United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Udell v. Davidson, 48 U.S. 7 How. 769 769 (1849)

Udell v. Davidson

48 U.S. (7 How.) 769

Syllabus

The Act of 1838, 5 Stat. 251, relating to preemption rights, provides, that

"Before any person claiming the benefit of this law shall have a patent for the land which he may claim by having complied with its provisions, he shall make oath &c., that he entered upon the land which he claims in his own right, and exclusively for his own use and benefit and that he has not, directly or indirectly, made any agreement or contract, in any way or manner, with any person or person, whatever, by which the title which he might acquire from the government of the United States should enure to the use and benefit of anyone except himself or to convey or transfer the said land or the title which he may acquire to the same to any other person or persons whatever at any subsequent time."

Where a preemptioner sold his inchoate title, which passed ultimately into the hands of a trustee, and the trustee loaned money out of the trust fund to the preemptioner in order to enable him to pay the government, and the title thus obtained from the United States was conveyed by the preemptioner to the trustee without any reference to the trust, and the trustee was ordered by a state court to hold the property subject to the trust, he cannot remove the case to this Court by virtue of the twenty-fifth section of the Judiciary Act.

There is no title, right, privilege, or exemption under an act of Congress set up by the party and decided against him by the state court. By his own showing, he has acquired no title from the United States.

The allegation is that a fraud was perpetrated upon the government, and another meditated upon the cestui que trust, both of which this Court is called upon to maintain and carry out.

The case is dismissed for want of jurisdiction.

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