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Plaintiffs in error were notified of the proceedings in bankruptcy, as provided by the bankruptcy act, and, if they had desired to contest the claim to exemption, they might have done so, or could have invoked the supervision and revision of the order by the Circuit Court of Appeals, but they did not do that, and could not question its validity in the state courts, unless, indeed, it were absolutely void, which is not and could not be pretended.

The bankruptcy court is expressly vested with jurisdiction "to determine all claims of bankrupts to their exemptions." § 2, cl. 11. Where there is a trustee he sets apart the exemptions, and reports thereon to the court, § 47, cl. 11; where no trustee has been appointed, under general order XV, the court acts in the first instance.

Section 6 of the bankruptcy act provided: "This act shall not affect the allowance to bankrupts of the exemptions which are prescribed by the state laws in force at the time of the filing of the petition in the State wherein they had their domicile for the six months or the greater portion thereof immediately preceding the filing of the petition."

The rights of a bankrupt to property as exempt are those given him by the state statutes, and if such exempt property is not subject to levy and sale under those statutes, then it cannot be made to respond under the act of Congress.

In one of the parargaphs of the reply of plaintiffs in error (plaintiffs in the court of original jurisdiction) to the answer of defendants it was asserted that on the day their judgment was recovered Laugenour and his wife were the owners of the real estate in question, and the judgment became a lien thereon, and that "said lien, which culminated in the aforesaid sale of real estate to plaintiffs, was obtained and created pursuant to said suit, and more than four months prior to the filing of the alleged petition in bankruptcy;" and it is argued that this amounted to a special assertion of an immunity under the bankruptcy act. But immunity from what? Nothing more, at the best, than immunity from the discharge in bankruptcy; VOL. CXCVI-7

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not from the exemptions authorized by the state statute. And so Fullerton, J., speaking for the state Supreme Court, said: "Lastly, it is said that the order of the court setting apart the property as exempt does not purport to, nor does it in law, affect existing liens upon the property set apart as exempt, and, unless the liens thereon be such as the law avoids of its own force, such liens may be enforced in the state court against and to the extent of the property affected by the lien, notwithstanding the order setting it apart as exempt, and the discharge of the debt in bankruptcy. In cases of liens which can exist independent of the question whether or not the property is exempt, undoubtedly the rule here invoked would be applicable; but the lien of a general judgment is not such a lien. It is a lien upon real property, only, which is not exempt. Hence if this property was exempt at the time of the filing of the petition in bankruptcy, the judgment under which it was sold was not a lien thereon, and to assume that the judgment was a lien is to assume that it was not exempt,-the very question at issue."

We are not able to perceive that the state Supreme Court denied in any way a right of plaintiffs in error specially set up or claimed under the Constitution or laws of the United States. All that was determined, and all that the state court was called on to determine, was the question of exemption under the state statutes. Its acceptance of the judgment of the Federal court in that regard does not bring the case within section 709. Writ of error dismissed.

196 U.S.

Opinion of the Court.

COMSTOCK v. EAGLETON.

APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF THE TERRITORY OF

OKLAHOMA.

No. 105. Submitted December 15, 1904.-Decided January 3, 1905.

Under § 9, act of May 2, 1890, 26 Stat. 81, c. 182, final judgments of the Supreme Court of the Territory of Oklahoma in actions at law can only be revised by this court as are judgments of the Circuit Courts of the United States in similar actions-by writ of error and not by appeal.

THE facts are stated in the opinion.

Mr. C. J. Wrightsman, Mr. E. L. Fulton, Mr. Andrew Wilson and Mr. Noel W. Barksdale for plaintiff in error.

There was no appearance or brief for defendant in error.

THE CHIEF JUSTICE: This was an action brought by Comstock against Eagleton in the District Court of Pawnee County, Oklahoma, to recover damages for false imprisonment in the sum of $5,317.50.

The petition was demurred to on the ground that it did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action, the demurrer was sustained, and the petition dismissed with costs. The case was then carried to the Supreme Court of Oklahoma. on error, and the judgment affirmed. 11 Oklahoma, 487. From the judgment of affirmance this appeal was allowed and prosecuted to this court.

By section 9 of the "Act to provide a temporary government for the Territory of Oklahoma," approved May 2, 1890, 26 Stat. 81, c. 182, it was provided that "where the value of the property or the amount in controversy" exceeded five thousand dollars, "writs of error and appeals from the final decisions of said Supreme Court shall be allowed and may be

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taken to the Supreme Court of the United States in the same manner and under the same regulations as from the Circuit Courts of the United States."

Final judgments of the Circuit Courts of the United States in actions at law can only be revised on writs of error. Deland v. Platte County, 155 U. S. 221; Met. Railroad Company v. District of Columbia, 195 U. S. 322; Bevins v. Ramsey, 11 How. 185; Sarchet v. United States, 12 Pet. 143.

Appeal dismissed.

SCOTT v. CAREW.

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH

CIRCUIT.

No. 52. Argued November 7, 8, 1904.-Decided January 3, 1905.

Unless an intent to the contrary is clearly manifest by its terms, a statute providing generally for the disposal of public lands is inapplicable to lands taken possession of and occupied by the Government for a special purpose.

A prior appropriation is always presumed to except land from the scope of a subsequent grant although no reference may be made in the latter to the former.

The establishment of a military post under proper orders on public lands amounts to an appropriation of the land for military purposes and withdraws the property occupied from the effect of general laws subsequently passed for the disposal of public lands, and no right of an individual settler attaches to or hangs over the land to interfere with the action of the Government in regard thereto.

One who wrongfully settled on public land and was dispossessed by proper authority so that the land might be used for a military post acquired by such settlement no priority of right in the matter of purchase or homestead entry when the post was abandoned and the land opened to private purchase.

ON December 31, 1900, the plaintiffs, who are now appellants, filed their bill of complaint in the Circuit Court of the

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United States for the Southern District of Florida, praying that the defendants, holding the legal title to a tract of land under patent from the United States, be decreed to hold that title in trust for them. A demurrer to the bill was sustained and a decree of dismissal entered. This was affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and from that affirmance this appeal was taken.

The averments in the bill are: The plaintiffs are the sole descendants and heirs at law of Robert J. Hackley, who died in 1845. In November, 1823, Hackley, then over twenty-one years of age, and the head of a family, settled upon and cultivated the tract in controversy. At that time the surrounding country was a dense wilderness and he the only settler. He erected on the tract a substantial dwelling and other buildings. In 1824 Colonel Brooke, with a detachment of United States troops, was sent to this portion of Florida, located a camp or cantonment on this tract, dispossessed Hackley, and took possession of the house and land so occupied and cultivated by him. The Secretary of the Interior, in the contest proceedings hereinafter referred to, in an opinion which is attached to the bill as an exhibit, found that this action was taken by order of the War Department. United States troops continued to occupy the camp or cantonment until December 10, 1830, when by an executive order of the President the Fort Brooke military reservation was established, containing sixteen square miles of land and embracing the tract in controversy. Thereafter this military reservation was reduced from time to time by executive orders, until on June 1, 1878, only the tract in controversy, commonly known as the "Reduced Fort Brooke military reservation," remained. On January 4, 1883, it was relinquished, and transferred by the Secretary of War to the Interior Department. Hackley, after his removal from the tract, remained a resident of Florida up to the time of his death. On March 3, 1823, Congress passed an act authorizing the President to establish a land office in each of the districts of East and West Florida as soon as in his

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