Smith v. Adsit
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court. We do not perceive that this case differs essentially from what it was in 1872, when it was dismissed for want of jurisdiction in this court to hear it. In the Supreme Court of the State it was an appeal from an inferior court, in which it had been sought to enforce an alleged trust, by a bill in equity, and the bill was ordered to be dismissed, because the court was of opinion no trust was proved. The record does not show that the question whether the sale of the land warrant was a nullity if made before the warrant issued, was passed upon, much less that it was decided against the complainant. The decree ordering the bill to be dismissed must
Writ of error dismissed.
Reference
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- Where a complainant alleging himself to be a bond fide purchaser, and setting out a case in the highest State court for equitable relief against a sale to other parties xvhich'an owner of land had undertaken to make, alleged that the party in making such second sale had violated an act of Congress which made such sale void, and that the purchaser knew this; and alleged also that the sale was made through fraud and imposition on the vendor, with a prayer that the purchaser at such second sale might be held a trustee for the complainant — if, in such ease, the court, holding that there was no fraud and no trust proved, dismiss the bill in consequence of that want of proof, and consequently for want of equitable jurisdiction, the fact that it says : “ The most that can be said is that the transaction was in violation of an act of Congress, but that would not give a court of chancery jurisdiction to hold the second purchaser a trustee and make him accountable as such,” does not show that there has been drawn in question the construction of a statute of the United States, and that the decision has been against the title or right set up or claimed by the complainant under such statute. The ease rested on the fact of a trust proved, and on the extent of the State court’s equitable jurisdiction; matters not the subject of review under section 709 of the Revised Statutes, the 525th section of the Judiciary Act of 1789. The case, which was between the same persons as those mentioned in Smith v. Adsit (16 Wallace, 185), held to be undistinguishable from that one.