after stating the case as above, delivered the opinion of the court.
This is a suit in equity to quiet the title of the plaintiff to a large tract of swamp or overflowed lands in Mississippi against the claim of the defendant to an adverse interest in the premises. The plaintiff seeks to have £he defendant’s pretended titles produced and canceled. The defendant, after answering, filed a cross bill seeking to have the plaintiff’s alleged titles canceled and her right to the lands established. The court decided in favor of the defendant and cross complainant, and the plaintiff appeal's to this court.
The first question raised is as fo the jurisdiction of the circuit court. The original bill was filed in the chancery court of Pearl River county, Miss. The plaintiff was a Mississippi corporation, and the defendant a citizen of Michigan. The value of the land exceeded $2,000. On petition of the defendant the case was duly removed from the state court to the circuit court of the United States for the Southern district of Mississippi. The plaintiff moved to remand the case to the state court because the circuit court “has no jurisdiction in the premises, there being no ground of equity jurisdiction stated upon the face of the bill of complaint, save under a statute of the state of Mississippi, which cannot enlarge the equity powers of the federal courts.” The court overruled the motion, and its order.is assigned as error. The statute referred to in the motion is section 500 of the Annotated Code of Mississippi of 1892, and is as follows:
“See. 500. When a person, not the rightful owner of any real estate, shall have any conveyance or other evidence of title thereto, or shall assert any claim or pretend to have any right or title thereto which may east doubt or suspicion on the title of the real owner, such real owner may file a bill in the chancery court to havé such conveyance or other evidence or claim of title cancelled, and such cloud, doubt or suspicion removed from said title, whether such real owner be in possession or not, or be threatened to be disturbed in his possession or not, and whether the defendant be a resident of this state or not; and any person having the equitable title to land may,' in like cases, file a bill to divest the legal title out of the person in whom the same may be vested, andi to vest the same in the equitable owner.”
The seventh amendment to the constitution of the United States declares that “in suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved.” This amendment is a limitation on the equity jurisdiction of federal courts. If the legislation of states, providing for the trial of common-law cases in equity, was binding on federal equity courts, this amendment of the constitution could be made useless. Such state statutes do not control the federal courts. A state statute, therefore, which confers jurisdiction of common-law cases on state equity courts, thus dispensing with trials by jury, will not be administered in federal courts of equity. Scott v. Neely, 140 U. S. 106, 111, 11 Sup. Ct. 712, 35 L. Ed. 358; Cates v. Allen, 149 U. S. 451, 13 Sup. Ct. 883, 37 L. Ed. 804. It is well settled, however, that an enlargement of equitable rights may be administered as well by the United States courts as by state courts. Clark v. Smith, 13 Pet. 195, 10 L. Ed. 123; In re Broderick’s Will, 21 Wall. 503, 520, 22 L. Ed.
*90 “This court has held in a multitude of eases that where the laws of a particular state gave a remedy in equity, as, for instance, a hill hy a party in or out of possession to quiet title to lands, such remedy would he enforced in the federal courts, if it did not infringe upon the constitutional rights of the parties to a trial by jury.” Greeley v. Lowe, 155 U. S. 58, 75, 15 Sup. Ct. 28, 39 L. Ed. 75.
It is conceded that the bill makes a case within the jurisdiction of the Mississippi chancery court, for the statute quoted dispenses with the necessity of the plaintiff’s possession. As it appears that the defendant was not in possession of the lands, and that the plaintiff has no adequate remedy at law, and that the defendant is not deprived of the right of a trial by jury, there is no valid objection to the jurisdiction of the United 'States circuit court.
The other assignments of error relate to the merits of the case.
