Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/112/24/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 15:10:45+00:00

Document:
The presumption of the regularity of all proceedings prior to the issue of a patent for public lands which is made against collateral attacks by third parties, does not exist in proceedings where the United States assail the patent for fraud in their officers in its issue and seek its cancellation.
The United States do not guarantee the integrity of their officers, nor the validity of the acts of such, and are not bound by their misconduct or fraud.
A land patent issued to a fictitious person conveys no title which can be transferred to a person subsequently purchasing in good faith from a supposed owner.
The procuring of the issue of a patent at the Land Office by means of false documents which purport to show official proceedings and acts by subordinate officers which are fictitious, is a fraud upon the jurisdiction of the Land Office, and not a mere presentation of doubtful and disputed testimony.
United States v. Throckmorton, 98 U. S. 61, and Vance v. Burbank, 101 U. S. 514, distinguished.
Philip Quinlan, and the other to a person by the name of Eli Turner, upon proof of settlement and improvement by them under the preemption laws. Their cancellation is sought on the ground that the patentees named were fictitious parties; that no settlement or improvement on the lands was ever made; that the documents alleging settlement and improvement were fabricated by the register and the receiver of the land office of the district, embracing the land covered by the patents, to defraud the government of the property.
The two suits present substantially the same facts, differing only as to the parties concerned in the proceedings, and the land patented, and were considered together by the court.
same in the defendant Moffat; that said Moffat now has the patent and claims to hold the legal title by virtue of certain mesne conveyances -- namely one executed on the 23d day of May, 1873, in the name of said supposed Philip Quinlan to a fictitious person by the name of Henry H. Perry, and a conveyance by said fictitious person, dated the 23d day of June, 1873, to himself, that the deeds from said supposed parties and the patent have been placed on record in the office of the recorder of the county in Colorado, where the land is situated, and constitute a cloud upon the title of complainant; that on the 15th of September, 1883, said Moffat executed a deed conveying an undivided half of the property covered by the patent to Robert E. Carr, as trustee, and that the deed is on record. And the bill charges that the said Moffat was well aware at the time he received the conveyances and the said patent of the fraudulent means by which the patent was obtained; that no valuable consideration passed from Carr to him, and that Carr also was fully informed that the supposed preemption and proceedings were false and fraudulent. The plaintiff therefore prays that the patent may be set aside and declared void, and delivered up to be cancelled, and that the deeds from Quinlan to Perry, and from Perry to Moffat, and from Moffat to Carr, may also be adjudged void.
that the patent be set aside and cancelled, and the deeds of the supposed Turner and Harris be adjudged void.
Fourth, that no offer was made in the bill in either case to return the scrip received by the government for the land.
together. In our judgment, none of the positions of the appellants justifies our interference with the decrees of the court below. The presumption as to the regularity of the proceedings which precede the issue of a patent of the United States for land, is founded upon the theory that every officer charged with supervising any part of them, and acting under the obligation of his oath, will do his duty, and is indulged as a protection against collateral attacks of third parties. It may be admitted, as stated by counsel, that if, upon any state of facts, the patent might have been lawfully issued, the court will presume, as against such collateral attacks, that the facts existed; but that presumption has no place in a suit by the United States directly assailing the patent and seeking its cancellation for fraud in the conduct of their officers. In such a suit the burden of proof is undoubtedly, in the first instance, on the government to show a fatal irregularity or corrupt conduct on their part; but when a case is established which, if unexplained, would warrant a conclusion against them, the burden of proof is shifted, and they must show such integrity of conduct and such a compliance with the law as will sustain the patent. Its validity is, then, determinable, like any other controverted fact, upon the weight of evidence produced in support of and against their action.
though usually known by different names, is far-fetched and merits no consideration where the fact, with reasonable explanation for the use of the unusual names, was not established, nor proof adduced of the settlement on and improvement of the land. No such attempt was made, and if it had been, it would, according to the evidence received, have signally failed.
The position that, as the frauds charged were committed by officers of the United States, the court erred in not holding their acts to be binding, and in not giving to the patents the force of valid conveyances, is certainly a novel one. The government does not guarantee the integrity of its officers, nor the validity of their acts. It prescribes rules for them, requires an oath for the faithful discharge of their duties, and exacts from them a bond with stringent conditions. It also provides penalties for their misconduct or fraud, but there its responsibility ends. They are but servants of the law, and if they depart from its requirements the government is not bound. There would be a wild license to crime if their acts, in disregard of the law, were to be upheld to protect third parties, as though performed in compliance with it. The language used in the case of Polk's Lessee v. Wendell sanctions no such doctrine. 5 Wheat. 18 U. S. 293, 18 U. S. 304. It was there used with reference to collateral attacks upon patents, in cases where the irregularities were committed by officers in the exercise of their admitted jurisdiction, and can have no application to the acts of officers in fabricating documents in the names of persons having no real existence.
of this doctrine of a bona fide purchaser there must be a genuine instrument having a legal existence, as well as one appearing on its face to pass the title. It cannot arise on a forged instrument or one executed to fictitious parties, that is, to no parties at all, however much deceived thereby the purchaser may be. Even in the case of negotiable instruments, where the doctrine is carried furthest for the protection of subsequent parties acquiring title to the paper, it cannot be invoked if the instrument be not genuine, or if it be executed without authority from its supposed maker. Floyd's Acceptances, 7 Wall. 666, 74 U. S. 676; Marsh v. Fulton County, 10 Wall. 676, 77 U. S. 683.
As to the position that no offer is made in the bills to return the scrip received for the land, only a word need be said. The pretended patentees, who are supposed to have given the scrip, being mere myths, having no actual existence, it would be idle to offer to return it to them, and for the same reason they can have no agents to act in their behalf.
A strenuous effort is made by counsel to bring these cases within the doctrine declared in United States v. Throckmorton, 98 U. S. 61, and Vance v. Burbank, 101 U. S. 514, but without success. It was held in those cases that the fraud which will justify the setting aside of the judgment of a tribunal specially appointed to determine particular facts, must be such as prevented the unsuccessful party from fully presenting his case, or which operated as an imposition upon the jurisdiction of the tribunal. Mere false testimony, or forged documents, are not enough if the disputed matter has been actually presented to and considered by the tribunal. Here officers, constituting a special tribunal, entered into a conspiracy, and the frauds consist of documents which they had fabricated, and presented with their judgment to those having appellate and supervisory authority in such matters, and thus a fictitious proceeding was imposed upon the latter as one which had actually taken place. It was a fraud upon the jurisdiction of the officers of the Land Department at Washington, and not the mere presentation to them of doubtful and disputed testimony.

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.