Northern Pacific Railway Company v. Soderberg

Citations

• 188 U.S. 526
• 23 S. Ct. 365
• 47 L. Ed. 575
• 1903 U.S. LEXIS 1297

Syllabus

<p>1. Although the jurisdiction of the United States Circuit Court be originally invoked on the ground of diverse citizenship, the attribute of finality cannot be impressed upon the judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals unless it appear that the original jurisdiction was dependent entirely upon such diversity of citizenship, and where the case made by the plain- • tiff depends upon the proper construction of an act of Congress with the contingency of being sustained by one construction, and defeated by another, it is one arising under the laws of the United States, and this court has jurisdiction thereof under section 1 of the act of 1888.</p> <p>2. Lands valuable solely or chiefly for granite quarries are mineral lands within the exception and the meaning of the provisions of the act of Congress of July 2, 1864, granting, under conditions therein stated, every alternate odd-numbered section of public land not mineral to the amount of twenty alternate sections per mile on each side of its line to the Northern Pacific Railroad Company. The word mineral need not be construed as synonymous with metalliferous.</p> <p>Laud grant statutes should receive a strict construction, and one which supports the contention of the government rather than that of the individual — the sovereign rather than the grantee. Nothing passes by implication.</p>