On the 3d of February, 1858, the lands in controversy were patented by the United States to the state of Mississippi. The litigation in this case is to settle the question as to the ownership of these lands; it being agreed that they are owned either by the appellant, the Southern Pine Company, or the appellee, Olivia B. Hall. The parties both deraign title from the state of Mississippi. On April 8, 1871, the legislature of Mississippi chartered the Pearl River Improvement & Navigation Company, hereinafter called the “Pearl River Company.” This company was authorized to receive from the governor and the secretary of state of Mississippi patents for the-land. On June 7, 1871, the secretary of state and the governor of Mississippi issued a patent for the lands to the Pearl River Company, which was duly recorded in the counties where the lands lie. The Pearl River Company on November 20, 1872, conveyed the lands, for a valuable consideration, to Matthew S. Baldwin. Baldwin on the 17th day of April, 1873, sold and conveyed the lands to Israel Hall for a consideration of $40,000. On November 5,1874, Hall conveyed the lands to his wife, the appellee. The patent and all the deeds were duly recorded. Soon after the patent issued to the Pearl River Company the lands were listed for taxation, and the appellee and her vendors have paid taxes on them to the state of Mississippi since that time to the beginning of this suit. On the 7th of December, 1893, the state of Mississippi issued other patents to the lands in question. The appellant, the Southern Pine Company, by several conveyances has become the owner of whatever right and title these patentees obtained from the state. It will be seen by this statement that the appellee claims under the prior grant. The act of 187.1 which incorporated the Pearl River Company required it within 60 days after the passage of the act to deposit with the secretary of state of Mississippi “a bond in the smh of $50,000, with two or more good securities, who shall make oath that they are worth the penalty of the bond, over and above all liabilities and exemptions,.which securities shall reside in this state, to be approved by the governor.” On the filing of such bond the act provided that patents were to be issued by the governor and the secretary of state to the Pearl River Company, which patents were to vest the fee-simple title to the lands in the company. Before the patents were issued the Pearl River Company
“In tlie construction of a doubtful and ambiguous law, the contemporaneous construction of those who were called upon to act under the law, and were appointed to carry its provisions into effect, is entitled to very great respect.”
The bond being approved and the patents issued, the state received taxes on the lands from the patentee and those claiming under the patentee for a period of over 20 years. On April 19, 1873, the legislature, by an act of that date, formally recognized that “the lands had been patented to said company in compliance with the act of incorporation.” Acts Miss. 1873, p. 120. It appears, therefore, that both the executive and legislative branches of the state government have recognized the sufficiency of the bond to authorize the issuance of the
The case of Hardy v. Hartman, 65 Miss. 504, 4 South. 545, is relied on by the appellant. The court in that case said it did “not appear from the record that any patent signed by the governor and countersigned by the secretary of state was ever issued to the company for the land in question. * * *” The observation, therefore, at the conclusión of the case, that if a patent had issued it would have been void, must be regarded as an obiter dietuih. This case, we think, cannot be held a judicial construction of the statute on the point here involved. If it should be so considered, although we would have great respect for the conclusion of that able and impartial court, we should be required, on the facts of this case, to exercise an independent judgment in the construction of the statute in question. The appellee in this case having acquired the rights here asserted before the decision of the supreme court of Mississippi just cited was rendered, she is entitled to invoke the independent judgment of this court as to the proper construction of the statute. In Bartholomew v. City of Austin, 2,9 C. C. A. 568, 85 Fed. 359, this court (Judge Pardee delivering the opinion) held:
“Where contracts or transactions have been entered into, and rights have accrued thereunder, before state laws applicable to them have been construed by the state courts, the federal courts will place their own interpretation on such laws, though the state courts have since adopted a different construction."
This view is fully sustained by the supreme court. In Burgess v. Seligman, 107 U. S. 20, 33, 2 Sup. Ct. 21, 27 L. Ed. 365, the court said:
“When contracts and transactions have been entered into, and rights have accrued thereon, under a particular state of the decisions, or when there has been no decision, of the state tribunals, the federal courts properly claim the right to adopt their own interpretation of the law applicable to the case, although a different interpretation may be adopted by the state courts after such rights have accrued.”
The. appellee has urged on our attention the fact that her vendor .purchased and paid full value for the lands without notice of defect, if any, in the bond given by the Pearl River 'Company, and that she should be protected as a bona fide purchaser for value, without notice. It is also claimed that the state was by the facts estopped to issue the second patent for the lands. As we have determined that ' the bond given was a substantial compliance with the act of the legislature, we do not deem it necessary to examine these last-named contentions. The decree of the circuit court is affirmed.