Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/147/165.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 22:16:45+00:00

Document:
This was a bill in equity by the Union River Logging Railroad Company to enjoin the secretary of the interior and the commissioner of the general land office from executing a certain order revoking the approval of the plaintiff's maps for a right of way over the public lands, and also from molesting plaintiff in the enjoyment of such right of way secured to it under an act of congress.
In the spring of 1889, plaintiff proceeded to extend its line of road for three miles beyond the point to which it had previously extended it. It located at intervals a better line of road; made and ballasted a new roadbed of standard gauge; and substituted steel rails and another locomotive in place of those rails and equipments which had been sufficient for its limited purposes, as specified in the original articles. In January, 1889, the company desiring to avail itself of an act of congress of March 3, 1875, (18 St. p. 482,) granting to railroads a right of way through the public lands of the United States, filed with the register of the land office at Seattle a copy of its articles of incorporation, a copy of the territorial law under which the company was organized, and the other documents required by the act, together with a map showing the termini of the road, its length, and its route through the public lands according to the public surveys. These papers were transmitted to the commissioner of the land office, and by him to the secretary of the interior, by whom they were approved in writing. and ordered to be filed. They were accordingly filed at once, and the plaintiff notified thereof.
On June 13, 1890, a copy of an order by the appellant, successor in office to the secretary of the interior by whom the maps were approved, was served upon the plaintiff, requiring it to show cause why said approval should not be revoked and annulled.
This was followed by an order of the acting secretary of [147 U.S. 165, 167] the interior, annulling and canceling such maps, and directing the commissioner of the land office to carry out the order.
The answer admitted all the allegations of fact in the bill, and averred that it became known to the defendants that the plaintiff was not engaged in the business of a common carrier of passengers and freight at the time of its application, but in the transportation of logs for the private use and benefit of the several persons composing the said company, and that, being advised that a railroad company carrying on a merely private business was not such a railroad company as was contemplated by the act of congress, deemed it their duty to vacate and annul the action of Mr. Vilas, then secretary of the interior, approving plaintiff's maps of definite location, and to that end caused the notice complained of in the bill to be served. They further claimed it to be their duty to revoke and annul the action of the former secretary of the interior as having been made improvidently, and on false suggestions, and without authority under the statute.
Upon a hearing upon the bill, answer, and accompanying exhibits, the court ordered a decree for the plaintiff, and an injunction as prayed for in the bill. Defendants appealed to this court.
Asst. Atty. Gen. Maury, for appellants.
[147 U.S. 165, 170] Fredric D. McKenney and Saml. F. Phillips, for appellee.
This case involves not only the power of this court to enjoin the head of a department, but the power of a secretary of [147 U.S. 165, 171] the interior to annul the action of his predecessor, when such action operates to give effect to a grant of public lands to a railroad corporation.
1. With regard to the judicial power in cases of this kind, it was held by this court as early as 1803, in the great case of Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch, 137, that there was a distinction between acts involving the exercise of judgment or discretion and those which are purely ministerial; that, with respect to the former, there exists, and can exist, no power to control the executive discretion, however erroneous its exercise may seem to have been; but with respect to ministerial duties, an act or refusal to act is, or may become, the subject of review by the courts. The principle of this case was applied in Kendall v. U. S., 12 Pet. 524, and the action of the circuit court sustained in a proceeding where it had commanded the postmaster general to credit the relator with a certain sum awarded to him by the solicitor of the treasury under an act of congress authorizing the latter to adjust the claim, this being regarded as purely a ministerial duty. In Decatur v. Paulding, 14 Pet. 497, a mandamus was refused upon the same principle, to compel the secretary of the navy to allow to the widow of Commodore Decatur a certain pension and arrearages. Indeed, the reports of this court abound with authorities to the same effect. Kendall v. Stokes, 3 How. 87; Brashear v. Mason, 6 How. 92; Reeside v. Walker, 11 How. 272; Commissioner v. Whiteley, 4 Wall. 522; U. S. v. Seaman, 17 How. 231; U. S. v. Guthrie, Id. 284; U. S. v. Commissioner, 5 Wall. 563; Gaines v. Thompson, 7 Wall. 347; Secretary v. McGarrahan, 9 Wall. 298; U. S. v. Schurz, 102 U.S. 378 ; Butterworth v. Hoe, 112 U.S. 50 , 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 25; U. S. v. Black, 128 U.S. 40 , 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 12. In all these cases the distinction between judicial and ministerial acts is commented upon and enforced.
2. At the time the documents required by the act of 1875 were laid before Mr. Vilas, then secretary of the interior, it became his duty to examine them, and to determine, among other things, whether the railroad authorized by the articles of incorporation was such a one as was contemplated by the act of congress. Upon being satisfied of this fact, and that all the other requirements of the act had been observed, he was authorized to approve the profile of the road, and to cause such approval to be noted upon the plats in the land office for the district where such land was located. When this was done, the granting section of the act became operative, and vested in the railroad company a right of way through the public lands to the extent of 100 feet on each side of the central line of the road. Frasher v. O'Connor, 115 U.S. 102 , 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1141.
