Volume 178 — United States Reports

Held: that it was competent to A. to treat B’s renunciation as a breach of the contract; and that the fact of such renunciation afforded a good answer to the cross action of A, and sustained B’s plea that before breach A discharged him from the performance of the agreement.

Held: interpreting the constitution and laws of the State, that the appropriation and disposition of water was a public use, the right to collect tolls or compensation for it a franchise, subject to regulation and control in the manner prescribed by law, and that such tolls and compensation could not be fixed by the contract of the parties.

Held: both in New York and in several other States.” Yet again (p. 630): “We think that it follows from this that the act in question is not open to the objection that it is an attempt to tax the property of the United States, since the tax is upon the legacy before it reaches the hands of the Government. The legacy becomes the property of the United.

The complainants, who are appellants here, filed their bill to enjoin the executrix of their father’s estate from paying the legacy taxes levied by sections 29 and 30 of the War Revenue Act of 1898.

<p>Xlie judgment in High v. Coyne, ante, 111, is followed in this case.</p>

Held: as every one lcnoAvs, in foreign countries, Avhere doubtless it is subjected to municipal taxation.

Held: in KnonMon v. Moore, to be erroneous. Therefore, the executor, representing the respective legatees, is entitled to recover back the amount of taxes paid on legacies under ten thousand dollars, and likewise such excess of taxes as was paid by reason of the'erroneous interpretation of the statute. "We here meet the formal difficulty that neither the complaint in the Circuit Court nor the assignments in error in this…

Held: in the case of. Knowlton, Executor, v. Moore, that, upon a proper construction of the act of June 13,1898, the *152 amount of the inheritance or legacy tax levied thereunder is measured by the amount of the legacy or distributive share passing under the laws of the State, and' not by the amount of the estate of the testator or of the deceased owner.

Held: that that fact would not bar a recovery; that if notwithstanding the execution of the lease the plaintiff in error, through its agents and servants, managed and conducted and controlled the train to which the accident happened, it would be responsible for that accident.

This suit was commenced on March 12, 1897, in the United States Circuit Court for the District of West Yirginia, sitting in equity. On the date mentioned a bill of complaint was filed on behalf of Samuel Castner, junior, arid Henry B. Curran, co-partners, trading under the firm name of Castner & Curran. The defendant named in the bill was W. H. Coffman, doing business under the name of Pocahontas Coke and Coal Company and W. H. Coffman Coke Company.

This writ of error was procured for the purpose of obtaining the reversal of a judgment of the Supreme Court of Errors of the State of Connecticut, which, as respected real estate situated in the State of Connecticut, refused to follow and apply a judgment of the Supreme Court of South Carolina interpreting and construing the will of Julia H. Clarke.

This was an action in the nature of trover by the surviving partners of the firm of Henry W. King & Company, and. four other creditors, as chattel mortgagees, against Charles H. De Ford, sheriff of Oklahoma County, to recover the value of a stock of goods seized by the defendant and sold under writs of attachment issued against the property of the firm of W. F. Wolfe & Son, in suits instituted by general creditors of that firm.

The facts iu this case are as follows; On June 15, 1872, a patent was issued to the probate judge of Lewis and Clarke County, Montana Territory, for.the townsite of Helena, in trust for the benefit of the occupants. In 1874 Joseph Horsky, Jr., the plaintiff below, defendant in error, became by purchases from prior occup'ants and conveyances from the probate judge the holder of the legal title to certain lots, shown on the plat of the town.

Held: the railroad company may not question the validity or propriety of the entryman’s claim of record, its rights ought not to be defeated long years after its title had apparently fixed, by fugitive and uncertain testimony of occupation. This case comes on error to the Supreme Court of the State of Utah, and involves the title to the S.W. ^ of section 29, township 11 north, of range 2 west.

Mattie Lee Fennell, a citizén of the county of Madison, State of Alabama, died on the fifth day of August, 1897, leaving a will executed by her December 17, 1895, in which she devised and bequeathed all her property, real, personal or mixed, to her mother, Mrs. M. E. Fennell, for life, and on her death to Llewellyn Jordan of the State of Mississippi. The will specifically provided that if the mother should die before the death of the testatrix, Llewellyn Jordan should take.

