Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/149/79/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 17:50:53+00:00

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Justia › US Law › US Case Law › US Supreme Court › Volume 149 › Chandler v. Calumet & Hecla Mining Co.
Swamp lands in Michigan which were not embraced in the list of such lands made by the Surveyor General February 12, 1853, as coming within the provisions of the grant to the September 28, 1850, 9 Stat. 514, c. 84, which list was approved by the Secretary of the Interior January 11, 1854, and which lands were patented to the state March 3, 1856, as so listed and approved, were not included within the said grant of September 28, 1850.
These several official acts, by the proper officers, operated as an adjudication as to what were swamp lands within the grant of September 28, 1850, and to exclude contradictory parol evidence.
The grant by the state, May 25, 1855, of the land in controversy here, operated to convey it to the grantee, whether the state's title was acquired under the Swamp Land Act, or under the grant of August 6, 1852, 10 Stat. 35, c. 92, for the purpose of building a ship canal.
Railroad Co. v. Smith, 9 Wall. 95, explained, qualified and distinguished from this case.
This was an action of ejectment brought by the plaintiff in error, a citizen of Illinois, against the defendant in error, a Michigan corporation, to recover a tract of forty acres of land in Houghton County, Michigan, particularly described as the "southeast quarter of the northwest quarter of section 23, township 56 north, range 33 west."
was granted to the State of Michigan the whole of the swamp and overflowed lands, made unfit thereby for cultivation within the state, and it was made the duty of the Secretary of the Interior to make lists and plats of such lands, and transmit them to the governor of the state, and cause patents therefor to issue conveying such lands in fee simple. After the passage of this act, the Commissioner of the General Land Office, by correspondence with the authorities of the state, suggested, through the surveyor general thereof, as a mode or method of selecting or segregating the swamp from the other public lands, that the field notes of the United States surveys of lands should be accepted by the state as the basis of identification of the swamp lands which were intended to be granted by Congress. An act of the Legislature of Michigan passed June 28, 1851, accepted the grant, and adopted, as suggested by the Secretary of the Interior, or the Commissioner of the General Land Office, the field notes of the United States surveys as a basis upon which the swamp lands should be identified and segregated. The surveyor general, on February 12, 1853, made lists of lands which he ascertained to be swamp, and within the provisions of the grant, from the field notes so agreed upon. Those lists were transmitted to the Secretary of the Interior and by him approved January 11, 1854, and under date of February 24, 1854, a copy of said lists was certified by the Commissioner of the General Land Office to the governor of the state, and thereafter, on March 3, 1856, a patent was issued to the state for the lands described in said lists. The lists of the lands so selected and approved to the state were lodged in the Michigan land office. The lands thus selected and patented to the state, while embracing some portion of township 56 north, range 33 west, did not include the land in controversy.
of said state, subject to the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, from any land within said state subject to private entry."
The state accepted this grant by acts of its legislature approved, respectively, February 5 and February 12, 1853, and authorized commissioners of the state to enter into a contract for the building of such canal. In pursuance of this authority a contract was entered into between the state and certain designated parties for the construction of the ship canal, by the terms of which the parties undertaking its construction, or their assignees, were to receive from the State of Michigan 750,000 acres of land at $1.25 per acre, to be located under the provisions of the Act of August 26, 1852. The terms of this contract need not be specially set forth, as no question arises thereon.
"when and as fast as the lands shall have been selected and located, an accurate description thereof, certified by the persons appointed to select the same, shall be filed in the office of the commissioner of the state land office, whose duty it shall be to transmit to the Commissioner of the General Land Office a true copy of said list and to designate and mark upon the books and plats in his office the said lands as 'St. Mary's Canal Lands.'"
of said canal are to be conveyed for the purpose of defraying its costs and the expenses hereinbefore provided for, which certificates shall run to such persons and for such portions of said lands so selected and to be conveyed as the contractor may designate, and shall forthwith be delivered to the Secretary of State, and patents shall immediately be issued thereon, as in other cases."
The St. Mary's Falls Ship Canal Company, as the assignee of the construction contract, completed the canal and became entitled to the consideration which the state was to pay therefor.
The agents appointed by the state to select and locate the lands granted for the purpose of building the canal made selections to the amount required, the list of which was filed in the General Land Office of the state, and was certified to the Secretary of the Interior, who, under date of January 24, 1855, duly approved the same to the State of Michigan under the Act of Congress of August 26, 1852. The list of selected lands under this grant, and so approved by the Department of the Interior, included the demanded premises, and on May 25, 1855, the governor of the state, in pursuance of the foregoing legislation and contract on the subject, issued a patent to the St. Mary's Falls Ship Canal Company for a large portion of these selected lands, including therein, by particular description, the premises in controversy, which by mesne conveyances passed to the defendant in error, which entered into possession of the same and was in actual possession thereof at the commencement of the present suit. This conveyance was duly recorded, and after the expiration of five years from the date of the patent, during which they were exempt from taxation, the lands so patented to the canal company have been continually subject to taxes by the state.
described the tract in question as swamp land, although a portion of the land in the vicinity thereof, and in the same township, was included in the lists of such lands which were selected and approved by the Secretary of the Interior.
