Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/138/656/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 17:53:53+00:00

Document:
The attorney of the City and County of San Francisco has no authority to relinquish rights reserved for the benefit of the public by the Van Ness Ordinance, the city and county having succeeded to the property and become subject to the liabilities of the city.
The confirmation of the pueblo lands to San Francisco was in trust for the benefit of lot holders under grants from the pueblo, town, or City of San Francisco or other competent authority, and, as to the residue, in trust for the benefit of the inhabitants of the city, and the title of the city rests upon the decree of the court, recognizing its title to the four square leagues and establishing their boundaries, and the confirmatory acts of Congress.
The exercise of this trust, as directed by the Van Ness Ordinance, was authorized both by the legislature of the state and by act of the Congress of the United States.
That ordinance having reserved from the grant all lands then occupied or set apart for public squares, streets, and sites for school houses, city hall, and other buildings belonging to the corporation, a decree in a suit against the city and county to quiet a title derived through the ordinance should except from its operation the lands thus reserved unless the fact that there were no such reservations be proved in the case by the public records of the city and county.
The Swamp Land Act of 1850, 9 Stat. 519, c. 84, was not intended to apply to lands held by the United states, charged with equitable claims of others which the United States were bound by treaty to protect, and consequently does not affect the pueblo lands which were acquired by the pueblo before its passage.
It is doubtful whether there were any lands within the limits of the pueblo which could be considered to be tidelands, but whether there were or not, the duty and the power of the United States under the treaty to protect the claims of the City of San Francisco as successor to the pueblo were superior to any subsequently acquired rights or claims of California over tidelands.
The tidelands which passed to California on its admission were not those occasionally affected by the title, but those over which tidewater flowed so continuously as to prevent their use and occupation.
the title of the plaintiffs below, the defendants in error here, to certain real property within the limits of that municipality against the alleged claim of the corporation to an adverse estate therein. The plaintiffs were citizens of France. The defendant, as a corporation of California, must be treated, for purposes of jurisdiction, as a citizen of that state.
The bill alleged that the plaintiffs were seized and possessed in fee simple absolute of certain real property in the City and County of San Francisco, which was particularly described, and that they and their predecessors had been thus seized and possessed for more than ten years; that the defendant set up some claim of title to the property, or to some portion thereof, adversely to the plaintiffs, which claim was without right or justice and unfounded in law or equity, and had assumed to make surveys within the limits of the land, mark out lines of streets, subdivide a portion of the property into lots and make a map thereof, and that it threatened to sell such subdivisions and lots and open such streets, and in divers other ways assumed to exercise acts of ownership over the property, to the slandering and disquieting of plaintiff's title, the depreciation of its market value, and the hindrance and prevention of its sale or use, to the manifest injury, loss, and detriment of the plaintiffs.
defendant to the premises was invalid and void, that the title of the plaintiff therein was valid and sufficient as against the defendant and against all persons claiming through or under the defendant, and that all such persons should be forever barred and restrained from asserting any estate or title or interest in the premises or any part thereof; that the said judgment and decree in favor of Mr. Shaw still remained in full force, never having been appealed from, reversed or vacated, and they insisted that by it the defendant was estopped from claiming or pretending to any right, title or interest in the lands therein described.
The plaintiffs therefore prayed that the defendant might answer the bill and set forth whatever right, title or interest it might have in the real property in relation to which the bill was filed, or in any part thereof, to the end that the court might determine upon its validity and that it might be adjudged and decreed that the plaintiffs were the owners of the property and that the defendant had no right, title or interest therein either in law or equity.
The defendant appeared bar its attorney and filed its answer in which it denied upon information and belief the allegations of the bill and averred in like manner that the defendant was and had been for more than ten years last past continuously the owner in fee and possessed of the described premises.
The answer also averred in the same way that the plaintiffs ought not to maintain the suit because neither they nor their predecessor or grantors, or any of them, were seized or possessed of the premises or any part thereof within five years next before the filing of their bill, but, on the contrary, that the defendant had been during all that time in the complete, open and notorious possession of the premises, claiming title to them in good faith and adversely to the whole world.
the defendant had no estate, right, title or interest therein or to any part thereof and adjudging that the defendant and all persons claiming under it be forever barred and enjoined from asserting any right or interest in the premises.
