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upon by the court. To ignore it and make a second application, involving a new hearing, was an imposition upon and an abuse of the process of the court, if not a clear effort to circumvent the statute by enlarging the statutory limitation of time within which an application for a discharge must be made. In such a situation the court may well act of its own motion to suppress an attempt to overreach the due and orderly administration of justice. What is said in the Fiegenbaum Case, supra, p. 70, is appropriate here: "Not only should the court of bankruptcy protect the creditors from an attempt to retry an issue already tried and determined between the same parties, but the court, for its own protection, should arrest, in limine, so flagrant an attempt to circumvent its decrees." There is nothing in Bluthenthal v. Jones, 208 U. S. 64, to the contrary. There the previous denial of a discharge had been in another court sitting in another state. This court held that, while an adjudication in bankruptcy, refusing a discharge, came within the rule of res judicata, the court in which the second proceeding was brought was not bound to search the records of other courts and give effect to their judgments. This is far from saying that the court may not take judicial notice of, and give effect to, its own records in another but interrelated proceeding, as this was. See In re Loughran, supra, p. 621; Bienville Water Supply Co. v. Mobile, 186 U. S. 212, 217; Dimmick v. Tompkins, 194 U. S. 540, 548; Louisville Trust Co. v. Cincinnati, 76 Fed. 296, 318; In re Sussman, 190 Fed. 111, 112.

The order of the district court denying the first application is not before us for consideration. If erroneous, relief may be afforded by proper and timely application to that court or by an appellate review of the order.

Judgment affirmed.

Syllabus.

GULF REFINING COMPANY OF LOUISIANA, NORVELL, ET AL. v. UNITED STATES.

MCMULLEN ET AL. v. UNITED STATES.

APPEALS FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT.

Nos. 59, 60. Argued October 19, 1925.—Decided November 16, 1925. 1. When a decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals reverses the decree of the District Court and remands the case for further proceedings not inconsistent with the former court's opinion, the opinion is, in effect, a part of the mandate; and, if the opinion, in effect, directs the District Court to enter a decree for a definite sum, permitting nothing further in that court but the performance of this ministerial duty, the decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals is final for purposes of appeal. P. 135.

2. In a suit to quiet title to land, regain possession, enjoin further trespass, and for an accounting for oil extracted, a decree of the District Court granting this relief to the plaintiff against the defendant and confirming an accounting made, was final for purposes of appeal to this Court, although it reserved jurisdiction to execute its provisions by compelling an additional accounting in respect of oil extracted pendente lite. P. 136.

3. An appeal from a decree in equity in a federal court is not a new suit in the appellate court, but a continuation of the cause; and the cause remains pending until the appeal is disposed of. P. 137. 4. The rule (in Louisiana) which allows a trespasser whose trespass is qualified by moral, though not by legal, good faith, to offset his expenditures against the value of products extracted from the land, when required to account in a suit brought by, the land owner primarily to enforce the latter's title and right of possession, applies not only to the operations of the defendant preceding the filing of the bill and entry of decree against him in the court of first instance (Mason v. United States, 260 U. S. 545), but also to the continuance of those operations pending decision of his appeal while his possession is continued through a supersedeas. Id. 5. The moral good faith attending the trespass is not affected by the filing of the bill or the rendition of the first decree, but continues until final adjudication upon appeal. Id.

Argument for Appellants.

269 U.S.

6. In suits by the United States to enjoin continuing trespasses upon withdrawn oil lands and for an incidental accounting for oil extracted, the District Court entered decrees granting the main relief and confirming accountings up to a date subsequent to the filing of the bill, in which the defendants, as trespassers in moral good faith, were allowed to offset expenses of extraction against value of oil extracted. The decrees having been in these respects affirmed upon appeal to this Court pending which the defendants continued their possession and operations through supersedeas, the District Court, pursuant to interlocutory directions contained in the original decrees, required further accountings for oil extracted since the first accounting. Held, That the second accountings were continuations of the first; and that it was proper, and within the authority of the District Court, to credit against the oil extracted since the first accounting not only the expenses during that subsequent period but also the earlier expenses in so far as they exceeded the value of the oil extracted during the period covered by the first accounting. P. 138.

