Opinion of the Court.

deed of the forty acres made by the sheriff and recorded on the same day, the land being worth at that time $20,000. The order confirming the sale was set aside by the court November 3, 1877, before Curson "had made any conveyance to any one, and was never afterwards confirmed." On the 9th of November, 1877, Curson conveyed this land for $30 to S. W. Little, which deed was recorded on the 26th day of November.

The opinion of the Circuit Court upon this point is as follows: "It is the settled law of Nebraska that the title of a purchaser at an execution sale depends not alone upon his bid or payment of the purchase money, but upon the confirmation of the sale; also that one purchasing at an execution sale submits himself to the jurisdiction of the court as to matters affecting that sale, and that a court has power during the term to vacate or modify its own orders or to rescind decrees. Phillips v. Dawley, 1 Nebraska, 320; Bank v. Green, 10 Nebraska, 134; Volland v. Wilcox, 17 Nebraska, 50; Gregory v. Tingley, 18 Nebraska, 318, 322. It follows from these facts and decisions that the sale, though temporarily confirmed, was finally set aside, and that no rights of a third party accrued during the time that the sale was apparently confirmed. Hence this chain of title presented by defendants must fail." We are entirely satisfied that this expresses the law on the subject in the State of Nebraska. In State Bank v. Green, 10 Nebraska, 130, 134, the Supreme Court of Nebraska says: "Under our law governing sales of real property on execution the title of the purchaser depends entirely upon the sale being finally confirmed by the court under whose process it was made, and until this is done the rights of the execution debtor are not certainly divested." The final order confirming is subject to review as the confirmation of a sale in equity is, Parrat v. Neligh, 7 Nebraska, 456, 459; and the purchaser submits to the jurisdiction of the court as to all matters connected with such sale or relating to him in the character of purchaser. This order of confirmation was vacated before there was any change in the relation of the parties, and the sheriff's deed fell with it. Counsel for plaintiff in

Opinion of the Court.

error refers to section 508 of the Civil Code, which reads as follows: "If any judgment or judgments, in satisfaction of which any lands or tenements are sold, shall at any time thereafter be reversed, such reversal shall not defeat or affect the title of the purchaser or purchasers; but, in such case, restitution shall be made by the judgment creditor, of the moneys for which such lands or tenements were sold, with lawful interest from the day of sale." Comp. Stat. 1885,

p. 695. This section relates to the judgment, as to which the purchaser is not affected by irregularity or error, and to which he is not a party; but we are considering the order of confirmation, which may be reviewed on appeal, Parrat v. Neligh, ubi sup.; though the merits of the original case are not open to reëxamination. Bank of Lincoln v. Scofield, 9 Nebraska, 499.

The cases cited by the circuit judge show that the purchaser can move for confirmation or to set the sale aside, and can appeal from the order thereon; that he may be compelled to perform his bid, and that he is concluded by the result of the proceedings to confirm or annul the same. And see Faulett v. Peabody, 3 Nebraska, 196, 197; Shann v. Jones, 4 C. E. Green (19 N. J. Eq.) 251; Requa v. Rea, 2 Paige, 339; Barker v. Richardson, 41 N. J. Eq. (14 Stewart) 656. That such is the rule in Nebraska is quite convincingly shown by the case of Sessions v. Irwin, 8 Nebraska, 5, which was an appeal by Curson from the order setting aside the confirmation and the sale under consideration here, which order was, however, affirmed. If Sessions, the judgment creditor, received $30 from Curson, respecting which there is no finding, he became Curson's debtor to that amount, and, as argued for defendant in error, Curson might have a right to be compensated out of the moneys collected upon the judgment, but the operation of the order setting aside the confirmation was to defeat any claim of title on the part of Curson or his grantee. This accords with the decisions and settled practice of the state courts in reference to sales under process issuing out of them.

Finally, it is said that the judgment embraces. property not described in the petition. The description was "the west half of the northeast quarter of the southwest quarter of section twenty-four."

Syllabus.

The jury found title thereto in defendant in error, and also by the 37th finding described what was stated to be "the premises in dispute" by metes and bounds, as conveyed to Deputron. The judgment, though using somewhat different language, conforms to the finding. There was no motion to set aside the verdict and for a new trial, nor can we discover that any suggestion of mistake in its terms was made below.

The governmental subdivision would be, if accurate, eighty rods long by forty rods wide, and the finding and judgment describe a tract fourteen hundred feet in length by seven hundred and fifty feet in width, less a parcel in the southwest corner, but excess in acreage frequently occurs in government surveys, and as the finding is that the description there given and followed in the judgment is the description of the premises in dispute, we perceive no ground for interference.

