121 Ala. 616 | Ala. | 1898
— This bill is-filed by the Woodstock Iron Co. against Stickland ■ and others. It-avers that on April 20* 1880, Strickland entered -a certain- parcel of public land -under the homestead laws of the United States, “that on February 9, 1881, Strickland sold and conveyed to complainant for a valuable con
At the hearing on the merits the chancellor denied the relief prayed and dismissed the bill, not for the want of proof to support the averments of the bill, but for want of equity in those averments; and from that decree the present appeal is prosecuted.
The chancellor proceeded on the theory that to declare and enforce the alleged trust resulting from the payment to the government for the land by the complainant and its conveyance by the government to Strickland would be violative of the public policy of the United States in respect of government land's; and confessedly this is true unless the case is brought within the 2nd section of the act of Congress of June 15, 1880, which is as
There is no decision of this court directly upon the points; but in Mulloy v. Cook, 101 Ala. 178, it is held that a transaction of this sort to be enforceable must be brought within the act quoted above, and Dewhurst v. Wright, supra, is there cited approvingly. The conclusion we reached in that case that the trust could’not be declared and'enforced was rested on the ground that the attempted transfer was not in writing. The fact that we did not put it on the further ground that the transfer had been attempted to be made since the act of 1880, as we might have done, is not to be takén as tending to show that we then were of opinion that such a transfer was within the statute; for it was not necessary to consider that question, and it was not' considered. Considering it uoav, we are, as indicated above, clear to the conclusion that persons to \Adiom the right of the entryman has been attempted to be transferred since the enactment of the statute — June 15, 1880' — are not within its provisions, that such attempted transfers are against public policy and should not be enforced by the courts.' The attempted transfer relied on in’ this' case was subsequent to the statute. The decree of’the chancery court must therefore be affirmed.
Affirmed.