82 Neb. 48 | Neb. | 1908
Suit to quiet title to real estate. The court held it did not have jurisdiction of the controversy, because the land therein involved was in Iowa, and dismissed the action. Plaintiff appeals.
The land was entered in 1855, and patent therefor was
1. The law upon this subject is plain, and was settled beyond peradventure by the supreme court of the United States in Nebraska v. Iowa, 143 U. S. 359, 36 L. ed. 186, and reaffirmed in Missouri v. Nebraska, 196 U. S. 23, 49 L. ed. 372. The boundary between Iowa and Nebraska was fixed by the respective acts of congress admitting said states to the Union as the center of the chanhel of the Missouri river. That boundary may and does fluctuate with the changes of the channel of that stream where the alteration is gradual and imperceptible; but, when by a sudden variation the stream seeks and marks for itself an entirely new course and abandons the old path, the boundary remains along the line which constituted the center of the old channel. Applying the rule to the instant case, when this suit was instituted the land therein described was in Iowa, and not within the jurisdiction of the courts of Nebraska.
2. Counsel argues that citizens in their litigation cannot' collaterally attack and have adjudicated state boundaries,
In the state tax suit for 1904 plaintiff herein defended an attempt to collect old delinquent taxes levied upon the real estate in controversy by the authorities of Nebraska, upon the ground that, by reason of the facts hereinbefore referred to, said land had been transferred from Nebraska to Iowa, and the court in that suit, on those facts, found for this plaintiff.
The district court was clearly right, and we recommend that its judgment be affirmed.
By the Court: For the reasons stated in the foregoing opinion, the judgment of the district court is
Affirmed.