US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

SEMPLE V. HAGAR, 71 U. S. 431 (1866)

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U.S. Supreme Court

Semple v. Hagar, 71 U.S. 4 Wall. 431 431 (1866)

Semple v. Hagar

71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 431

Syllabus

1. When a want of jurisdiction is patent or can be readily ascertained by an examination of the record in advance of an examination of the questions on the argument of the merits, this Court will entertain and act upon a motion to dismiss for want of jurisdiction.

2. Where two parties held patents for land from the United States under Mexican grants both of which included the same lands in part, and one of the parties brought a suit in a state court to vacate the patent of the other to the extent of the conflict of title, and the state court refused to entertain jurisdiction of the question, and dismissed the complaint, this Court has no jurisdiction, under the twenty-fifth section of the Judiciary Act, to review the judgments.

Semple filed a bill against Hagar in one of the state courts of California. The bill alleged that he, the complainant chanrobles.com-red

Page 71 U. S. 432

Semple, had obtained a patent from the United States for a tract of land, based upon a Mexican grant for the same land known as the "Colus" grant; that the land so granted had been surveyed by the United States, and included certain lands enumerated; that the defendants claimed part of the same land under a Mexican grant known as the "Jimeno" grant, for which a patent had also been issued by the United States to the defendants; that the surveys of the said grants overlapped; that the grant of the "Jimeno" tract had been obtained by fraud, and was a cloud on the complainant's title. The prayer of the bill was that the court might declare "the said fraudulent grant, commonly called the Jimeno Rancho' void and of no effect as issued upon false suggestions and without authority of law."

The defendant demurred to this bill, setting forth nine several grounds of demurrer, and among them these:

1st. That the court had no jurisdiction of the subject of the action.

2d. That there was a defect of parties plaintiff.

3d. That there was a defect of parties defendant.

The court below made a decree dismissing the bill, a decree which on appeal the Supreme Court of California, the highest court of equity of the state, affirmed.

The case was then brought here as being within the twenty-fifth section of the Judiciary Act, which enacts that the final decree in the highest court of law or equity of a state &c., where there is drawn in question the validity of an authority exercised under the United States and the decision is against the validity, or drawn in question the construction of any clause of a statute of commission held under the United States, and the decision is against the title specially set up by either party under such statute or commission, may be reviewed in this Court. chanrobles.com-red

Page 71 U. S. 433



























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