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Opinion of the Court.

court upon the performance of the conditions imposed. But there is nothing in the language of the statute from which it can be inferred that it was the intention that the jurisdiction of state courts of competent and concurrent jurisdiction, first obtained, should be interfered with by restraining orders issued by Federal courts on the application of such an agent. The agent may indeed intervene in a case in the state court and receive the fruits of the litigation to be administered subject to the final approval of the Federal court, and, accordingly, Stateler as agent submitted himself to the jurisdiction of the state courts and applied for an order turning over to him the fund so far as realized. Nevertheless the agent must abide the result and cannot control it through the interposition of another independent and concurrent jurisdiction.

The doctrine is firmly established that where the jurisdiction of a court, and the right of a plaintiff to prosecute his suit in it, have once attached, that right cannot be arrested or taken away by proceedings in another court, and that where property is actually in the possession of one court of competent jurisdiction such possession cannot be disturbed by process out of another court of concurrent jurisdiction. Moran v. Sturges, 154 U. S. 256, and cases cited. And by section 720 of the Revised Statutes the granting of injunctions to stay proceedings in any court of a State is prohibited in express terms. It is unnecessary here to point out such exceptions or limitations as may exist.

Obviously the Circuit Court could not restrain the prosecution of this suit in the state courts, and we are equally clear that if Federal questions arose, the Circuit Court could not prevent this court, or a justice thereof, or the presiding judge of the state court, from granting writs of error, by restraining the parties from applying therefor; nor could it properly direct their dismissal, having been granted. Cases transferred to this court must be dealt with by this court. is quite possible that the litigation had gone far enough after the state Supreme Court had passed upon it, but parties cannot be deprived of the right to prolong it, if the right exists, in this manner and under such circumstances.

Of course it

Opinion of the Court.

Considered apart from the construction placed upon it by the Circuit Court, we should say that the injunction order of February 24, 1896, was not intended to restrain either Chetwood or the bank, or both, from prosecuting the writs of error from this court. The concluding words of the order are "but the defendants are not hereby enjoined from prosecuting or defending to final determination any actions in this matter now pending in the Supreme Court of the State of California. or in this court." According to the practice in this court a writ of error has been treated rather as a continuation of the original litigation than the commencement of a new action, Nations v. Johnson, 24 How. 195, 205; Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 410; but in any view we should not have thought that writs of error were included within the scope of the order, or that the Circuit Court designed to interfere in such a way with the prosecution of the principal controversy as to arbitrarily stop the case on the judgment of the Supreme Court of the State if it proved adverse to the bank and its interested stockholders, and leave them, if such order were lawful, wholly without further remedy, if such they had; or to preclude one of the parties from attempting to obtain a review of the judgment in the matter of the rights of Stateler, however that might be determined in the Supreme Court of the State, whose decisions on both appeals were rendered after the entry of the restraining order.

The Circuit Court, however, has otherwise construed the order, and has adjudged petitioner and his counsel guilty of contempt in its violation as thus construed. And it has directed petitioner to dismiss one of the writs of error and to desist from using the name of the bank in the other, in advance of what we may determine as to either of these matters when coming on to be disposed of.

As in our opinion the Circuit Court exceeded its jurisdiction in thus proceeding, we are constrained to make the rule absolute.

By section 14 of the Judiciary Act of September 24, 1789 (1 Stat. 81, c. 20), carried forward as section 716 of the Revised Statutes, this court and the Circuit and District Courts

Opinion of the Court.

S. 372, 380. And although,

of the United States were empowered by Congress "to issue all writs, not specifically provided for by statute, which may be agreeable to the usages and principles of law"; and, under this provision, we can undoubtedly issue writs of certiorari in all proper cases. Amer. Construction Co. v. Jacksonville Railway, 148 U. as observed in that case, this writ has not been issued as freely by this court as by the Court of Queen's Bench in England, and, prior to the act of March 3, 1891, c. 517, 26 Stat. 826, had been ordinarily used as an auxiliary process merely, yet, whenever the circumstances imperatively demand that form of interposition the writ may be allowed, as at common law, to correct excesses of jurisdiction and in furtherance of justice. Tidd's Prac. * 398; Bac. Ab., Certiorari.

