflicting claimants. The right and the remedy were created by the same statute, and, consequently, the remedy thus specially provided Avas exclusive of all others. No provision Avas made for a revieiv of the decisions of the tribunal. Its determination, therefore, of all questions arising under the jurisdiction must necessarily be conclusive, and not open to attack collaterally. It seems to me there is a very broad distinction betAveen this case and that of Johnson v. Towsley, 13 Wall. 72, and others of that class. Here a special tribunal has been created for a special purpose. It has been clothed Avith power to compel the attendance of Avitne'sses “ and to finally determine the right of each claimant or occupant to purchase” from the United States, under the provisions of the act of Congress, the ground he occupies or claims. The duties of the tribunal are judicial in their character, and their decisions évidently intended to be binding on the parties. The question now is not Avhether, if Rector had kept aAvay from the tribunal and Gibbon had got a title under his occupancy, he could be charged as trustee for Rector on account of his tenancy, but Avhether, having appeared before the tribunal and been beaten in a contest Avith Gibbon, *293on that identical question, Héctor can in this suit correct the errors of the tribunal in its decision. I think he cannot. If he can, it is difficult to see why all the decisions of the tribunal are not open to revision by the courts.
I am authorized to say that Justices Harlan, Woods, and Blatchford concur with me in this opinion.