UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE

UNITED STATES V. FOSSATT, 62 U. S. 445 (1858)

62 U. S. 445

U.S. Supreme Court

United States v. Fossatt, 62 U.S. 21 How. 445 445 (1858)

United States v. Fossatt

62 U.S. (21 How.) 445

Syllabus

The only cases which will be taken up out of their regular order on the docket are those where the question in dispute will embarrass the operations of the government while it remains unsettled.

But if the court below, to which a mandate is sent, does not proceed to execute it or disobeys and mistakes its meaning, the party aggrieved may, by motion for a mandamus, at any time, bring the errors or omissions before this Court for correction.

No appeal will lie from any order or decision of the court below which is not a final decree.

The decree of the court below, in the present case, was not a final decree.

The jurisdiction of the Board of Commissioners for the Settlement of Private Land Claims in California, and of the courts of the United States on appeal, extends not only to the adjudication of questions relating to the genuineness and authenticity of the grant, and others of a similar character, but also all questions relating to its location and boundaries, and does not terminate until the issue of a patent conformably to the decree.

It is the duty of the Surveyor General to cause all private claims which shall be finally confirmed to be accurately surveyed, and to furnish plats of the same.

This was the same case which was before this Court at the preceding term, and is reported in 61 U. S. 20 How. 413. The position of the case is explained in the second opinion of the Court, as delivered by MR. JUSTICE CAMPBELL.

Being so down upon the docket as that there was no probability of reaching it in the regular order of business, a motion was made to take it up out of its regular turn. clubjuris

Page 62 U. S. 446


ClubJuris.Com