Court Opinion

ID: 9833772
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:00:29.29089+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:06.579992
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
Appellant, in an ably prepared argument, insists that this court was in error in affirming the judgment upon the grounds that Richard Hooper, and not James T. Kelly, was by purchase the owner of conditional certificate No. 36, and that even if Richard Hooper was not the owner, but James T. Kelly was the legal assignee of unconditional certificate No. 41, nevertheless the heir .of James T. Kelly could not recover in this suit because Kelly’s right of location had been so forfeited in fact by the land commissioner for Kelly’s failure to make return of field notes, as required by law, as to reannex the land to the rest of the public domain and make it subject to be located on and patented by appellees’ vendors. These points rest on the facts.
[7] It is believed that appellant correctly states that we were in error in declaring that the recital in the unconditional certificate No. 41 that James T. Kelly was the assignee of Joseph Humphreys, deceased, was not to be regarded as conclusive of Kelly’s ownerership of the certificate, as against Richard Hooper. Upon a further consideration it is thought that there is not created by the act of 1850 a state of difference from the former laws, and that the cases cited would have application to the act of 1850 the same as in preceding acts. The fact, therefore, would appear that James T. Kelly was the assignee of unconditional certificate No. 41. But it is concluded, as before, that it has been proven that such right of Kelly to location on the particular land in suit had been so forfeited by the land commissioner, under terms of *926law, as to rearmes the land to the public domain and make it subject to be located on and patented to appellees’ vendors. And this fact, in connection with Kelly’s acquiescence, as before discussed, ultimates in the affirmance of the judgment.