George Sutherland, Son v. United States — Opinion of the Court
“ If the appropriation of mineral lands by location and development be not skin to settlement and entry, what other form of appropriation can be so characterized? None has been suggested and we can think of none. A purchase of land or an appropriation for railroad uses or rights of way, if not actually involving settlement and entry, is no more akin to that method than an appropriation for mining purposes. ”
George Sutherland, Son v. United States — Opinion of the Court
“ The enforcement of such a statute in an equity suit in no manner trammels or impairs the equity jurisdiction of the national courts.It was urged upon the argument that section 721 of the Revised Statutes (Comp. St. § 1538) , which provides that the laws of the several states shall be regarded as rules of decision in trials at common law in the courts of the United States, by implication excludes such laws as rules of decision in equity suits. The statute, however, is merely declarative of the rule which would exist in the absence of the statute. ”
George Sutherland, Son v. United States — Opinion of the Court
“ But while the power of the courts of the United States to entertain suits in equity and to decide them cannot be abridged by state legislation, the rights involved therein may be the proper subject of such legislation. ”
