Hardin v. Jordan

Citations

• 140 U.S. 371
• 11 S. Ct. 808
• 35 L. Ed. 428
• 1891 U.S. LEXIS 2472

Syllabus

<p>In ejectment a plaintiff must stand or fall by his own title, and cannot avail • himself of a defect in the title of the defendant.</p> <p>Grants by the United States of its public lands bounded on streams and other waters, made without reservation or restriction, are to be construed, as to their effect, according to the law of the State in which the lands lie.</p> <p>It depends upon the laws of each State to what extent the prerogative of the State to lands under water shall extend. The cases reviewed.</p> <p>A judicial decision of the present day, made by the court of highest authority in Great Britain, is entitled to the highest consideration on a question-of pure common law.</p> <p>By the common law, under a grant of lands bounded on a lake or pond which is not tide-water and is not navigable, the grantee takes to the centre of the lake or pond, ratably with other riparian proprietors if there be such: and this.rule prevailed in Illinois when the patent to the plaintiff’s ancestor was granted in 1841, and is still the law of that State, notwithstanding the opinion of its -highest court in Trustees of Schools v. Schroll, 120 Illinois, 509. ^</p> <p>The ruling of the Supreme Court of Illinois in its opinion in Trustees of. Schools v. Schroll, 120 Illinois, 509, that a grant of lands bounded by a lake or stream does not extend to the centre thereof, was not necessary to the decision of the case, and, being opposed to the entire course of previous decisions in that State, it is disregarded.</p> <p>The adverse decision of the land department does not estop plaintiff, because it had no jurisdiction over the case.</p>