Williams v. Baker

Citations

• 84 U.S. 144
• 21 L. Ed. 561
• 17 Wall. 144
• 1872 U.S. LEXIS 1320

Syllabus

<p>X. The history given of the legislation of the land grants for the improvement of the Des Moines River, and of the grants for railroad purposes, which have been supposed to conflict.</p> <p>2. This court on full consideration affirms the decision in the casos of Wolcott v. The Des Moines Company (15 Wallace, 081), and Meily v. Wells (declared by this court to have nothing to distinguish it from that case, and therefore not reported), namely, “that the title to those lands never passed to the railroad company by the grant under which it claimed, because, by the express terms of the proviso, they were reserved from the grant; and that by the Joint Resolution of Oongress of 1881, and the act of 1802, on the same subject, the State of Iowa did receive the title for the use of those to whom she had sold them as part of the original Dos Moines River grant.”</p> <p>3. The decision of Wolcott v. The-Des Moines Company, as an authoritative exposition of the law of this case, is not weakened by the supposed collusion of the parties to that suit, it being shown by the record that all the questions were fully argued by other parties who intervened, and that the court maturely and deliberately considered the question which they were now asked to Reconsider. Nor does this court look with approval upon a labored effort to prove by testimony that its judgment was obtained by collusion, when the judgment is cited in another case only to establish principles of law,-and not by way of evidence or estoppel.</p>