James Mcbride, Plaintiff in Error v. the Lessee of William Hoey

ERROR to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, for the western district. An action of ejectment was instituted by the lessee of William Hoey against James McBride, the tenant of William Clarke, in the common pleas of Mercer county, to recover a tract of land in that county. The plaintiff obtained a verdict; and judgment on the same was rendered by the court; and the case was carried by writ of error to the supreme court of the western district of Pennsylvania, where the judgment was affirmed. To that court, as the highest court of law of the state, this writ of error was prosecuted, under the provisions of the 25th section of the judiciary act of September 1789; the plaintiff in error claiming the exercise of the jurisdiction of this court, on the allegation that an act of congress has been misconstrued by the supreme court of Pennsylvania. The plaintiff in the ejectment, in the common pleas of Mercer county, exhibited a regular title, derived under the laws of the state of Pennsylvania, subjecting unseated or unoccupied lands to sale, for taxes left unpaid by the owner of the land. These laws give to the owners of such lands a right to redeem them, within two years after the sale; by payment or tender, to the county treasurer, of the taxes for which the lands were sold, with twenty-five per cent. in addition. In the courts of Pennsylvania, construing the laws of that state, it had been decided, that no one but the owner of the land, or his agent, could be permitted to redeem lands so sold.