This was a bill filed in the Circuit' Court of Benzie County, Michigan, by the Western Unión Telegraph Company against the Ann Arbor Railroad Company, to restrain defendant from interfering with the rights of complainant in a certain telegraph line along defendant’s railroad.

Held: among other things, that the application for removal was properly denied because all the defendants were charged with jointly causing the death of plaintiff’s intestate, and all did not join in the petition for removal. Mr. M. A. Low, Mr. Winslow 8. Pierce, Mr. W. It. Kelly, Mr. W. F. Evans, Mr. A. L. Williams and Mr. N. II. Loomis for plaintiffs in error. Mr. A. A. Godard and Mr. F. B. Dawes for defendant in error.

Held: that however broadly the act of Congress may be construed it ought not to be construed as embracing officers of a municipal corporation owning or controlling a bridge who had not in their hands, and under the laws of their State could not obtain, public moneys that could be applied in execution of the order of the Secretary of War within the time fixed by that officer to complete the alteration of such bridge.

This was an action originally brought in December, 1897, in . the Superior Court of the State of Washington for King County, by Donald Morrison against the North American Transportation and Trading Company, and subsequently, on petition of the defendant company, removed to the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Washington. To the declaration, containing several counts, the defendant demurred.

<p>For the reasons set forth in the opinion of the court, the case was dismissed for want of jurisdiction.</p>

The appellant herein filed its original petition in the Court of Claims against the United States and the Apache Indians on September 6, 1892.

Held: That on an appeal from a state court the plaintiff in error in this coui't must show that he himself raised the question in the state court which he argues here, and it will not aid him to show that some one else has raised it in the state court, while he failed to do so;' but if he raised it in the Supreme Court of the State, it is sufficient; (2) That the allegation in Carhart’s case that he was a resident of New…

Held: then and there feloniously, purposely and of deliberate and premeditated, malice.did discharge and shoot off to, against and upon the said Samuel Roberts; and that said John Fitzpatrick, Henry Brooks and William Corbett with one of the bullets aforesaid out of the revolver aforesaid then and there by force of the gunpowder aforesaid by the said John Fitzpatrick, Henry Brooks and William Corbett, discharged and shot…

ORIGINAL. This was a petition for a writ of mandamus to the District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, commanding it to set aside a decree entered in the case of The New Yorlc, 175 U. S. 187, and enter a decree dividing the damages equally, so that petitioner would not be decreed to pay more than one half the total damages arising out of the collision between the New York and the Conemaugh, with interest thereon not exceeding five per cent per annum.

Held: that the Supreme Court of the State having decided that the right to condemn the land did not depend upon the obligation of the city to pay a part of the expenses, and that the defendants could not prevent a condemnation by showing that the company might not afterwards obtain a reimbursement from the city, and also that the defendants, not alleging that they were taxpayers or specially interested, were not in any…

Held: *328 (1) That the Court of Appeals had jurisdiction; (2) That, without deciding it, the court would hold for the purposes of this case that the contract was made under the Jaws of the State of New York, and was governed by the law's of that State; (3) That it is to be presumed that each party knew what the laws of New York were, and neither could be misled by any statement in respect thereto on the part of the…

This, like the case of Mutual Life Insurance Company v. Phinney, ante, 327, just decided, is an action on an insurance policy issued by the company, the premiums on which were unpaid for years before the death of the insured.

<p>CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OE APPEALS EOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT.</p> <p>The case is stated in the opinion.</p>

<p>certiorari to the circuit court of appeals for the ninth CIRCUIT.</p> <p>The case is stated in the opinion.</p>

Held: that the question whether the judgment rendered was warranted by the facts found was open for consideration in the Circuit Court of Appeals, and is so here. Clark contracted with the railway company for the construction of part of its road. He also contracted for the completion of his work on a day named. It was not completed till some time after that day.

Held: *374 (1) That there was no doubt of the mistake on the part of the company; (2) That there was a prompt declaration of it as soon as it was discovered; (3) That when this was done the transaction had not reached the degree of a contract. The party alleging a mistake must show exactly in what it consists and the correction that should be made.

The controversy in this case is as to the amount due upon a. policy of insurance issued by the plaintiff in error, upon the life of John K. Cravens, husband of the defendant in error. The contention of the plaintiff in error is that there is only due on the policy, if anything, the sum of $2670 ; that of defendant in error is that she is entitled to the full amount of the policy, to wit, $10,000, less unpaid premiums.

