United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Kryger v. Wilson, 242 U.S. 171 (1916)

Kryger v. Wilson*

No. 99

Submitted November 13, 1916

Decided December 4, 1916

242 U.S. 171

Syllabus

Whether the cancellation of a land contract is governed by the law of the situs or the law of the place of making and performance is a question of local common law with which this Court is not concerned in a case coming from a state tribunal.

In a suit in a state court to quiet title to land within its jurisdiction, a resident of another state voluntarily appeared and, as defendant and counterclaimant, asserted his right to possession and control of the land under a contract of sale. The court adjudged that his rights under the contract were gone as the result of statutory proceedings

Page 242 U. S. 172

for forfeiture and cancellation taken pursuant to the lex loci rei sitae. Held that, whether the court was right or wrong in upholding the cancellation proceeding as applied to the contract, there was no denial of due process of law, since due process was afforded in the suit to quiet title itself. Selover, Bates & Co. v. Walsh, 226 U. S. 112, distinguished.

Such proceedings as are required by Minnesota Revised Statutes, 1905, § 4442, and North Dakota Revised Code of Civil Procedure, 1905, ch. 30, Art. 3, pars. 7494-7497, in order to enable a vendor to cancel and avoid a contract for a default of the vendee are not judicial proceedings, but merely statutory conditions upon the right of cancellation, and hence the absence of notice does not involve a denial of due process.

No federal question arises under the contract clause from the impairment of a contractual obligation by judicial decision alone.

29 N.D. 28 affirmed.

The case is stated in the opinion.

Page 242 U. S. 173