Leonard v. Vicksburg, S. & PR Co., 198 U.S. 416 (1905)

198 U.S.
416
25 S.Ct. 750
49 L.Ed. 1108
A. H. LEONARD, George R. Wilson, R. N. Smith, et al., Plffs.

in Err.,
v.
VICKSBURG, SHREVEPORT, & PACIFIC RAILROAD
COMPANY, J. H. McCormick, Receiver, and C. C. Harvey.
No. 233.
Argued April 26, 27, 1905.
Decided May 29, 1905.
This was an action of ejectment brought, in 1896, by the Vicksburg,

Shreveport, & Pacific Railroad Company in the first judicial district court,
Caddo parish, Louisiana, against certain possessors, for whom Smith,
Leonard, and others were substituted as defendants, to recover 178.80
acres of land in that parish, less 35.18 acres, theretofore recovered by
Smith and others in another action.
Defendants, both by plea and answer, set up that they, being either the
heirs of W. W. Smith, or parties privy, brought suit in the circuit court of
the United States for the western district of Louisiana against one Turner,
asserting ownership to the entire tract, and praying to be restored to
possession of about 40 acres thereof, alleged to be illegally held by
Turner. That Turner disclaimed title, and averred that he was a tenant of
the Vicksburg, Shreveport, & Pacific Railroad Company, and thereupon
the railroad company answered, claiming possession and ownership of the
entire tract known as Silver Lake.
That a judgment was rendered in said suit in favor of the heirs of W. W.
Smith (in 1886), decreeing them to be the owners of the parcel of land
possession of which was sought in that suit, and they were put in
possession of the same; and that the judgment was final, and had the force
and effect of res judicata, as against all parties to that suit, and as against
the claims of plaintiffs in this suit.
The copy of complaint in Smith v. Turner, attached, showed that diversity
of citizenship was set up as the ground of jurisdiction.

And answering, defendants averred that the state of Louisiana sold to W.
W. Smith, on the 14th of May, 1853, the tract of land claimed by plaintiff,
for the price of $1.25 per acre, which was paid into the treasury of the
state by Smith, and was never returned to him; that, on the 24th of
February, 1855, the state of Louisiana, through its constituted authorities,
issued a patent to said tract of land to Smith.
That the state of Louisiana claimed and acquired the said tract of land as
swamp and overflowed land, granted to the state of Louisiana by the acts
of Congress of 1849 and 1850, known as the swamp-land grants, and that
the state sold the lands to Smith as swamp and overflowed lands.
That all sales of land in Louisiana made as swamp and overflowed land,
whether made by the United States or by the state of Louisiana, and
whether the land sold was of that character or not, were confirmed by the
act of Congress approved March 2, 1855, entitled 'An Act for the Relief of
Purchasers and Locators of Swamp and Overflowed Lands.' [10 Stat. at L.
634, chap. 147.]
That that act of Congress was extended so as to protect sales after its
passage, by the act of Congress of March 3, 1875 [11 Stat. at L. 251,
chap. 117, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 1588], to confirm all selections of
swamp and overflowed lands by the several states under the acts of
Congress of 1849 and 1850.
That the act of March 2, 1855, confirmed the title of the said W. W. Smith
to the tract of land, whether it belonged to the state of Louisiana, under the
swamp-land grant of Congress, or whether it belonged to the United
States, and that Smith thus acquired title to the land, both by purchase
from the state of Louisiana and by confirmation of Congress.
Thereupon J. H. McCormick, receiver for the Vicksburg, Shreveport, &
Pacific Railroad Company, filed his plea and exception of res judicata to
defendants' answer and plea therein of ownership of the said lands,
averring that, in a suit entitled State of Louisiana v. W. W. Smith et al.,
brought in 1857, in the district court of Caddo parish, Louisiana,
defendant Smith put at issue the validity and legality of his title to the
land, and, upon final hearing, a judgment was rendered in that suit
decreeing the certificate and patent under which Smith claimed to be null
and void, and directing their cancelation, and that they be delivered to the
state of Louisiana. That defendant appealed to the supreme court, which
appeal was thereafterwards dismissed; and that said judgment is res
judicata, and a perpetual bar to defendants' rights of action.