From this decree an appeal was taken to this Court by the defendant. Before the decree was entered, one of the plaintiffs, Victor Le Roy, died, and his title and interest in the premises described in the bill of complaint passed to Rene de Tocqueville, who is a citizen of the Republic of France, and by consent of counsel he was substituted in the place of the deceased as a party plaintiff.
It was conceded in the court below that the premises, to remove the cloud from which the present bill is filed, were at the time "pueblo lands" of San Francisco -- that is, that they were part of the lands claimed by the city as successor of a Mexican pueblo of that name; that they are within the limits of the City of San Francisco as prescribed by the charter of 1851, and are within the four square leagues described in the decree of the United States Circuit Court for the District of California, entered May 18, 1865, by which the claim of the city as such successor was confirmed and its boundaries established, and also within the lines of the patent of the United States for the pueblo lands issued to the city in 1884. It was also stipulated that the decree of the circuit court and the patent of the United States should be considered as in evidence, and that all the statutes of California and of the United States affecting the pueblo lands of San Francisco might be referred to, in the consideration of the case as though formally introduced in evidence.
the city. Act of April 19, 1856, consolidating the government of the City and County of San Francisco. Sess.Laws 1856, c. 125, p. 145.
corporate limits of the act of 1851, in trust for the uses and purposes of that ordinance. They also claimed the benefit of a deed of the tideland commissioners of the state to Eugene L. Sullivan, one of the grantors of William J. Shaw, dated December 3, 1870, which purported, for the consideration of $352.80, to release to the grantee the right, title, and interest of the State of California to the premises therein described.
The testimony, documentary and otherwise, produced in the case gives a very clear as well as accurate account of the origin, nature, and extent of the title claimed by the City of San Francisco, or the City and County of San Francisco, to its municipal lands, as successors to the rights of the former pueblo. This history has been related in several cases in this Court, notably in Trenouth v. San Francisco, 100 U. S. 251; Palmer v. Low, 98 U. S. 1; Grisar v. McDowell, 6 Wall. 363, and Townsend v. Greeley, 5 Wall. 326. A brief statement of the principal facts only will be necessary to an intelligent disposition of the questions presented for consideration.
the naval and military commanders to act in the place of the Mexican officers of the pueblo, and they exercised a like authority, which they supposed was invested in them, in making various grants of land in the city. Many persons then there, and many who subsequently settled in California, disputed such authority and took up and occupied any land which they found vacant within the limits of the pueblo. The natural consequence followed -- confusion and uncertainty in the titles in the city for some years after the acquisition of the country.
other competent authority, and as to any residue in trust for the benefit of the inhabitants of the city.
In April, 1851, the charter of San Francisco was repealed and a new charter adopted. Pending the appeal of the pueblo claim in the United States district court, the Van Ness Ordinance, above mentioned, was passed by the common council of the city, by which the city relinquished and granted all its right and claim to land within its corporate limits as defined by its charter of 1851, with certain exceptions, to parties in the actual possession thereof by themselves or tenants, on or before the 1st of January, 1855, provided such possession was continued up to the time of the introduction of the ordinance into the common council, which was in June, 1855, or, if interrupted by an intruder or trespasser, had been or might be recovered by legal process, and it declared that, for the purposes contemplated by the ordinance, persons should be deemed possessors who held titles to land within those limits by virtue of a grant made by any ayuntamiento, town council, alcalde, or justice of the peace of the former pueblo before the 7th of July, 1846, or by virtue of a grant subsequently made by the authorities, within certain limits of the city previous to its incorporation by the state, provided the grant, or a material portion of it, had been recorded in a proper book of records in the control of the recorder of the county previous to April 3, 1851. The city, among other things, reserved from the grant all the lots which it then occupied or had set apart for public squares, streets, and sites for schoolhouses, city hall, and other buildings belonging to the corporation, but what lots or parcels were thus occupied or set apart does not appear.
