Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/169/353.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 11:12:07+00:00

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The defendant in error, who was the plaintiff below, brought this action in the circuit court of the United States for the Northern district of California to recover the possession of certain lands described in his complaint, and also the value of the rents, issues, and profits thereof. He alleged that he was the owner in fee of the lands in question, and entitled to their possession, and that while such owner the defendants wrongfully entered upon the lands and ousted him therefrom, and have since wrongfully withheld from him the possession thereof. He further alleged that he was the owner of the land by virtue of a patent duly and regularly issued to him by the United [169 U.S. 353, 354] States in the year 1893, under and in pursuance of the provisions of the act of congress of April 24, 1820, entitled 'An act making further provision for the sale of the public lands,' and the acts supplemental thereto, and also under the provisions of section 7 of the act of congress of July 23, 1866, entitled 'An act to quiet land titles in California,' and that the defendants denied the validity of that patent.
The evidence so offered by defendants was objected to on the part of the plaintiff as immaterial, incompetent, and irrelevant, for the purpose of affecting the validity of the patent under which the plaintiff claimed title to the lands in question. The court sustained the objection, and the defendants duly excepted. Thereupon the defendants rested, and the court ordered judgment to be entered in favor of the plaintiff and [169 U.S. 353, 356] against the defendants for a recovery of the land, in accordance with the prayer of the complaint. This judgment was affirmed by the United States circuit court of appeals for the Ninth circuit (44 U. S. App. 232, 19 C. C. A. 392, and 73 Fed. 120), and the case is brought here for review.
The patent does not preclude this court from construing the act of 1866, nor does it preclude an inquiry by the court whether the patent was issued without authority or against the expressed will of congress, as manifested in the statute. Burfenning v. Railway Co., 163 U.S. 321 , 16 Sup. Ct. 1018, and cases there cited. If it were so issued, it is the duty of the court to give no weight to it. The proper construction of the act of 1866 is therefore the first question to be considered.
It appeared, from the documents offered in evidence in this action, that the Romeros had presented their claim to this commission, which had rejected it as not being a valid claim, and this rejection had been affirmed by the district court and by the supreme court in the case in 1 Wall. 721, mentioned above. There must undoubtedly have been, at the time of the enactment of the act of 1866, many cases existing [169 U.S. 353, 358] in that part of the country where claims of bona fide purchasers for value, founded upon supposed rights or grants de rived from the Mexican or Spanish government, had been held to be invalid by the commission appointed under the act of 1851, and where, notwithstanding such decision, the claimants had remained in possession of the lands as originally acquired by them, there being no valid adverse right or title to the lands of which they were in possession, excepting that of the United States. This would have been the natural result arising from the difficulty in making formal and sufficient proof before the commission of valid rights and titles derived from the Mexican or Spanish government. It was only valid claims that the commission had power to allow. Where claims had been made and theretofore adjudged invalid by the supreme court of the United States, congress had, in some instances, by private act, permitted those who were bona fide purchasers from the claimant whose claim had been adjudged invalid, or from his assigns, to enter the land so purchased according to the lines of the public surveys then provided for, at $1.25 per acre, to the extent to which the lands had been reduced to possession at the time of the adjudication by the supreme court. Such is the act, approved March 3, 1863 (12 Stat. 808), entitled 'An act to grant the right of pre-emption to certain purchasers of the 'Soscol Ranch,' in the state of California.' See, also, a similar act approved June 17, 1864 (13 Stat. 136); also the act approved July 2, 1864 (Id. 372); also the act approved March 3, 1865 (Id. 534).
Other acts were also passed by congress recognizing, in effect, the equitable rights of parties who were grantees of those who had claimed a right or title under the Mexican or Spanish government, and which right or title had subsequently been held to be invalid by the courts of our own government. The hardship to be relieved from by these special acts and by the general act of 1866 did not solely exist in the fact that there had been a formal grant from the Mexican authorities, which was in some manner defective, so that no valid claim or right could grow out of such grant, but i also existed when a claimant in possession of land which he [169 U.S. 353, 359] had bona fide and for a valuable consideration purchased of one who claimed his right or title from the Mexican or Spanish government, by way of a grant therefrom, was nevertheless unable to prove such grant, and as a consequence could not prove any valid title or claim in himself. Whether such invalidity were on account of some defect in the proceeding which resulted in a defective grant, or whether it existed by reason of an inability to prove an actual grant, was not material, so long as the claim of title actually rested upon what was in good faith supposed to have been a valid claim under the government of Mexico, and so long as there was no valid adverse right or title other than that of the United States. Persons occupying lands which they possessed under such circumstances and by such a claim were entitled to considerate treatment from the government of the United States. They had in good faith paid a valuable consideration for the land of which they were in possession by virtue of such purchase, and they ought to have the first right to make good their title by purchase from the government at the lowest price named.
