Barnes v. BoydBarnes v. Boyd
This suit in equity brought before the District Court for the third time the claim that the heirs at law of William A. McMullen, who died intestate in 1872, were deprived of large tracts of land in Kanawha county, W. Va., by an arbitration award in 1876 and a judgment of the circuit court of that county based thereon in 1877, which, it is alleged, were wrongfully obtained through a fraudulent сonspiracy. The first suit was brought by Nelson V. McMullen, a grandson of William A. McMullen; the second suit was brought by Rose Cooke Morse, a granddaughter of William A. McMullen, and the pending suit was brought by Rose Hudson Barnes, also a granddaughter of William A. McMullen. In the first two suits, the bills of complaint were dismissed by the District Court as insufficient, because the allеgations and the
"We are in accord also with the provisions of the decree whereby thе motion to dismiss the bill of complaint, as amended, was granted. The amendment adds to the original bill the allegations that the defendants are in possession of the lands and claim title thereto under a state grant that was void for uncertаinty, and that their claim is hostile and adverse to the title of the plaintiff derived frоm valid state grants. Reliance is placed upon a West Virginia statute codified in chapter 51, art. 2, § 2, of the "West Virginia Code of 1931, and in section 5196 of the Codе of 1932, which provides, in substance, that the circuit courts of the state shall have jurisdiction in equity to remove any cloud on the title to real property and to determine questions of title thereto without requiring allegations or proоf of actual possession. These additional allegations do not aid the plaintiff’s case. Under the general rule of equity jurisdiction, a plaintiff out of рossession, asserting a superior legal title to lands against a defendant in possession thereof, may not sue in equity but will be left to his adequate remedy of еjectment at law. Pomeroy on Equity Jurisprudence, § 1399. And although a new equitable right of a substantive character, created by state statute, may be enforced in a federal court in equity, provided a ground for invoking the federal jurisdictiоn exists, nevertheless whenever a court of law can afford an adequаte remedy in respect to the right, violated, the party aggrieved must seek his rеmedy in that court, notwithstanding the provisions of the state statute, because thе defendant has a constitutional right to a trial by jury, and the act of Congress, 28 TJSCA § 384, prоvides that suits in equity shall not be sustained in any federal court, where a plain, adеquate, and complete remedy may be had at law. Whitehead v. Shattuck,
The decree of the District Court is affirmed.