This action was brought in the District Court of the Second Judicial District of the State of Minnesota upon a life insurance policy for $20,000, issued by defendant in error to William Banholzer, husband of the plaintiff in error, dated the,16th of September, 1895, payable upon the death of Banholzer to plaintiff in error, or to Banholzer himself, on the 16th of September, 1915, if he should be living then.

<p>ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OE THE TERRITORY OE NEW MEXICO.</p> <p>The case is stated in the opinion of the court.</p>

Held: That mandamus was the proper remedy, and the rule was made absolute ; (2) That the action of the Circuit Court in setting aside the scire facias ' was here for review ; (3) That scire facias was the proper mode for-bringing in-the executor, and under Kev.

<p>error to the circuit court oe appeals eor the ninth circuit.</p> <p>The case is stated in tbe opinion.</p>

<p>ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA.</p> <p>The case is stated in the opinion.</p>

<p>ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OE PENNSYLVANIA</p> <p>The case is stated in the opinion.</p>

Held: That no constitutional objection could be urged against sections 5508 and 5509; (2) That under the act of January 15, 1897, c. 29, 29 Stat. 487 , the Circuit Court could not have imposed the penalty of death for the offence charged, but only imprisonment for life; (3) That under the Circuit Court of Appeals Act, 1891, any criminal case involving the construction or application of the Constitution of the United…

Hawley v. Diller, 178 U.S. 476 (1900), is a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. The primary issue was the Timber and Stone Act of 1878, which allowed the equivalent of homesteading on land suitable for logging and quarrying. The Supreme Court held that the government had validly rescinded an earlier grant of property, and Hawley and his colitigants were not protected under the act's bona fide purchaser protection. The case is notable, however, for its inclusion of an apparently erroneous syllabus.

<p>The case is stated in the opinion of the court.</p>

<p>In this case it was rightly decided in the court below, that in determining under the provisions of Eev. Stat. sec. 902, whether the Spanish vessels sunk or destroyed at Manila were of inferior or superior force to the American vessels engaged in that battle, the land batteries, mines and torpedoes, not controlled by those in charge of the Spanish vessels, hut which supported those vessels, were to he excluded altogether from consideration,-and that the size and armaments of the vessels sunk or destroyed, together with the number of men upon them, were alone to be regarded in determining the amount of the bounty to he awarded.</p>

Held: to (1) adjudge persons bankrupt who have had their principal place of business, resided or had their domicil within their respective territorial jurisdictions for the preceding six months, or the greater portion thereof, or who do not have their principal place of business, reside or have their domicil within the United States, but have property within their *528 jurisdictions, or who have been.' adjudged bankrupts…

<p>A District Court of the United States has no jurisdiction, without the proposed defendant’s consent, to entertain an action of replevin by a trustee in bankruptcy to recover goods conveyed to the defendant by the bankrupt in fraud of the Bankrupt Act and of his creditors.</p> <p>Bardes v. Hawarden Bank, ante, 524, followed.</p>

<p>certificate from the circuit court of appeals for the SIXTH CIRCUIT.</p> <p>The case is stated in the opinion of the court.</p>

This was a petition in equity to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, under the jurisdiction conferred upon that court by the second clause of section 24 of the Bankrupt Act of July 1, 1898, c. 541, to superintend and revise in matter of law the proceedings in bankruptcy of the District Courts of the United States in that circuit. 30 Stat. 553.

Taylor v. Beckham, 178 U.S. 548 (1900), was a case heard before the Supreme Court of the United States on April 30 and May 1, 1900, to decide the outcome of the disputed Kentucky gubernatorial election of 1899. The litigants were Republican gubernatorial candidate William S. Taylor and Democratic lieutenant gubernatorial candidate J. C. W. Beckham. In the November 7, 1899, election, Taylor received 193,714 votes to Democrat William Goebel's 191,331. This result was certified by a 2–1 decision of the state's Board of Elections. Goebel challenged the election results on the basis of alleged voting irregularities, and the Democrat-controlled Kentucky General Assembly formed a committee to investigate Goebel's claims.

The facts affecting this case are stated in Taylor and Marshall v. Beckham {Mo 1), ante, 548. It was argued with that case, and by the same counsel.