Marcus Neff was the respondent in the United States Supreme Court case Pennoyer v. Neff

Pennoyer v. Neff

Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U.S. 714 , was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court held that a court can exert personal jurisdiction over a party if that party is served with process while physically present within the state.-Factual and procedural background:Marcus Neff...

. Neff was one of the early settlers of the U.S. state of Oregon

Oregon

Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...

, having traveled there from Iowa

Iowa

Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...

 in early 1848. Neff subsequently claimed a parcel of land in Oregon under the Donation Land Claim Act of 1850. In 1862, Neff transacted some business with a local attorney by the name of John H. Mitchell

John H. Mitchell

John Hipple Mitchell, also known as John Mitchell Hipple, John H. Mitchell, or J. H. Mitchell was a controversial American lawyer and politician, who served as a Republican United States Senator from Oregon on three occasions between 1872 and 1905...

, possibly in connection with his American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 land patent

Land patent

A land patent is a land grant made patent by the sovereign lord over the land in question. To make a such a grant “patent”, such a sovereign lord must document the land grant, securely sign and seal the document and openly publish the same to the public for all to see...

. On November 3, 1865, Mitchell brought action against Neff for failure to pay legal fees and won. The court had Neff's land sold at sheriff's auction to pay the less than $300 Mitchell was owed. Mitchell also bought the land in question at the auction, assigning it later to Sylvester Pennoyer

Sylvester Pennoyer

Sylvester Pennoyer was an American educator, attorney, and politician in Oregon. He was born in New York, attended Harvard Law School, and moved to Oregon at age 25. A Democrat, he served two terms as the eighth Governor of Oregon from 1886 to 1895. He joined the Populist cause in the early 1890s...

. Neff then sued Pennoyer over the land. Neff prevailed in the trial court and Pennoyer subsequently appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court in an opinion authored by Justice Stephen J. Field upheld the lower court's judgment on the case, but on different grounds.

See also

• United States Supreme Court