Samuel Freeman Miller

“ Willoe (1 Scho. & Lef. 201) , Lord Redesdale said: 'I do not know that equity ever does interfere to grant a trial of a matter which has already been discussed in a court of law, a matter capable of being discussed there, and over which the court of law had full jurisdiction.' The rule must apply with equal force to a bill to set aside a decree in equity after it has become final, where the object is to retry a matter which was in issue in the first case and was matter of actual contest. ”

“ This is said in a case where the bill was brought for the purpose of impeaching the decree directly, and not where it was offered in evidence collaterally. We think these decisions establish the doctrine on which we decide the present case; namely, that the acts for which a court of equity will on account of fraud set aside or annul a judgment or decree, between the same parties, rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction, have relation to frauds, extrinsic or collateral, to the matter tried by the first court, and not to a fraud in the matter on which the decree was rendered. ”

“ While the bill is elaborate in its statement of matters which are supposed to impeach the decree, and is correspondingly silent as to any thing tending to its support, there are important facts which, it cannot escape attention, could not be omitted. Among these is, that, in attempting to negative the idea that juridical possession of the land was ever delivered to Richardson by the Mexican authorities, it is incidentally admitted that at the time the transaction occurred on which his claim is founded, he was in actual possession and residing on part, if not all, of the land in controversy. ”

“ The Chief Justice says that the court thinks the point settled against the complainant by authority, not specifically in regard to divorce, but generally as to the conclusiveness of judgments and decrees between the same parties. ”

“ If we can do this now, some other court may be called on twenty years hence to retry the same matter on another allegation of fraudulent combination in this suit to defeat the ends of justice; and so the number of suits would be without limit and the litigation endless about the single question of the validity of this document. ”

“ It would be a very dangerous doctrine, one threatening the title to millions of acres of land held by patent from the government, if any man who has a grudge or a claim against his neighbor can, by indemnifying the government for costs, and furnishing the needed stimulus to a district attorney, institute a suit in chancery in the United States to declare the patent void. ”