Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

24 Colo. 489

Floyd v. Cochran

Supreme Court of Colorado

Decided January 15, 1898

Supreme Court of Colorado · decided 1898-01-15

<p>1. Issues Settled in Fobmeb Case.</p> <p>The issues involved in this case were determined in the case of Sellers v. Floyd, ante, p. 484, and the court declines to consider the merits of the case.</p> <p>2. Pbactice—Duty of Coubt.</p> <p>The duty of the court is to decide actual controversies, by a judgment that can be carried into effect, and not to give opinions upon abstract propositions, or to declare principles or rules of law which cannot affect the matter in issue before it.</p>

Relies on Mills v. Green

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1898-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 13 later decisions — most recently July 1974

13 state decisions

70189819001910192019301940195019601970decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Mr. Justice Goddard

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2This case involves the validity of one of the deeds through which Floyd, the plaintiff in error, claimed title to the Empress lode mining claim, which was issued in pursuance of a sale of the property under the Margaret Sargent judgment referred to in Sellers v. Floyd, ante, p. 484, and presents the question of the right of Cochran to redeem the property from that sale. In that case we determined the rights of the parties to the property, and held that the title thereto had become vested in Floyd through and by virtue of certain other execution sales. The question involved in this case, therefore, is no longer of any practical importance, and any judgment that might be rendered upon this writ of error would in no way affect the right or title of the parties to the property in controversy. In such circumstances we must decline to consider the merits of the question. As was said in Mills v. Green, 159 U. S. 651:

¶3“ The duty of this court, as of every other judicial tribunal, is to decide actual controversies by a judgment which can be carried into effect, and not to give opinions upon moot questions or abstract propositions, or to declare principles or rules of law which cannot affect the matter in issue in the case before it.”

¶4The writ of error will therefore be dismissed.

¶5Writ dismissed.

/24/colo/489 · .json · Public domain