Subsequently, in March, 1858, the legislature of the state ratified and confirmed this ordinance, Stats. of Cal. of 1858, c. 66, p. 52, and by the fifth section of the act of Congress, to expedite the settlement of titles to lands in the State of California, the right and title of the United States to the lands claimed within the corporate limits of the charter of 1851 were relinquished and granted to the city and its successors for the uses and purposes specified in that ordinance. 13 Stat. 333, c. 194, § 5.
Notwithstanding the title to the lands within the limits of the charter of 1851 was thus settled, the appeal from the decree of the board of land commissioners was prosecuted both by the city and the United States -- by the city from so much of the decree as included in the estimate of the quantity of the land confirmed, the reservations made, and by the United States from the whole decree.
While these appeals were pending, Congress passed the Act of March 8, 1866, to quiet the title to the land within the city limits, 14 Stat. c. 13, p. 4. At that time, the limits of the city were coincident with those of the county, and embraced the whole of the four square leagues confirmed. By that act, all the right and title of the United States to the land covered by the decree of the circuit court were relinquished and granted to the city, and the claim to the land was confirmed, subject, however, to certain reservations and exceptions, and in trust that all land not previously granted to the city should be disposed of and conveyed by the city to the parties in the bona fide actual possession thereof, by themselves or tenants, on the passage of the act, in such quantities and on such terms and conditions as the Legislature of the State of California might prescribe, excepting such parcels as might be reserved and set apart by ordinance of the city for public uses. In consequence of this act, the appeals pending were dismissed. Townsend v. Greeley, 5 Wall. 326. The title of the city therefore rests upon the decree of the court recognizing its title to the four square leagues, and establishing the boundaries, and the confirmatory acts of Congress. Grisar v. McDowell, 6 Wall. 364.
ordinance, was authorized both by the legislature of the state and the act of the Congress of the United States. The purpose of the ordinance, as indicated in its title as well as in its several provisions, was to settle and quiet titles to lands in the City of San Francisco. The settlement which it made was by a recognition of certain previous grants of the city or of its officers, and the transfer of its title to those who had occupied the lands in good faith during certain periods. As held by the Supreme Court of California in its elaborate and exhaustive examination of the law respecting the property rights of Mexican pueblos in Hart v. Burnett, 15 Cal. 530, 612, the ordinance was justified by a policy which was analogous to the laws and purposes which gave existence to the rights of the pueblo. Section 2 of an order of the common council, passed on the 16th of October, 1856, which was ratified by the same legislative act of the state which confirmed the Van Ness Ordinance, provides that the grant or relinquishment of title made by that ordinance in favor of the several possessors of the land should take effect as fully and completely for the purpose of transferring the city's interest, and for all other purposes whatsoever, as if deeds of release and quitclaim had been duly executed and delivered to the parties individually and by name, and that no further conveyance or act should be necessary to invest such possessors with the interest, title, rights, and benefits which the ordinance intended or purported to transfer and convey.
except under the town site act, because they were within the limits of what was then a town; but a large portion of the tract thus taken up was fenced in by Kissling, occupied by him, and a portion of it cultivated. His occupation was continuous during the whole period required by the ordinance to enable him to have the benefit of the transfer it made. He therefore acquired as complete a title in the interest which the city then held in the property as it was possible for the city to convey, under the Van Ness Ordinance and the confirmatory legislation of the state and the United States.
The same may be said of the claim taken up by Thorne and Center on the 5th of August, 1850, and which purported to cover sixty acres. Of itself, it was, like the other, of no validity, and conferred no rights for the land -- was not public land open to acquisition in that way. But these parties enclosed the land, occupied and cultivated it, and exercised acts of ownership over it until the 15th of July, 1854, when they sold four and one-half acres of it to one Charles V. Stewart. They continued, however, to exercise ownership over the residue during all the period required by the Van Ness Ordinance to obtain its benefits and the transfer of title from the city. As to the four and one-half acres sold, the grantee continued in the possession and use of that portion also during the period required by the ordinance.
being necessarily excepted. One of those was a reservation, notwithstanding its grant, of lands then occupied or set apart for public squares, streets, and sites for schoolhouses, city hall, and other buildings belonging to the corporation, and the decree in this case should have excepted from its operation the lands thus reserved. An effort was made before the examiner who took the evidence in the case to do away with the reservation by the verbal statement of a witness that the premises described did not include "any school lots, engine lots, hospital lots, or property dedicated for street purposes or public squares," but such testimony was objected to as incompetent and as not being the best evidence the subject admitted of, and the objection was in our judgment well taken. If there were no reservations, as specified in the ordinance, the fact should have been established by the public records of the city and county. Its property reserved by statute from private ownership for public uses is not to be sacrificed or lost upon loose verbal testimony of the character offered.