7. A party who pays in money to the clerk of the District Court to satisfy a judgment in favor of the United States, is required by Rev. Stats. § 828 to pay the clerk a commission of 1% on the amount paid in, as part of the costs. P. 139.

8 The act placing the clerks of court on a salary basis left the taxability of clerks' charges where it was. The Government pays the salary and steps into the shoes of the clerk in respect of the right to fees and emoluments-where the Government is a party as Iwell as in other cases. Id.

298 Fed. 281, affirmed in part; reversed in part.

APPEALS from decrees of the Circuit Court of Appeals, reversing in part and affirming in part decrees entered by the District Court in two of the cases which were before this Court in Mason v. United States, 260 U. S. 545. The decrees related to final accountings for oil extracted from withdrawn oil lands, and one of them involved also a question of costs.

Mr. S. L. Herold, with whom Messrs. H. L. Stone, Jr., and D. Edward Greer were on the brief, for appellants.

If evidence on the accounting had been heard originally in 1923, instead of 1918, there could be now, in view of

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Argument for Appellants.

the ruling of this Court, no doubt that the United States could not get a money judgment because of the conversion of the oil, when its production was had at an expense far in excess of its value. This being an equity case, elementary principles make it clear that the purely adventitious circumstance that evidence happened to be taken five years earlier on the preliminary accounting could not change the plaintiff's right, nor affect the defendant's liability. If, as held by this Court, defendants are liable "only for the value of the oil, after deducting therefrom the cost of drilling, equipping and operating the wells," then clearly the Government cannot evade the legal consequences of the rule by securing two accountings: one at an early date, by which the large initial outlay of drilling should be absorbed, and another during which nothing should be expended except the cost of operating the wells whose drilling and equipping have been only partially recouped by the oil taken to the first accounting date. The drilling of the wells and the installation of all of the machinery required to equip them for production is as much a necessary expense in the raising of the last as of the first barrel of oil the wells should bring to the surface. The rights of the plaintiff and of defendants in this respect, moreover, are matters of substantive law, and can neither be diminished nor enlarged because of such purely accidental and irrelevant circumstances as that upon which it is now sought to circumvent the application of the doctrine announced by this Court.

There is no question here of legal bad faith. That is conceded. It was so adjudged by this Court. It continued throughout the possession. But nowhere does the record show, at any stage, a morally bad or dishonest use of the property. The decree of this Court, therefore, demands that defendants' possession, from beginning to end, be viewed as of like character. Cooke Case, 135 La. 610, cited in 260 U. S., p. 556. The former opinion of

Argument for Appellants.

269 U.S.

this Court settles the law of the case, that the institution of the suit by the Government did not affect the substantive rights of the defendants to reimbursement for expenses out of production.

The defendants had the right to appeal. Their appeal was but a step in the original case. It was not a new proceeding. Although the decree awarding the Government possession, injunction and damages was final and appealable, the paragraph ordering an accounting for oil extracted after January 1, 1918, amounted to no more than an express retention of jurisdiction for the purpose of further and complete accounting. It was merely an interlocutory order, was never appealable and, consequently, was never before this Court on the former appeal, nor binding upon the District Court in its rendition of the final decree now here on this appeal. Keystone Iron Co. v. Martin, 132 U. S. 91; California Nat. Bank v. Stateler, 171 U. S. 447; Craighead v. Wilson, 18 How. 199; Beebe v. Russell, 19 How. 283; Lodge v. Twell, 135 U. S. 232; McGourkey v. T. & O. Ry. Co., 146 U. S. 535; Union Mut. Ins. Co. v. Kirchoff, 160 U. S. 374; Hollander v. Fechheimer, 162 U. S. 326; Bostwick v. Brinkerhoff, 106 U. S. 3; Follansbee v. Ballard Co., 154 U. S. 651; Guaranty Co. v. Mechanics Sav. Bank, 173 U. S. 582.

The only reason why its interlocutory character did not prevent the appeal from the main decree was that such judgment ordered the delivery of possession of real property and decreed the payment of a definite sum of money. The purely incidental character of the further accounting ordered by the interlocutory decree was not allowed to affect the appealability of the final decree disposing of the title and possession of the land and condemning the defendants to pay a specific sum of money, all of which was immediately enforceable by execution. See review of authorities in Keystone Iron Co. v. Martin, supra.

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