United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Kennedy's Executors v. Hunt's Lessee, 48 U.S. 7 How. 586 586 (1849)

Kennedy's Executors v. Hunt's Lessee

48 U.S. (7 How.) 586

Syllabus

Forbes and Company obtained a grant of land in 1807 from Morales, Intendant General under the Spanish government, which land was adjacent to Mobile, in West Florida. This grant purported to be, in part, the confirmation of a concession granted in 1796 and surveyed in 1802. The survey terminated at high water mark upon the river.

The grant of 1807 included the land between the then bank of the river and the high water mark of 1802.

This grant of 1807 was excepted from the operation of the act of Congress passed on 26 March, 1804, which annulled all Spanish grants made after 1 October, 1800, and was recognized as a valid grant by the Act of 3 March, 1819.

An Act of March 2, 1829, confirmed an incomplete Spanish concession which was alleged to draw after it, as a consequence, certain riparian rights conflicting with those claimed under the grant of 1807.

A decision of a state court giving the land covered by these riparian rights to the claimants under the grant of 1807 was only a construction of a perfected Spanish title, and cannot be reviewed by this Court under the twenty-fifth section of the Judiciary Act. It did not draw in question an act of Congress or any authority exercised under the Constitution or laws of the United States.

The facts in the case are sufficiently set forth in the opinion of the Court.

Page 48 U. S. 590