as to render them unfit for cultivation, the growth of grasses, or other uses to which upland is applied. But even if there were such lands, their existence could in no way affect the rights of the pueblo. Its rights were dependent upon Mexican laws, and when Mexico established those laws, she was the owner of tidelands as well as uplands, and could have placed the boundaries of her pueblos wherever she thought proper. It was for the United States to ascertain those boundaries when fixing the limits of the claim of the city, and that was done after the most thorough and exhaustive examination ever given to the consideration of the boundaries of a claim of a pueblo under the Mexican government. After hearing all the testimony which could be adduced, and repeated arguments of counsel, elaborate reports were made on the subject by three Secretaries of the Interior. They held, and the patent follows their decision, that the boundary of the bay, which the decree of confirmation had fixed as that of ordinary high water mark as it existed on the 7th of July, 1846, crosses the mouth of all creeks entering the bay. There was therefore nothing in the deed of the tideland commissioners which could by any possibility impair the right of the city to exercise the power reserved in the Van Ness Ordinance over such portions of the lands conveyed to occupants under that ordinance as had been occupied or set apart for streets, squares, and public buildings of the city. Such a reservation should have been embodied in the decree in this case.
The decree should therefore be modified by adding the declaration that nothing therein shall be deemed to impair in any respect the rights reserved in the Van Ness Ordinance to the City of San Francisco or to its successor, the City and County of San Francisco, over lands that had then been occupied or set apart for streets, squares, and public buildings of the city, and as thus modified, be affirmed, and it is so ordered.
"SEC. 2. The City of San Francisco hereby relinquishes and grants all the right and claim of the city to the lands within the corporate limits, to the parties in the actual possession thereof, by themselves or tenants, on or before the first day of January, A.D. 1805, and to their heirs and assigns forever, excepting the property known as the slip property, and bounded on the north by Clay Street, on the West by Davis Street, on the south by Sacramento Street, and on the east by the water lot front. And excepting also any piece or parcel of land situated south, east, or north of the water lot front of the City of San Francisco, as established by an Act of the Legislature of March 26, 1851, provided such possession has been continued up to the time of the introduction of this ordinance in the common council, or, if interrupted by an intruder or trespasser, has been or may be recovered by legal process, and it is hereby declared to be the true intent and meaning of this ordinance that when any of the said lands have been occupied and possessed under and by virtue of a lease or demise, they shall be deemed to have been in the possession of the landlord or lessor under whom they were so occupied or possessed, provided that all persons who hold title to lands within said limits by virtue of any grant made by any ayuntamiento, town council, alcalde or justice of the peace of the former Pueblo of San Francisco, before the 7th day of July, 1846, or grants to lots of land lying east of Larkin Street and northeast of Johnston Street, made by any ayuntamiento, town council or alcalde of said pueblo since that date and before the incorporation of the City of San Francisco by the State of California, and which grant or the material portion thereof was registered, or recorded in a proper book of record deposited in the office or custody or control of the Recorder of the County of San Francisco on or before the 3d day of April, A.D., 1850, or by virtue of any conveyance duly made by the commissioners of the funded debt of the City of San Francisco, and recorded on or before the first day of January, 1855, shall, for all the purposes contemplated by this ordinance, be deemed to be the possessors of the land so granted, although the said lands may be in the actual occupancy of persons holding the same adverse to the said grantees."
"SEC. 3. The patent issued or any grant made by the United States to the city shall inure to the several use, benefit, and behoof of the said possessors, their heirs and assigns, mentioned in the preceding section, as fully and effectually, to all intents and purposes, as if it were issued or made directly to them individually and by name."
"SEC. 4. The city, however, as a consideration annexed to the next two preceding sections, reserves to itself all the lots which it now occupies or has already set apart for public squares, streets, and sites for school houses, city hall, and other buildings belonging to the corporation, and also such lots and lands as may be selected and reserved for streets and other public purposes, under the provisions of the next succeeding sections."