The position of the defendants in this connection is that the existence of a railroad, with the duties and liabilities of a common carrier of freight and passengers, was a jurisdictional fact, without which the secretary had no power to act, and that in this case he was imposed upon by the fraudulent representations of the plaintiff, and that it was competent for his successor to revoke the approval thus obtained; in other words, that the proceedings were a nullity, and that his want of jurisdiction to approve the map may be set up as a defense to this suit. [147 U.S. 165, 173] It is true that, in every proceeding of a judicial nature, there are one or more facts which are strictly jurisdictional, the existence of which is necessary to the validity of the proceedings, and without which the act of the court is a mere nullity; such, for example, as the service of process within the state upon the defendant in a common-law action, ( D'Arcy v. Ketchum, 11 How. 165; Webster v. Reid, Id. 437; Harris v. Hardeman, 14 How. 334; Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U.S. 714 ; Borden v. Fitch, 15 Johns. 141;) the seizure and possession of the res within the bailiwick in a proceeding in rem, (Rose v. Himely, 4 Cranch, 241; Thompson v. Whitman, 18 Wall. 457;) a publication in strict accordance with the statute, where the property of an absent defendant is sought to be charged, (Galpin v. Page, 18 Wall. 350; Guaranty Trust & Safe-Deposit Co. v. Green Cove Springs & M. R. Co., 139 U.S. 137 , 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 512.) So, if the court appoint an administrator of the estate of a living person, or, in a case where there is an executor capable of acting, (Griffith v. Frazier, 8 Cranch, 9,) or condemns as lawful prize a vessel that was never captured, ( Rose v. Himely, 4 Cranch, 241, 269,) or a court-martial proceeds and sentences a person not in the military or naval service, (Wise v. Withers, 3 Cranch, 331,) or the land department issues a patent for land which has already been reserved or granted to another person,-the act is not voidable merely, but void. In these and similar cases the action of the court or officer fails for want of jurisdiction over the person or subject- matter. The proceeding is a nullity, and its invalidity may be shown in a collateral proceeding.
There is, however, another class of facts which are termed 'quasi jurisdictional,' which are necessary to be alleged and proved in order to set the machinery of the law in motion, but which, when properly alleged, and established to the satisfaction of the court, cannot be attacked collaterally. With respect to these facts, the finding of the court is as conclusively presumed to be correct as its finding with respect to any other matter in issue between the parties. Examples of these are the allegations and proof of the requisite diversity of citizenship, or the amount in controversy in a federal court, which, when found by such court, cannot be questioned collaterally, (Des [147 U.S. 165, 174] Moines Nav. & R. Co. v. Iowa Homestead Co., 123 U.S. 552 , 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 217; In re Sawyer, 124 U.S. 200, 220 , 8 S. Sup. Ct. Rep. 482;) the existence and amount of the debt of a petitioning debtor in an involuntary bankruptcy, (Michaels v. Post, 21 Wall. 398; Betts v. Bagley, 12 Pick, 572 ;) the fact that there is insufficient personal property to pay the debts of a decedent, when application is made to sell his real estate, (Comstock v. Crawford, 3 Wall. 396; Grignon's Lessee v. Astor, 2 How. 319; Florentine v. Barton, 2 Wall. 210;) the fact that one of the heirs of an estate had reached his majority, when the act provided that the estate should not be sold if all the heirs were minors, (Thompson v. Tolmie, 2 Pet. 157;) and others of a kindred nature, where the want of jurisdiction does not go to the subject-matter or the parties, but to a preliminary fact necessary to be proven to authorize the court to act. Other cases of this description are: Hudson v. Guestier, 6 Cranch, 281; Ex parte Watkins, 3 Pet. 193; U. S. v. Arredondo, 6 Pet. 691, 709; Dyckman v. City of New York, 5 N. Y. 434; Jackson v. Crawfords, 12 Wend. 533; Jackson v. Robinson, 4 Wend. 436; Fisher v. Bassett, 9 Leigh, 119, 131; Wright v. Douglass, 10 Barb. 97, 111. In this class of cases, if the allegation be properly made, and the jurisdiction be found by the court, such finding is conclusive and binding in every collateral proceeding; and, even if the court be imposed upon by false testimony, its finding can only be impeached in a proceeding instituted directly for that purpose. Simms v. Slacum, 3 Cranch, 300.
This distinction has been taken in a large number of cases in this court, in which the validity of land patents has been attacked collaterally, and it has always been held that the existence of lands subject to be patented was the only necessary prerequisite to a valid patent. In the one class of cases it is held that, if the land attempted to be patented had been reserved, or was at the time no part of the public domain, the land department had no jurisdiction over it, and no power or authority to dispose of it. In such cases its action in certifying the lands under a railroad grant, or in issuing a patent, is not merely irregular, but absolutely void, and may be shown to be so in any collateral proceeding. Polk's Lessee v. Wendell, [147 U.S. 165, 175] 9 Cranch, 87; Patterson v. Winn, 11 Wheat. 380; Jackson v. Lawton, 10 Johns. 23; Minter v Crommelin, 18 How. 87; Reichart v. Felps, 6 Wall. 160; Railway Co. v. Dunmeyer, 113 U.S. 629 , 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 566; U. S. v. Southern Pac. Ry. Co., 146 U.S. 570 , 13 Sup. Ct. Rep. 152.
It was not competent for the secretary of the interior thus to revoke the action of his predecessor, and the decree of the court below must therefore be affirmed.

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