It thus appears that the plaintiff and the defendant have each a conveyance from the State of Michigan for the particular tract of land in controversy, and that the conveyance to the defendant in error was prior in time to the conveyance to the plaintiff in error. The latter, however, claims that the demanded premises were a part of the swamp and overflowed lands granted to the state by the Act of Congress of September 28, 1850, and as such were conveyed to him by the patent of the state issued on November 3, 1887, and that he thereby acquired a title to the same superior to that which the defendant in error acquired under the prior patent to the canal company, through which the defendant in error derives its title. In support of this contention, it is urged that the Swamp Land Act was in effect a grant in praesenti, so that the title of the state to such lands dated from the date of that act, and consequently the state did not and could not acquire title to the tract in question under the Act of August 26, 1852.
contends that, even conceding that the title of the state to the lands in question was derived under the act of 1850, it acquired the superior title thereto, under and by virtue of the conveyance made to the St. Mary's Falls Ship Canal Company by the state's patent of May 25, 1855, which operated to pass to said company whatever title the state had to the premises in question, independently of the source from which it had derived its title.
On the trial of the case by the court and jury, the plaintiff, to maintain the issues on his part, introduced his patent from the state and offered oral evidence to prove that the tract conveyed thereby, and involved in the suit, with the exception of about seven acres thereof, was in fact swamp and overflowed land, being wet and unfit for cultivation within the meaning of the Swamp Land Act of Congress, and was so at the time of the approval of the act. To this evidence the defendant objected, and the court, reserving its ruling thereon until after the defendant had introduced its proof, sustained the objection and refused to allow the evidence to go to the jury, to which ruling the plaintiff excepted.
After all the evidence in the case had been introduced, the plaintiff, by his counsel, requested the court to direct the jury to return a verdict in his favor. This the court refused to do, and instructed the jury to bring in a verdict for the defendant, which was accordingly done, and judgment was entered thereon, to which the plaintiff excepted, and to reverse this judgment the present writ of error is prosecuted.
land grant; and secondly that the state, having accepted the parcel of land in question under the grant of 1852 and having conveyed the same to the canal company, was estopped from thereafter asserting any title thereto.
The plaintiff has assigned for errors (1) that the trial court improperly excluded the oral evidence offered to show that the demanded premises were in fact swamp lands when the Act of September 28, 1850, was passed, and (2) that the court should have directed a verdict for the plaintiff instead of for the defendant.
In support of the first proposition, the plaintiff in error relies upon the case of Railroad Co. v. Smith, 9 Wall. 95, in which oral evidence was admitted to establish the fact that the parcel of land there in dispute was swamp and overflowed land at the date of the Swamp Land Act. But in that case, there was no selection or identification of the land under either the Swamp Land Act or under the subsequent grant for railroad purposes. The selection and identification under each of said acts was left open and undetermined when the respective titles involved therein were acquired. It also further appeared in that case that the state neither made any selection of the lands granted for railroad purposes nor conveyed to the railroad company any particular lands, but simply assigned or transferred generally the lands granted to the state by Congress, which were at the time only "a float," requiring identification and selection to make the grant operative to pass title to any portion of the public domain.
The facts of the present case present the direct converse of the situation which existed in the case of Railroad Co.
v. Smith. But aside from this, the rule as to oral evidence recognized in that case was afterwards explained and limited in its operation to cases in which there had been nonaction or refusal to act on the part of the Secretary of the Interior in selecting lands granted, as appears in the subsequent cases of French v. Fyan, 93 U. S. 169, 93 U. S. 173, and Ehrhardt v. Hogaboom, 115 U. S. 67, 115 U. S. 69, where parol evidence was offered to show that patented lands were not of the character described.
"The case of Railroad Co. v. Smith, 9 Wall. 95, is relied on as justifying the offer of parol testimony in the one before us. In that case, it was held that parol evidence was competent to prove that a particular piece of land was swamp land within the meaning of the act of Congress. But a careful examination will show that it was done with hesitation, and with some dissent in the Court. The admission was placed expressly on the ground that the Secretary of the Interior had neglected or refused to do his duty; that he had made no selection or lists whatever, and would issue no patents, although many years had elapsed since the passage of the act. The Court said:"
"The matter to be shown is one of observation and examination, and whether arising before the Secretary, whose duty in was primarily to decide it, or before the court, whose duty it became, because the Secretary had failed to do it, this was clearly the best evidence to be had, and was sufficient for the purpose."