The Caddo district court, Watkins, J. found that, on the trial of the cause
of Smith v. Turner, in the circuit court, in which case recovery of only
35.18 acres out of the tract of 178.80 acres, known as 'Silver Lake,' was
sought, though title to the entire tract was asserted on one side, and denied
on the other, the railroad company had offered to prove the value of the
whole tract at $10,000, but that Smith had objected on the ground that
only the possession of 35.18 acres was in issue, and the circuit court had,
therefore, declined to admit the evidence, and that, the case having gone
to judgment, a writ of error from the Supreme Court of the United States
was dismissed on motion of defendants in error, because the possession of
the 35.18 acres was not worth over $2,000. 132 U. S. 195, 34 L. ed. 95, 10
Sup. Ct. Rep. 728.
The district court held that as the same parties, who now contended that
the judgment in Smith v. Turner constituted the thing adjudged as to the
entire tract, had successfully insisted in that case that nothing was therein
in issue except the right of possession of 35.18 acres, the court was not
required to adjudge that the legal effect of that judgment extended to cover
the entire tract. As to the judgment in favor of the state, in State v. Smith,
the court recapitulated the facts, finding that the return of the money paid
by Smith to obtain the patent was lawfully tendered December 3, 1857;
the grounds on which the judgment proceeded; that this judgment was
rendered November 24, 1860, in favor of the state, canceling the Smith
entry; that Smith prosecuted an appeal, which, after delay by reason of the
Civil War, was dismissed by the state supreme court, August 11, 1869;
and that because of defective certificates, the circuit court was led to
believe, in Smith v. Turner, that the case of State v. Smith had not been
disposed of. The district court further found, for reasons given, that the
title of the railroad company in and to the land was perfect. The court
gave judgment in favor of the railroad company, and the case was carried
to the supreme court of Louisiana. 112, La. 51, 36 So. 223.
Dealing with defendants' pleas of res judicata and estoppel, the supreme
court held that the general rule that a judgment as to the ownership of a
portion of a tract of land is conclusive between the same parties, claiming
under the same titles, as to the ownership of the whole tract, should not be
applied in the circumstances detailed, which, in its opinion, operated to
confine the effect of the judgment to the particular parcel for which
recovery was sought. Those pleas were overruled as to all of the tract
except 35.18 acres, but the court sustained plaintiff's plea of res judicata
predicated on the judgment in State v. Smith, and thus continued:
'This conclusion disposes of the contention that W. W. Smith bought the