This ordinance was ratified by the Legislature of California on March 11, 1858, Stat. of California of 1858, chap. 66, p. 52.
And on July 1, 1864, Congress passed an act entitled "An act to expedite the settlement of titles to land in the State of California," by the fifth section of which all the right and title of the United States to the lands within the corporate limits of the City of San Francisco, as defined in its charter passed April 15, 1851, has relinquished and granted to the city and its successor for the uses and purposes specified in the ordinance, with some exceptions not necessary to be here mentioned. 13 Stat. chap. 194, sec. 5, p. 333.
"The City of San Francisco"
"The appeal in this case, taken by the petitioner, the City of San Francisco, from the decree of the Board of Land Commissioners to ascertain and settle private land claims in the State of California, entered on the twenty-first day of December, 1854, by which the claim of the petitioner was adjudged to be valid and confirmed to lands within certain described limits, coming on to be heard upon the transcript of proceedings and decision of said board, and the papers and evidence upon which said decision was founded, and further evidence taken in the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of California pending said appeal -- the said case having been transferred to this court by order of the said district court, under the provisions of section four of the act entitled 'An Act to expedite the settlement of titles to lauds in the State of California,' approved July 1st, 1864, and counsel of the United States and for the petitioner having been heard, and due deliberation had, it is ordered, adjudged and decreed that the claim of the petitioner, the City of San Francisco, to the land hereinafter described is valid, and that the same be confirmed."
"The land of which confirmation is made is a tract situated within the County of San Francisco and embracing so much of the extreme upper portion of the peninsula above ordinary high water mark (as tote same existed at the date of the conquest of the country, namely, the seventh day of July, A.D. 1846) on which the City of San Francisco is situated as will contain an area of four square leagues, said tract being bounded on the north and east by the Bay of San Francisco, on the west by the Pacific Ocean, and on the south by a due east and west line drawn so as to include the area aforesaid, subject to the following deductions, namely such lands as have been heretofore reserved or dedicated to public uses by the United States, and also such parcels of land as have been, by grants from lawful authority, vested in private ownership and have been finally confirmed to parties claiming under said grants by the tribunals of the United States, or shall hereafter be finally confirmed to parties claiming thereunder by said tribunals in proceedings now pending therein for that purpose, all of which said excepted parcels of land are included within the area of four square leagues above mentioned, but are excluded from the confirmation to the city. This confirmation is in trust for the benefit of the lot holders under grants from the Pueblo, Town, or City of San Francisco, or other competent authority, and as to any residue, in trust for the use and benefit of the inhabitants of the city."
"San Francisco, May 18th, 1865."
The following is the Act of Congress of March 8, 1866, also confirming said claim, and relinquishing all interest in the lands covered by that decree of confirmation not relinquished by the act of 1864.
"An act to quiet the title to certain lands within the corporate limits of the City of San Francisco, approved March 8, 1866."
"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled that all the right and title of the United States to the land situated within the corporate limits of the City of San Francisco, in the State of California, confirmed to the City of San Francisco by the decree of the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of California entered on the eighteenth day of May, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-five, be, and the same are hereby, relinquished and granted to said City of San Francisco and its successors, and the claim of said city to said land is hereby confirmed, subject, however, to the reservations and exceptions designated in said decree, and upon the following trusts, namely, that all the said land not heretofore granted to said city shall be disposed of and conveyed by said city to parties in the bona fide actual possession thereof, by themselves or tenants, on the passage of this act, in such quantities and upon such terms and conditions as the Legislature of the State of California may prescribe, except such parcels thereof as may be reserved and set apart by ordinance of said city for public uses, provided, however, that the relinquishment and grant by this act shall not interfere with or prejudice any valid adverse right or claim, if such exist, to said land or any part thereof, whether derived from Spain, Mexico, or the United States, or preclude a judicial examination and adjustment thereof."
The patent issued by the United States to the City of San Francisco upon the survey of her claim is dated June 20, 1884, and described the lands as bounded on the bay by ordinary high water mark, as it existed July 7, 1846, the line of which crosses the month of all creeks entering the bay.

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