There was no means, as this Court has decided, to compel him to act, and if the party claiming under the state in that case could not be permitted to prove that the land which the state had conveyed to him as swamp land was in fact such, a total failure of justice would occur and the entire grant to the state might be defeated by this neglect or refusal of the Secretary to perform his duty. There is in this no conflict with what we decide in the present case, but, on the contrary, the strongest implication that if, in that case, the Secretary had made any decision, the evidence would have been excluded.
to such lands passed at once to the state in which they lay, it was made the duty of the Secretary of the Interior to identify them, make lists thereof, and cause a patent to be issued therefor, and that the patent so issued could not be impeached in an action at law by showing that the land which it conveyed was not in fact swamp and overflowed land, as the plaintiff in that case sought to do.
"a patent of the United States, regular on its face, cannot, in an action at law, be held inoperative as to any lands covered by it upon parol testimony that they were swamp and overflowed, and therefore unfit for cultivation, and hence passed to the state under the grant of such land on her admission into the Union,"
the state, it may be said in this case of the patent to the preemptioner, it would be a departure from sound principle and contrary to well considered judgments of this Court to permit in such action the validity of the patent to be subjected to the test of the verdict of a jury on oral testimony."
mode of identification would also seem to be permissible,where the Secretary declares his inability to certify the lands to the state for any cause other than a consideration of their character."
Under the principle announced in that case, and under the foregoing facts in the present case, it would seem that there had been such affirmative action on the part of the Secretary of the Interior in identifying the lands in this particular township containing the lands in controversy as would amount to an identification of the lands therein which passed to the state by the swamp land grant, and that the selection by the state of the demanded premises under the canal grant of 1852, with the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, and the certification of the department to the state that they were covered by the latter grant, may well be considered such an adjudication of the question as should exclude the introduction of parol evidence to contradict it. The exclusion of the land in dispute from the swamp lands selected and patented to the state, and its inclusion in the selection of the state as land coming within the grant of 1852, with the approval of such selection by the Interior Department and the certification thereof to the state, operated to pass the title thereto as completely as could have been done by formal patent, Frasher v. O'Connor, 115 U. S. 102, and, being followed by the state's conveyance to the canal company, presented such official action and such documentary evidence of title as should not be open to question by parol testimony in an action at law. Under the facts of this case, we are of opinion that the plaintiff in error could not properly establish by oral evidence that the land in dispute was in fact swamp land for the purpose of contradicting and invalidating the department's certification thereof to the state, and the latter's patent to the canal company.
patents from the state? Can it be maintained that, because the state acquired title thereto under the act of 1850, its patent therefor to the canal company made in 1855 would be overreached and superseded by its subsequent patent to the plaintiff in 1887? We are at a loss to understand upon what principle this can be asserted, for even conceding that the state, in patenting the demanded premises to the canal company, acted under mistake or misapprehension as to the character of the land so conveyed, still, so long as that patent remains uncancelled and unrevoked by the state, it must be held that its legal effect was and is to pass whatever title the state had to the tract in question, however that title may have been originally acquired by the state.
In the cases relied upon by the plaintiff in error, there had been no particular lands conveyed by the state under grants subsequent to the act of 1850, and there was no presumption of law or fact that its patent was intended to convey lands which accrued to it under the swamp land grant. But in the case under consideration, even assuming that the state's title was acquired under the latter grant, it had a title for any and all purposes to which it might choose to apply or devote the property, and when it applied it to the purpose of constructing the canal and actually conveyed it to the canal company, it was not in a position thereafter, so long as that conveyance remained in force, to transfer the same land to another purchaser.
the parcel of land conveyed, while its patent for the same land was outstanding. But whether there is any technical estoppel in the ordinary sense or not, it cannot be maintained that the state can issue two patents at different dates to different parties for the same land, so as to convey by the second patent a title superior to that acquired under the first patent. Neither can the second patentee, under such circumstances, in an action at law, be heard to impeach the prior patent for any fraud committed by the grantee against the state, or any mistake committed by its officers acting within the scope of their authority and having jurisdiction to act and to execute the conveyance sought to be impeached.
The patent to the canal company is not shown to be void, because the state acquired title to the parcel in question, if it did so acquire it, under the swamp land grant, rather than under the act of 1852. Neither the state nor its subsequent patentee is in a position to cancel or annul the title which it had authority to make, and which it had previously conveyed to the canal company. The patent to the canal company did not, on its face or by its terms, purport to convey only such lands and such title as the state was entitled to under the grant of 1852. On the contrary, it conveyed by accurate description the particular tract or parcel of land in controversy. It is therefor wholly immaterial under which of the two congressional grants the state acquired its title to said lands.
to show that the premises in controversy were in fact swamp land, it is clear that under the facts in this case, the defendant has shown a superior title to such premises, and that the court below was correct in directing a verdict for it.
MR. JUSTICE FIELD did not hear the argument in this case, or take any part in its decision.
MR. JUSTICE BROWN, being interested in the result, did not sit in this case, and took no part in its decision.

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