There being no error, the judgment is

Affirmed.

HENDERSON BRIDGE COMPANY v. McGRATH.

ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE DISTRICT OF INDIANA.

No. 63. Argued November 4, 1889. Decided March 17, 1890.

M, contracted with a bridge company to construct the road for a railway, according to specifications and profile, from the end of its bridge to Evansville, about six miles. The road was to run on bottom lands, with an uneven natural surface, and the profile showed part trestle and part embankment. It was contemplated that the material for the embankments was to be taken from borrowing-pits along the line. The specifications fixed prices for excavation, for filling and for trestling, and provided that the relative amounts of trestle and earthwork might be changed at the option of the engineer without prejudice. During the progress of the work the company decided to modify the plan by abandoning the trestling in the line of the road, substituting for it a continuous embankment, and by making a draining ditch along the whole line, running through the borrow-pits. In order to serve its intended purpose this ditch was required to be of a regular downward grade, with properly sloping sides. Some of the borrow pits were found to be

Statement of the Case.

too deep, and others too shallow, and it was found that they had been excavated without reference to the slope at the sides. There were highways and private roads crossing the line at grade. The contract did not indicate how the approaches of these roads were to be constructed; but when the change was determined on, it was decided to make them of trestle. This work was more expensive than the trestle provided for in the contract. The company directed its engineer to have these modifications carried out, and the contractor was notified of this. He made no objection to the substitution of embankment for trestling; but as to the ditch, he objected that it was not in the contract. A conversation followed, in which the contractor understood the engineer to say that it would be paid for at excavation prices from the surface down, but the company claimed that it was only intended as an expression of the opinion of the engineer, which, it said, was made without authority. As to the trestle approaches the contractor was informed that he would be paid what was right. The work was constructed in all respects according to the modified plans. In settling, the contractor claimed to be paid for the ditch as excavation from the surface down. The company claimed that the material taken from the borrow-pits should be deducted from the total. There were about 2800 feet in all of the trestle approaches. The contractor accepted payment for 2100 feet at the contract price, and as to the remaining 700 feet claimed to be paid according to what the trèstles were reasonably worth. The company claimed that they should be paid for at the contract price; Held,

(1) That the construction of the ditch was outside of the original contract;

(2) That the fact that it passed through the borrowing-pits did not modify that fact;

(3) That the engineer had authority to agree with the contractors that they should be paid for it as excavation from the surface down; (4) That it was right to leave it to the jury to determine whether such an agreement was made between the contractors and the local engineer, acting for the company;

(5) That it was properly left to the jury to decide whether the company agreed to pay for the trestle approaches what they were reasonably worth;

(6) That as the agreement was to pay, not a fixed price, but what the trestling was reasonably worth, which the law would have implied, it was immaterial whether the agent of the company had or had not authority to make it.

THIS was an action at law brought by the defendants in error against the plaintiff in error in the Circuit Court of Vanderburgh County, Indiana, and removed into the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Indiana.

The Henderson Bridge Company was a corporation of the

Statement of the Case.

State of Kentucky, organized for the purpose of building a bridge over the Ohio River from the city of Henderson, Kentucky, to the Indiana bank of the river, and a railroad thence to the city of Evansville, Indiana, a distance of about nine miles.

On the 8th of July, 1884, a contract was made between the company and the defendants in error for the grading, masonry and trestling of the railroad for a distance of something over six miles, measuring from Evansville to the bridge, designated as sections 1 to 6 inclusive, and a part of section 7, each section being one mile long. No formal written contract was executed between the parties; but the agreement arrived at consisted of, (1) specifications and profile of the work to be done, on the part of the company; (2) proposals on the part of the contractor; and (3) acceptance of the proposals by the company.

The specifications prepared by the chief engineer of the defendant classified the work as "Clearing and grubbing," "Excavations," "Embankments," "Masonry," and "Pile Trestle."

Defendants in error completed the work about the 1st of March, 1885, and the company accepted it. On the final settlement a controversy arose as to the amount of the balance due the defendants in error, after crediting the partial payments made as the work progressed; and this suit was brought to recover the amount of $23,667, claimed by them to be due, which the company had refused to pay.

The bills of exception taken below, however, and the errors assigned, narrow the controversy in this court to two items one being in respect to a drainage ditch, which was ordered to be made; the other in regard to the value of certain extra pile-work. Our statement of the case will be confined to an examination of those points.

(1) The work contracted for lay, all except the two sections nearest to Evansville, through the bottoms of the Ohio River, which were subject to overflow. On that portion in the bottoms the profiles showed several stretches of trestling which aggregated 1486 feet. The specifications, however, provided