Where a statute provides for an appeal or a writ of error to a
specific court, it must be regarded as a repeal of any previous
statute providing for an appeal or a writ of error to another
court.
Brown v. United States, 171 U.
S. 631.
Decisions of the Court of Appeals of the United States for the
Indian Territory are final except as made subject to review by some
express statutory provision.
The provisions in § 12 of the Act of March 3, 1905, c. 1479, 33
Stat. 1081, for appeals and writ of error from the United States
Court in Indian
Page 212 U. S. 292
Territory to the United States Court of Appeals in the Indian
Territory, and from that court to the United States Circuit Court
of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, are exclusive, and there is now
no appeal or writ of error in such cases from the Circuit Court of
Appeals of the Eighth Circuit to this Court.
Appeal from 154 F. 617 dismissed.
This case, on the merits is reported in 154 F. 617. The able
opinion of Sanborn, J., speaking for the circuit court of appeals,
is preceded by the following statement, which correctly sets forth
the facts:
"Pursuant to an order of the United States Court in the Western
District of Indian Territory, which has the jurisdiction of a
probate court, a lease of 160 acres of mineral land which had been
allotted to Edith Durant, a minor Indian, was advertised for sale
on sealed bids by Monday Durant, her guardian, and, on the day of
sale, March 5, 1906, the highest bonus bid for it was $3,490, and
this bid was made by Robert W. Morrison, Charles W. S. Cobb, John
E. McKinney, William J. Breene, and Frank M. Breene, who are now
the appellants in this case, and will hereafter be so styled. The
Laurel Oil & Gas Company, a corporation, one of the appellees,
bid at the same time at this sale $2,850 for this lease. On March
7, 1906, the appellants deposited the $3,490 with the court, and on
March 9, 1906, the guardian executed the lease of the land to the
appellants, and they applied to the court for the confirmation of
the sale and the approval of the lease. After notice to all parties
in interest and a hearing, the court, on June 11, 1906,"
"ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the lease executed by
Monday Durant, guardian of Edith Durant, minor, on the ninth day of
March, 1906 [to the appellants] be, and the same is hereby, in all
things approved, ratified, and confirmed."
"On the next day the Laurel Company, the unsuccessful bidder at
the former sale, made a motion for leave to bid again for the lease
of this land, and offered to bid a bonus of $8,000. Thereupon the
court set aside the order of June 11, 1906, for the sole reason
that a higher bonus could be obtained, and on June 14,
Page 212 U. S. 293
1906, it sold a lease of 80 acres of this land on the same terms
as the former to the Galbraith Oil and Gas Company for a bonus of
$16,800 and a lease of the other 80 acres on the same terms to the
Laurel Oil & Gas Company for $2,000. The leases to these
parties were subsequently made by the guardian, and the court
confirmed these sales and approved these leases. The appellants
then sued out a writ of error from the court of appeals of the
Indian Territory to reverse the order which set aside the decree of
confirmation of the sale and of approval of the lease to them, and
they also appealed from that order. The Court of Appeals of the
Indian Territory consolidated the two cases, heard them as an
appeal in equity, and affirmed the order below because the court
was evenly divided in opinion. The appellants have brought the
latter judgment here by writ of error and also by appeal."
"Since the case came to this Court, the controversy over the 80
acres leased to the Galbraith Oil & Gas Company has been
settled, and the only dispute remaining relates to the 80 acres
leased to the Laurel Oil & Gas Company under the second
lease."
The question in the case was whether a court of equity, during
the term at which the confirmation is made, may lawfully avoid an
executed judicial sale which it has confirmed on the sole ground
that a larger price may be obtained by a second sale, and was
answered in the negative, and the decree was that the decree of the
United States Court of Appeals in the Indian Territory and the
decree of the United States court for the Western District of the
Indian Territory be reversed, and that
"this cause be, and the same is hereby, remanded to the United
States Court for the Western District of the Indian Territory, with
directions to confirm and enforce its order and decree which
confirmed the sale and approved the lease to the appellants
[appellees here], and to take any further proceedings necessary to
that end."
This decree was made and entered July 10, 1907. An appeal was
thereupon allowed to this Court, where the record was filed October
31 of that year.
Page 212 U. S. 294
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER delivered the opinion of the Court.
By the Act of Congress approved March 1, 1889, c. 333, 25 Stat.
