Eli Ayres and Thomas N. Niles, the complainants on cross-bill, appealed to the US Supreme Court against Hiram Carver, Joseph W. Matthews, James Brown, Jacob Thompson, John P. Jones William H. Duke and John D. Bradford for a dispute over land in Mississippi that had been granted by Congress to certain Choctaw Indians under an act of 1830 which provided for their removal from Alabama to Mississippi Territory (now part of Mississippi). The appellants argued that they were entitled to a portion of this land as assignees or purchasers from some of these Indians who had sold it before their death; while the appellees contended that such sales were void because they violated both state law and federal regulations governing Indian lands at the time. After considering all arguments presented by both parties in detail along with relevant laws pertaining to Indian lands at the time period involved in this case ,the court ultimately decided in favor of Eli Ayres and Thomas N Nilesthat they did have rights as assignees or purchasers from some deceased Choctaw Indians who had sold them portions of said land prior to their deaths .

In this case, Eli Ayres and Thomas N. Niles (the complainants on cross-bill) appealed a decision by the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Mississippi that dismissed their bill in equity against Hiram Carver, Joseph W. Matthews, James Brown, Jacob Thompson, John P. Jones, William H. Duke and John D. Bradford (the defendants). The complainants argued that they were entitled to an injunction restraining them from interfering with certain lands owned by them in Mississippi which had been sold under execution issued out of a state court at the suit of one Jourdan against Ayres & Co., as well as damages for trespass committed upon said lands by some or all of these defendants since such sale took place. In his dissenting opinion Chief Justice Taney disagreed with majority's ruling because he believed that it was not necessary to prove title in order to maintain an action for trespass quare clausum fregit; rather it is sufficient if there is proof that possession has been taken without right or authority from another person who claims title thereto; and here there was evidence tending to show both actual possession having been taken away from complainant’s agent without any legal process whatever and also acts done amounting to ouster or dispossession after such taking away had occurred - facts which would have authorized relief even if no title had ever existed in complainant’s predecessors-in-title before mentioned