UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE

MOSS V. RAMEY, 239 U. S. 538 (1916)

239 U. S. 538

U.S. Supreme Court

Moss v. Ramey, 239 U.S. 538 (1916)

Moss v. Ramey

No. 61

Argued December 9, 1915

Decided January 10, 1916

239 U.S. 538

Syllabus

The inference naturally arising from the silence of the field notes and plat that there was no island at the time of the survey, or if any, only one of inconsiderable area and value, is refutable, and in this case the evidence does refute such inference and demonstrates the existence of the island in its present condition at the time of the survey.

An error of the surveyor in failing to extend a survey over an island in a river does not make it any the less a part of the public domain.

Fast dry land, which is neither a part of the bed of a river nor land under water, being part of the public domain within the Territory of Idaho, did not pass to the state on admission to the Union, but remained public land as before. clubjuris

Page 239 U. S. 539

Patents to lots of land abutting on a river do not include actual islands of fast dry land and of stable foundation lying between the lot and the thread of the stream. Whitaker v. McBride, 197 U. S. 510, distinguished.

An appellate court of a state may, without violating the Fourteenth Amendment, correct its interlocutory decision upon a first appeal when the same case with the same parties again comes before it, and whether this may be done in a particular case is a local question upon which the decision of the highest court of the state is controlling here.

25 Idaho 1 affirmed.

The facts, which involve the title under patents of the United States to an unsurveyed island in Snake River between the States of Oregon and Idaho are stated in the opinion. clubjuris

Page 239 U. S. 544


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