783, there was established a United States Court for the Indian
Territory. The act conferred no jurisdiction over felonies, but, by
the fifth section, exclusive original jurisdiction was conferred
over all offenses against the laws of the United States committed
within the Indian Territory not punishable by death or by
imprisonment at hard labor. Jurisdiction was conferred in all civil
cases between citizens of the United States who are residents of
the Indian Territory where the value of the thing in controversy
amounted to $100 or more. The final judgment or decree of the
court, where the value of the matter in dispute, exclusive of
costs, exceeded $1,000, might be reviewed and reversed or affirmed
in the Supreme Court of the United States upon writ of error or
appeal, in the same manner and under the same regulations as the
final judgments and decrees of a circuit court.
By section five of the Judiciary Act of March 3, 1891, c.. 517,
26 Stat. 826, as amended, appeals or writs of error might be taken
from the district and circuit courts directly to this Court in
cases in which the jurisdiction of the court was in issue; of
conviction of a capital crime; involving the construction or
application of the Constitution of the United States, and in which
the constitutionality of any law of the United States, or the
validity or construction of any treaty made under its authority,
was drawn in question.
Page 212 U. S. 295
By section six, the circuit courts of appeals established by the
act were invested with appellate jurisdiction in all other
cases.
The thirteenth section read:
"Appeals and writs of error may be taken and prosecuted from the
decisions of the United States Court in the Indian Territory to the
Supreme Court of the United States, or to the circuit Court of
Appeals in the Eighth Circuit, in the same manner and under the
same regulations as from the circuit or district courts of the
United States, under this act."
The Act of March 1, 1895, 28 Stat. 693, c. 145, provided for the
appointment of additional judges of the United States court in the
Indian Territory, and created a court of appeals with such
superintending control over the courts in the Indian Territory as
the Supreme Court of Arkansas possessed over the courts of that
state by the laws thereof, and the act also provided that
"writs of error and appeals from the final decision of said
appellate court shall be allowed, and may be taken to the Circuit
Court of Appeals for the Eighth Judicial Circuit in the same manner
and under the same regulations as appeals are taken from the
circuit courts of the United States,"
which thus in terms deprived that court of jurisdiction of
appeals from the Indian Territory trial court, under § 13 of the
act of 1891.
In
Harless v. United States, 88 F. 97, the Circuit
Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in a careful opinion by
district Judge Shiras, held that, in the Act of March 1, 1895,
creating the Court of Appeals for the Indian Territory and giving
it full jurisdiction, civil and criminal, the provision of § 11,
that
"writs of error and appeals from the final decision of said
appellate court shall be allowed and may be taken to the Circuit
Court of Appeals for the Eighth Judicial Circuit in the same manner
and under the same regulations as appeals are taken from the
circuit courts of the United States,"
conferred upon that court full appellate jurisdiction over the
final decisions of the territorial appellate court, which
jurisdiction was not in any way measured or limited by the
jurisdiction on appeal
Page 212 U. S. 296
from or error to the district or circuit courts. And we concur
in that view.
The rule was laid down by this Court in
Brown v. United
States, 171 U. S. 631,
that, where a statute provides for a writ of error to a specific
court of appeals, it must be regarded as a repeal of any previous
statute which provided for a writ of error to another and different
court, and that the decisions of the Court of Appeals of the United
States for the Indian Territory are final, except so far as they
are made subject to review by some express provision of law. It was
furthermore there ruled that the Court of Appeals in the Indian
Territory was analogous to the Supreme Court of the district of
Columbia, and bore the same relation to the trial court in the
Indian Territory as the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia
bore to the trial court in the District, and
Ex Parte
Bigelow, 113 U. S. 328;
In re Heath, 144 U. S. 92;
Cross v. Burke, 146 U. S. 82,
146 U. S. 84,
were cited to the point that no appeal could be taken from or writ
of error sued out to the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia
where not specifically provided for.
Section 12 of the Act of March 3, 1905, 33 Stat. 1081, c. 1479,
in force when the proceedings in the present case were had,
provides:
"That hereafter all appeals and writs of error shall be taken
from the United States courts in the Indian Territory to the United
States Court of Appeals in the Indian Territory, and from the
United States Court of Appeals in the Indian Territory to the
United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in
the same manner as is now provided for in cases taken by appeal or
writ of error from the circuit courts of the United States to the
circuit Court of Appeals of the United States for the Eighth
Circuit."
We find no statute giving an appeal from that circuit court of
appeals to this Court, and perceive no reason for concluding that
Congress intended that parties in such cases should be entitled to
three appeals.
Appeal dismissed.
