Lockard v. Asher Lumber Co.

Citations

• 131 F. 689
• 65 C.C.A. 517
• 1904 U.S. App. LEXIS 4307

Syllabus

<p>1. Federal Courts — State Statutes — State Decisions.</p> <p>Where an action in the federal court depends on the construction of a state statute providing for the sale of state lands, the federal court is required to adopt the construction placed on the statute by the highest court of such state.</p> <p>2. Same — Public Lands — Sale—Patents—Statutes—Construction.</p> <p>Rev. St. Ivy. e. 102. § 3, provides that any person who wishes to appropriate any vacant and unappropriated lands, on application to the county court of the county in which the same lies, paying at such price as the court may allow, not less than $5 per 100 acres therefor, may obtain an order of court authorizing him to enter and survey any number of acres of such land in the county, not less than 25 nor more than 200. Held, following the decisions of the Kentucky Court of Appeals, that such act did not preclude the survey of several tracts of 200 acres each by the same person, and that a patent for lands so surveyed was not void on its face because it conveyed more than 200 acres.</p> <p>¶ 1. State laws as rules of decision in federal courts, see notes to Griffin v. Wheel Co., 9 C. C. A. 548; Wilson v. Perrin, 11 C. C. A. 71; Hill v. Hite, 29 C. C. A. 553.</p> <p>See Courts, vol. 13, Cent. Dig. §§ 957, 959.</p>