Chaffraix v. Shiff

Supreme Court of the United States

Decided October 1, 1875

Supreme Court of the United States · decided 1875-10

<p>Appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Louisiana.</p>

1 counsel of record

Relies on M'Culloch v. State of Maryland · United States v. Hartwell · Legal Tender Cases Knox v. Lee Parker

Cited in Bouvier (1914)’s definition of “Civil Rights” · Bouvier (1914)’s definition of “Suffrage”

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Certification to/from lower court · 7–2 · Decided 1875-10

How this case has been cited

Cited by 104 later decisions (44 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2007 · most notably United States v. Booker (2004), Apprendi v. New Jersey (2000)

37 federal appellate ·

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.

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¶1The doctrine announced in the case of Wallach et al. v. Van Riswich, supra, p. 202, reaffirmed.

¶2Appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Louisiana.

¶3Mr. Conway Robinson for the appellant, and Mr. John A. Campbell for the appellee.

¶4Mr. Justice Strong

¶5delivered the opinion of the court.

¶6The court below decreed specific performance of a contract for the purchase of real estate, which expressly stipulated that the purchaser should not be bound to accept the sale if the titles were not good and valid. The title offered was that of a purchaser at a confiscation sale, to whom, after the sale, Surget, the person as whose property the land was confiscated, had released, without warranty. We decided, in Wallach et al. v. Van Riswich, supra, p. 202, that such a title is not a complete and valid one; that it is ineffective beyond the life of Surget; and that his release did not enlarge it. Decree reversed.