Bryan v. Kennett
| Bryan v. Kennett | |
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| Argued December 12, 1884 Decided January 5, 1885 |
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| Full case name | Bryan & Others v. Kennett & Others |
| Citations | 113 U.S. 179 (more) |
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| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Harlan, joined by unanimous |
Bryan v. Kennett, 113 U.S. 179 (1885), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that, under the treaty providing for the Louisiana Purchase, the United States would recognize property interests granted by the previous sovereign governments prior to the Purchase, even if the grant had been inchoate or incomplete. The case involved a disputed title to land in the U.S. state of Missouri, which had previously been under the control of Spain and France before being acquired by the United States. In the late 1700s, the government of Spain had made a possibly incomplete grant of the land to a U.S. citizen, Moses Austin. Spain then lost control of the land to France in 1800, who in turn sold it to the United States. A question later arose as to whether Austin had received sufficient property rights from Spain to allow him to mortgage his land in 1818, or whether necessary rights had somehow passed back to the United States government, making the mortgage invalid and voiding subsequent land transfers that occurred pursuant to Austin's defaulting on the mortgage. Under the Court's holding, the incomplete grant to Austin was valid and sufficient to permit the mortgage.
Bryan v. Kennett is sometimes referenced as the Supreme Court's "ratification" of the Louisiana Purchase. However, the Court had already discussed and confirmed the legality of the Louisiana Purchase much earlier in American Insurance Co. v. Canter, 1 Peters (26 U.S.) 511 (1828).
During the 1790s, Moses Austin, a former dry goods merchant who had married into an affluent iron mining family, had been one of the operators of a lead mine in southwestern Virginia and become known as the "Lead King". However, the business failed and Austin decided to leave the United States in order to avoid imprisonment for debt. He relocated to upper Spanish Louisiana, an area then controlled by Spain (which later became the U.S. state of Missouri), due to rich lead deposits in the region. Austin arranged with the Spanish government to receive a large tract of land in return for his swearing allegiance to the Spanish Crown and agreeing to settle some families in the area.
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