But a jury has no right to assume the truth of any material fact, without some evidence legally sufficient to establish it.

In such case the practice of a demurrer to the evidence can be resorted to, or a motion to exclude the evidence from the jury, or to instruct them that the plaintiff cannot recover, which motions are in the nature of demurrers to evidence, though less technical, and have in many of the States superseded the ancient practice of a demurrer to evidence.

—case, before the evidence is left to the jury, there is a preliminary question for the judge, not whether there is literally no evidence, but whether there is any upon which a jury can properly proceed to find a verdict for the party producing it upon whom the onus of proof is imposed, and that, if the evidence be not sufficient to warrant a recovery, it is the duty of the court to …

The Cherokees are in many respects a foreign and independent nation. They are governed by their own laws and officers, chosen by themselves

The instruction to find a verdict for the defendant must be tested by the same rules that apply in the case of a demurrer to evidence.

"A demurrer to evidence admits not only the facts stated therein, but also every conclusion which a jury might fairly and reasonably infer therefrom."

The petitioner contends that there is a strong presumption, which is here controlling, that a public officer or agent is not to be deemed bound as an individual upon his contracts made in behalf of the government in the performance of a public duty, since no one participating in such a contract would be justified in assuming, in the absence of a clearly expressed intention …

—to prove the averments of the declaration, it is the duty of the court to give such peremptory instruction.

It did not command departure from the earlier practice of selling the timber by contracts entered into between the Indians and the purchasers, and it seems clear that in prescribing that the contracts be entered into with the Indians the Secretary adhered to this practice, but with the added safeguard that the contracts were to be effected for them through the agency of the …

Courts and agencies decide questions of law independent of any burdens of proof imposed on the litigants.