Opinion
06-05-1888
BARTON v. LONG et al.
Bergen & Bergen, for appellant. S. H. Grey and D. J. Pancoast, for defendants.
The complainant in this case flies his bill to set aside certain conveyances which were executed and delivered in 1857. Evidence was taken before a master, during which an offer was made to show that a grant of land had been made by the Spanish government to one Joseph Valiere, and that one Benjamin H. Scull, in an action against the United States, had procured an eviction of the said Valiere. A copy of the supreme court record was offered to show those facts, but was objected to on the ground that no connection between the parties to the suit in question and the pending one was shown. The master so ruled, and an appeal was taken to the vice chancellor.
Bergen & Bergen, for appellant. S. H. Grey and D. J. Pancoast, for defendants.
BIRD, V. C. After a careful examination of the point made in the offer of the judgment in the case of Scull v. U. S., 98 U. S. 410, I am obliged to say that 1 can see nothing for the offer to rest on. Nothing is shown to connect Long or McCullough with that case, in the most remote relation, so as to bind either. It does not appear that either one was in any sense privy to either plaintiff or defendant in the suit named. As the case now stands, the simplefact that the United States was a party gives no force to the judgment over any other. Long, or any other person, may be in privity to the government of his country, as well as to an individual; but that fact must appear, as well in the one case as in the other, before courts can act. The fact that there is a government does not raise the presumption that all its citizens or subjects are in privity thereto, as to all titles, in every suit. Whitney v. Higgins, 10 Cal. 547, 70 Amer. Dec. 748. See Freem. Judgm. §§ 166,190. The master is sustained, with costs.