Cases Decided in the Court of Claims of the United States Volume 11 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1877 edition. Excerpt: ...case to be found is the case of Wheeler v. Smith (9 How., 55, ) where the compromise between devisees and the heir at law, by which the estate was applied to public objects, was set aside. The devisees were not culpable. They had no fraudulent intent or personal interest, but the parties were not on equal terms, the necessities of the heir at law being great, &c. Both of the law propositions of the Court of Claims depend Argument for the claimant. upon the legal power of the Land Department to set aside the survey. In the first, it is only by virtue of this power that the legality of the reservation is claimed at all. And it is equally necessary to the second, for the only consideration claimed for the deed which that proposition upholds is the revocation of the order to set aside the survey. If that was an illegal order, its revocation could not form a valid consideration for a conveyance. Now, the question as to the power of the Department to set aside the survey is not an open question. The case of Carondelet v. Saint Louis, a case which has since been repeatedly affirmed by this court, turned upon this precise question, and the court then held that Rector s survey and Brown s remarking of it concluded the Government, and bound the corporation of Carondelet to the whole extent of the survey; and the reason why the court held both parties to be bound is that it was established as matter of fact that the survey had been made and the field-notes duly returned, and that Brown re-marked the lines in 1834. It also appeared as matter of fact and of law, from the records of the General Land-Ofiice, by the decisions of the oificers there, that the department administering the public lands had settled the...