Stryker v. Goodnow's Administrator

Citations

• 123 U.S. 527
• 8 S. Ct. 203
• 31 L. Ed. 194
• 1887 U.S. LEXIS 2192

Syllabus

<p>ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF IOWA.</p> <p>Upon the record in this case, the question whether the lands of the plaintiffs in error were taxable is not a Federal (Question, but is one on which the decision of the highest court of the State of Iowa is conclusive; and it is not reviewable here.</p> <p>Homestead Company v. Valley Railroad, 17 Wall. 153, is a judicial precedent, which might have been referred to as a reason for holding that taxes paid, under the circumstances in which the payments of taxes in contention in these suits wore made, cannot be recovered by the party paying them from the true owners of the land; but it is no bar, as an estoppel, to the recovery in these cases.</p> <p>The judgment of this court in Wolcott v. Des Moines Company, 5 Wall. 681, while il may be referred to by the parties in this suit as a judicial precedent, does not operate as an estoppel against the defendant in error.</p> <p>The filing of a brief in a suit by a person interested in the question to be decided, but not a party to the suit, does not estop him in a suit of his own from presenting the same question.</p>