land in question as swamp or overflowed land, since the state, in the suit
just referred to, distinctly alleged that it was not so sold, and its position
was sustained by the judgment therein rendered. But if it had been sold as
land acquired under the acts of Congress of 1849 and 1850 (9 Stat. at L.
352, chap. 87, and 9 Stat. at L. 519, chap. 84), the result would be the
same, since it belonged to that class of land which, under the act of the
general assembly, No. 247, p. 306, of 1855, could only have been sold
after having been surveyed; and one of the causes of action set up by the
state in its suit against Smith, and maintained by the judgment therein
rendered, was that it had not been surveyed.
'Finally, it is argued that, under the acts of Congress of 1849 and 1850,
title in praesenti to all swamp and overflowed lands within its limits
vested in the state of Louisiana without regard to selection or approval;
that the land in question was of that character; and that the state acquired
it under those acts, and hence that the United States could not have
granted, and the state (or railroad company) could not have acquired, it
under the act of June 3, 1856 (11 Stat. at L. 18, chap. 42).
'The acts of 1849 and 1850 were clearly not intended to operate against the
will of the state. On the contrary, they distinctly left it to the state to
select, subject to the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, the lands
which it might consider within the terms of the grant.
'Thether the state might have selected the tract in question, and whether
such selection might or would have been approved, need, not be here
considered. In point of fact, not only was the selection not made and the
approval not given, but the grantor and the grantee concurred in the view
that the tract fell within the terms of the act of 1856, and was granted to
and acquired by the state of Louisiana, as the trustee of the V., S. & P. R.
R. Co., for the purpose of aiding in the construction of the railroad which
that company was to build.'
And the court quoted the headnotes of Rogers Locomotive Mach. Works
v. American Emigrant Co. 164 U. S. 559, 41 L. ed. 552, 17 Sup. Ct. Rep.
188, to the effect that the swamp-land act of 1850 gave an inchoate title to
the state; that the identification of the lands by the Secretary of the
Interior was necessary before the title became perfect; that the certificate
of the Secretary, in 1858, that certain lands inured to the state under the
railroad act of 1856, was a decision that they were not embraced by the
swamp-land act of 1850; that the acceptance by the state of lands certified
to it by the Secretary is conclusive upon the state, and that a contract with
a county for swamp and overflowed lands gives no better right than the
county had to the lands which had been previously certified to the state.
The court then stated that, apart from these defenses, there appeared to be
no objection to plaintiff's title.
The judgment of the district court was affirmed, and this writ of error
allowed. Motions to dismiss or affirm were submitted and their
consideration postponed to the hearing on the merits.
Messrs. William P. Hall, A. H. Leonard, and E. W. Sutherlin for plaintiffs
in error.
Messrs. Harry H. Hall, Frank P. Stubbs, and W. H. Wise for defendants in
error.
Mr. Chief Justice Fuller delivered the opinion of the court:
We assume from the errors assigned, and no other grounds are indicated by the
record, that Federal questions in two aspects are relied on to justify this writ of
error.
First. The construction and application of the acts of Congress of 1849, 1850,
and 1856, taken with other acts referred to.
But as to this it should be pointed out in the first place that the state court
adjudged the Smith title invalid on the independent ground, among others, of
noncompliance with an act of the general assembly of Louisiana; and, in the
second place, that the Federal question thus suggested had been so explicitly
foreclosed by previous decisions as to leave no room for real controversy.
Rogers Locomotive Mach. Works v. American Emigrant Co. 164 U. S. 559, 41
L. ed. 552, 17 Sup. Ct. Rep. 188; Michigan Land & Lumber Co. v. Rust, 168 U.
S. 592, 42 L. ed. 592, 18 Sup. Ct. Rep. 208; Equitable Life Assur. Soc. v.
Brown, 187 U. S. 308, 47 L. ed. 190, 23 Sup. Ct. Rep. 123.
Second. That the supreme court of Louisiana, by its judgment in this case,
denied a right specially set up or claimed under the Constitution of the United
States, or an authority exercised under the United States; that is to say, that such
a right was asserted, and was denied by the state supreme court, in declining to
give collateral effect to a judgment, under certain circumstances, rendered by a
court of the United States in Louisiana.
We inquire, then, whether, when the state court, while holding the defense
good as to the 35.18 acres by reason of the judgment in Smith v. Turner, held
that, in the circumstances detailed, defendants could not be permitted to insist
that the thing adjudged in that case determined the title to the entire tract, that
ruling presented a Federal question.
Generally speaking, questions of this sort are not Federal questions. In Pierce v.
Somerset R. Co. 171 U. S. 641, 648, 43 L. ed. 316, 319, 19 Sup. Ct. Rep. 64,
66, we said: 'A person may, by his acts or omission to act, waive a right which
he might otherwise have under the Constitution of the United States as well as
under a statute, and the question whether he has or has not lost such right by his
failure to act or by his action is not a Federal one.' Eustis v. Bolles, 150 U. S.
361, 37 L. ed. 1111, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 131; Rutland R. Co. v. Central Vermont
R. Co. 159 U. S. 630, 40 L. ed. 284, 16 Sup. Ct. Rep. 113, and Seneca Nation
of Indians v. Christy, 162 U. S. 283, 40 L. ed. 970, 16 Sup. Ct. Rep. 828, were
cited.
In Eustis v. Bolles, the state court held that, by accepting his dividend under
insolvency proceedings, Eustis had waived his legal right to claim that the
discharge obtained under subsequent laws impaired the obligation of contract,
and this court held that, whether that view of the case was sound or not, it was
not a Federal question, and therefore not within the province of this court to
inquire into. it was held by the state court that even if it was held by the state
court tht even if there were a right of recovery on the part of plaintiffs in error
because a certain grant was in contravention of the Constitution Constitution of
the United States, yet that such recovery was barred by the New York statute of
limitations.
In Gillis v. Stinchfield, 159 U. S. 658, 40 L. ed. 295, 16 Sup. Ct. Rep. 131, and
Speed v. McCarthy, 181 U. S. 269, 45 L. ed. 855, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 613, it was
ruled that the application of the doctrine of estoppel to mining locatons did not
raise Federal questions.
In the present case, the supreme court of Louisiana, applied the doctrine which
forbids parties from assuming inconsistent positions in judicial proceedings.
10
In its view, Smith, having insisted, in Smith v. Turner, that, notwithstanding the
railroad company had come in as defendant, and each party asserted title to the
entire tract, the title to the 35.18 acres was alone in issue, and that the value of
the whole tract was, therefore, not involved, and the railroad company having
been thereby deprived of its writ of error, must be confined in this suit to the
specific recovery obtained in that, so far as the effect of that judgment was
concerned. That was a question of estoppel or quasi-estoppel, and not a Federal
question. Whether it was sound or not, it is not for us to inquire. It was broad
enough to support the judgment without reference to any Federal question.
11
Writ of error dismissed.

Leonard v. Vicksburg, S. & PR Co., 198 U.S. 416 (1905)

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198 U.S.

A. H. LEONARD, George R. Wilson, R. N. Smith, et al., Plffs.

This was an action of ejectment brought, in 1896, by the Vicksburg,

of citizenship was set up as the ground of jurisdiction.

judicata, and a perpetual bar to defendants' rights of action.

'This conclusion disposes of the contention that W. W. Smith bought the

Writ of error dismissed.

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