This is a suit brought by the United States in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia to recover possession of a strip of land on the Potomac River front of the City of Alexandria. Except an insignificant portion as to which no special defence was made and which it is agreed may be disregarded, this strip lay below low water mark until it was filled in by the United States in 1910-1912 by dredging from the bottom of the river and depositing the material on the other side of a riprap wall built on the river bed. Act of June 25, 1910, c. 382, 36 Stat. 630, 639; Act of February 27, 1911, c. 166, 36 Stat. 933, 937. The United States enclosed the made land by a fence at high water mark, but the defendant, the plaintiff in error, claiming title to the adjoining land inshore, destroyed the fence and took possession, whereupon this action was brought. The defendant pleaded to the jurisdiction of the Court alleging that the land was not in the District but was part of Virginia. On this issue the Court found or ruled in favor of the plaintiff and afterwards did the same upon the general issue, a jury having been waived. Judgment for the plaintiff was affirmed by the Court of Appeals and the defendant took a writ of error to bring the case to this Court.
A question is raised by the defendant in error as to the jurisdiction of this Court. The language of the Judicial Code (Act of March 3, 1911, c. 231) § 250, 36 Stat. 1087, 1159 (Comp St. § 1227), is that any final judgment of the Court of Appeals may be reexamined 'First. In cases in which the jurisdiction of the trial court is in issue.' The words taken literally cover this case, but it is argued that they should be construed as similar words in section 238 (section 1215) concerning the District Courts are construed. In the latter instance, as is well known, they are confined to the jurisdiction of the District Courts as courts of the United States. But the jurisdiction of the District Courts is a limited jurisdiction based upon statutory grounds, and therefore the words of section 238 naturally enough were confined to what always is the first question in a case before them. The Supreme Court of the District of Columbia on the other hand is a court of general jurisdiction, and whether or not the clause of section 250 was suggested by the earlier one, we see no sufficient justification for denying to it the scope that it must have if it is given its natural sense. The plea to the jurisdiction raises the question clearly, and a certificate would add nothing to what the record shows.
We are not prepared to say that the judgment before us was not 'otherwise reviewable' on the question of the boundary between the United States and Virginia, so far as the defendant drew in question the construction of the Revised Statutes relating to the District of Columbia, section 1, Act June 22, 1874, hereafter discussed. We should hesitate to apply the decision in American Security & Trust Co. v. District of Columbia, 224 U.S. 491, 32 Sup. Ct. 553, 56 L. Ed. 856, to such a case.
The question of the jurisdiction of the trial court and that of the merits very nearly coalesce, as the original title, at least, of Maryland and its jurisdiction were founded upon the same facts, and as the United States succeeded to the rights of Maryland by the grant of the District completed in 1791. That the original title of Maryland extended at least to low water mark on the Virginia side it now is too late to deny, in view of the decisions in Maryland v. West Virginia, 217 U.S. 1, 45, 46, 30 Sup. Ct. 268, 54 L. Ed. 645; Id., 217 U.S. 557, 578, 30 Sup. Ct. 630, 54 L. Ed. 888; and Morris v. United States, 174 U.S. 196, 19 Sup. Ct. 649, 43 L. Ed. 946. An attempt to throw doubt upon these authorities and upon the effect of the charter of Charles I, June 30, 1632, granting Maryland to Lord Baltimore (ad ulteriorem dicti Fluminis Ripam et eam sequendo, etc., 217 U.S. 25, 30 Sup. Ct. 268, 54 L. Ed. 645), 'to the farther bank of the said [Potomac] river and following it,' by the charters of James I to Virginia and especially by the terms of a grant from the Governor of Virginia to Howsing in 1669 must fail. The latter grant is subordinate to the former and is not inconsistent with it as the language is 'extending down Potomac River by various courses 3152 po. making a S. Wtly line to a pokecory,' ect. The implication of the words 'by various courses' that the grant follows the line of the stream is not changed by the words 'including several small creeks or inlets.' The land in question is situated upon an indentation, called Battery Cove, but the place is not a creek or inlet. The former decisions of the Court must be followed so far as they go.