Judgments in proceedings in contempt are not reviewable here on appeal or error, Hayes v. Fischer, 102 U. S. 121; In re Debs, 158 U. S. 564, 573; 159 U. S. 251; but they may be reached by certiorari in the absence of any other adequate remedy.

The writ of certiorari will be allowed to bring up the record so that the order adjudging Chetwood and his counsel in contempt for being concerned in suing out the writs of error, and directing them, or either of them, to refrain from prosecuting the one writ in the name of the bank and to dismiss the other, may be revised and annulled. We presume, after what we have said, it will not be necessary for the writ to issue.

Rule absolute; Certiorari allowed.

Statement of the Case.

UNITED STATES v. WINONA AND ST. PETER RAILROAD COMPANY.

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH

CIRCUIT.

No. 821. Argued November 30, December 1, 1896. Decided February 15, 1897.

In view of the fact that many years have passed since the certification of the lands in controversy, and since the railroad company, in reliance upon the title which it believed it had acquired, disposed of them, and that other parties have become interested in them, and have dealt with them as private property, the appellees are justified in saying that they have large claims upon the equitable consideration of the courts. The act of March 3, 1887, 24 Stat. 556, providing for the adjustment of land grants made by Congress to aid in the construction of railroads, and the act of March 2, 1896, 29 Stat. 42, operated to confirm the title to purchasers from a railroad company of lands certified or patented to or for its benefit, notwithstanding any mere errors or irregularities in the proceedings of the land department, and notwithstanding the fact that the lands so certified or patented were, by the true construction of the land grants, although within the limits of the grants, excepted from their operation; provided that they purchased 'in good faith, and paid value for the lands; and provided, also, that the lands were public lands in the statutory sense of the term, and free from individual or other claims.

THIS was a bill in equity filed by the United States in the Circuit Court for the District of Minnesota under authority of the act of Congress of March 3, 1887, c. 376, 24 Stat. 556, providing for the adjustment of land grants made by Congress to aid in the construction of railroads, and for the forfeiture of unearned lands, etc. The charge was that the lands specified in the bill had been wrongfully certified to the State of Minnesota for the benefit of the defendant company, and the prayer was for a cancellation of such certification and a restoration of the lands to the public domain. After answers by the railroad company and some of the other defendants an agreed statement of facts was prepared, upon which, with the pleadings, the case was submitted to the Circuit Court for decision. Upon hearing a decree was entered dismissing the

Statement of the Case.

bill, which thereafter was affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. 32 U. S. App. 272.

By the agreed statement the following facts appear, and upon them the rights of the parties depend: On March 3, 1857, Congress passed an act, c. 99, 11 Stat. 195, granting to Minnesota to aid in the building of certain lines of railroad the alternate odd-numbered sections for six sections in width on each side of the line of each road. The amount of this grant was increased by the act of March 3, 1865, c. 105, 13 Stat. 526, to ten sections per mile. By appropriate state legislation the defendant railroad company became one of the beneficiaries of this grant. It duly constructed its road, and the construction was accepted and approved. The lands in controversy were within the limits and terms of the grant, and were certified to the State nearly all in the years 1872, 1873, 1874 and 1875, though two tracts were not so certified until the year 1879. At the time of the filing by the railroad company of its map of definite location there were on the records and files of the Land Office homestead entries or preemption filings upon these lands, regular in form and prima facie valid, some of them having been made intermediate the time that the line of the railroad was surveyed, staked out and marked on the face of the earth and the date of the filing of the map of definite location, and some having been made prior to the first-named time. Proceedings were had in the General Land Office, after proper notice by publication, by which all these entries and filings were duly cancelled prior to the certification of the lands to the State of Minnesota. The cancellations were generally on the ground of abandonment, and from the time thereof up to the filing of the agreed statement of facts, July 26, 1893, none of the persons who had made such homestead entries or preëmption filings had ever made any claim to the lands, so far as shown by the records of the land department. The railroad company sold and conveyed the lands to parties who paid value and bought believing that the company's title was unimpeachable. Further, after the patent from the State the lands were subjected to taxation, and the land company, the grantee from

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