Reynolds

This action was brought by the plaintiffs-appellants for the purpose of establishing and enforcing as against the defendants-appellees the rights of the plaintiffs to the performance of a contract for the sale of real property between the plaintiffs as vendees and the defendants Lentz as vendors. The court below found that the plaintiffs were in default under the contract; that the vendors had properly terminated it because of such default; that plaintiffs had lost all rights under the contract; and that the defendants were entitled to possession of the property and to recover from the plaintiffs the sums which the latter had collected in the way of rentals. Judgment was entered accordingly.

Upon this appeal appellants assert: (1), that the judgment was void because the judge before whom the case was tried had no jurisdiction to sit as a trial judge in the Territory of Alaska and had no jurisdiction in the case; and (2), that the findings that the plaintiffs were in default under the contract were clearly erroneous.

The record shows that the case was tried before the Honorable Edward P. Murphy, a District Judge of the Northern District of California, who had been assigned and…