Fussell v. Gregg
1885 United States Supreme Court case
Fussell v. Gregg, 113 U.S. 550 (1885), was an appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio regarding a bill in equity filed November 20, 1879, to establish the title of the plaintiff to, and recover the possession of, a certain tract of land in the County of Logan, in the State of Ohio, and for an account of rents and profits. The dispute was one of many issues with land titles in the former Virginia Military District section of Ohio.
Decision
The court syllabus states:
A court in equity has no jurisdiction over a suit based upon an equitable title to real estate unless the nature of the relief asked for is also equitable.
A court of the United States sitting in equity cannot control the principal surveyor of the Virginia Military District in the discharge of his official duties or take charge of the records of his office or declare their effect to be other than what appears on their face.
The plain meaning of the Act of March 23, 1804, 2 Stat. 274, to ascertain the boundaries of the Virginia Military District in Ohio is that a failure within five years to make return to the Secretary of War of the survey of any tract located within the territory, made previous to the expiration of the five years, should discharge the land from any claim founded on such location and survey and extinguish all rights acquired thereby.
The series of acts relating to this district, beginning with the Act of March 23, 1804, and ending with the Act of July 7, 1838, 5 Stat. 282, as revived and continued in force by later acts, are to be construed together, and as if the third section of the Act of March 23, 1804, had been repeated in every act of the series.
The Act of March 3, 1855, 10 Stat.
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