The defendants on the trial conceded these lands were, when the patent in this case was issued, public lands of the United States, subject to sale under the laws thereof, and that they did not intend to connect themselves in any manner or form with the title of the United States to the lands in question. There is no proof or offer of any proof in the record tending to show the existence of any adverse valid claim to the land, other than the United States, and the admission just alluded to, taken in connection with the absence of such proof, shows that when the patent issued there existed in fact no other adverse valid claim upon the land than that of the United States. Those who could not show actual grants from the Mexican government might nevertheless have equities quite as strong in their favor as those who could show an actual grant which was defective. The act of congress should not be so construed as to except from its remedial provisions those who were without an actual grant while at the same time filling every other requirement of the act, unless the language used therein is open to no other interpretation. [169 U.S. 353, 360] Such a construction ought to be put upon a statute as will best answer the intention which the makers had in view, for qui haeret in litera, haeret in cortice. In Bac. Abr. 1, 5; Puff. Laws Nat. bk. 5, c. 12; Ruth. Inst. pp. 422, 527; and in Smith, Const. Const. 814,-many cases are mentioned where it was held that matters embraced in the general words of statutes, nevertheless, were not within the statutes, because it could not have been the intention of the lawmakers that they should be included. They were taken out of the statutes by an equitable construction. In some cases the letter of a legislative act is restrained by an equitable construction; in others, it is enlarged; in others, the construction is contrary to the letter. The equitable construction which restrains the letter of a statute is defined by Aristotle, as frequently quoted, in this manner: 'Equitas est correctio legis generaliter latae qua parti deficit.' Riggs v. Palmer, 115 N. Y. 506, 510, 22 N. E. 188, opinion, Earl, J.
Construing the act of congress of 1866 under the circumstances above outlined, and in view of the general rules of construction already stated, we hold that the provisions of the seventh section of that act include such a case as this. The purpose of the act is to quiet titles in California, and, as stated by the court below, it is a remedial statute, and one entitled to a liberal construction, in order to effect the purpose and object of its enactment. When the act, therefore, speaks of bona fide purchasers for a valuable consideration of lands from Mexican grantees or assigns, which grants have subsequently been rejected, we do not think that the words 'grantees' and 'grants' should ave such a rigid and technical construction as to require the actual existence of a formal grant from the government of Mexico, but we are of opinion the act should be construed in accordance with what we conceive to have been its plain purpose, which was to cover the case of those persons who in good faith and for a valuable consideration have purchased lands (and taken and retained their possession) from those who claimed and were supposed to be Mexican grantees, but whose claims had been subsequently rejected. Otherwise, it seems to us clear that the purpose for which this [169 U.S. 353, 361] seventh section was passed would be so circumscribed as to reduce it to much narrower limits than the known mischief to be remedied called for.
In Railroad Co. v. Barney, 113 U.S. 618 , 5 Sup. Ct. 606, this court construed an act of congress which alluded to lands 'granted as aforesaid' as including lands purporting to have [169 U.S. 353, 362] been 'granted as aforesaid,' and this inclusion was made because the court was satisfied, taking all things into consideration, that such construction was what congress meant. The court simply carried out that intention by supplying a word not found in the act.
It appears, however, that on the 8th of August, 1859, one S. P. Millett became a grantee and entered into the possession of the lands, used, improved, and cultivated them, and continued in the actual possession thereof, according to the lines of the original purchase, until 1868, and that the defendant in error claims through Millett by several mesne conveyances. Plaintiffs in error object that Millett was not a purchaser in good faith because he did not purchase until October, 1859, before which time the claim of the Romeros had been rejected by the commissioners and by the United States district court. An appeal from those decisions was pending, at the date above mentioned, before this court, and it was therein contended that the Romeros had a valid claim under the Mexican government such as should have been recognized by the commissioners and by the district court, and such as ought to be recognized by [169 U.S. 353, 363] the supreme court. We do not think the facts thus stated show, as matter of law, that Millett could not have been a bona fide purchaser of these lands for a valuable consideration, and whether in fact he were such bona fide purchaser was a question to be determined by the government on issuing the patent, and an inquiry into that question of fact is precluded by the patent itself.
In Thredgill v. Pintard, 12 How. 24, the court recognized the right of an individual in possession of land, and who was entitled to a pre- emption right therein, to convey such right to another.
In Webster v. Luther, 163 U.S. 331 , 16 Sup. Ct. 963, it was held that persons entitled under the Revised Statutes (section 2304) to enter a homestead, who may have theretofore entered under the homestead laws a quantity of land less than 160 acres, and who had the right under section 2306 to make an additional entry for the deficiency, could transfer such right by a proper conveyance.
Upon this question it must be assumed that Millett was a purchaser in good faith. Being such a purchaser, he could [169 U.S. 353, 364] assign his right and title to another, and the rights under such assignment were not affected by the fact that the defendant in error did not purchase his title until many years after the final determination by this court that no formal, actual, or valid grant had ever been made by the Mexican government to the Romeros.
Neither does Noble v. Railroad Co., 147 [169 U.S. 353, 365] U. S. 165, 13 Sup. Ct. 271, touch the case. The principle therein decided was in substance the same as in the Stone Case, supra. The control of the department necessarily ceased the moment the title passed from the government. It was not a question whether a successor was able to do the act which the original officer might have done, but it was the announcement of the principle that no officer, after the title had actually passed, had any power over the matter whatever. After the secretary of the interior had approved the map as provided for in the act of congress under which the proceedings were taken by the company, the first section of that act vested the right of way in the company. This was equivalent to a patent, and no revocation could thereafter be permitted. See, also, Lumber Co. v. Rust, 168 U.S. 589 , at page 592, 18 Sup. Ct. 208.

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