Source: https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/82057/johnson-vs-towsley
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 13:16:31+00:00

Document:
1. The question of the conclusiveness of the action of the land officers in issuing a patent on the rights of other persons reconsidered and former decisions affirmed.
2. The tenth section of the Act of June 12, 1858, 11 Stat. at Large 326, which declares that the decision of the commissioner shall be final, means final its to the action of the Executive Department.
3. The general proposition is recognized that when a special tribunal is authorized to hear and determine certain matters arising in the course of its duties, its decisions within the scope of its authority are conclusive.
4. Under this principle, the action of the Land Department in issuing a patent is conclusive in all courts and in all proceedings, where by the rules of law the legal title must prevail.
5. But courts of equity, both in England and in this country, have always had the power in certain classes of cases to inquire into and correct injustice and wrong, in both judicial and executive action, founded in fraud, mistake, or other special ground of equity, when private rights are invaded.
6. In this manner, the most solemn judgment of courts of law have been annulled, and patents and other important instruments issuing from the Crown or other executive branch of the government have been reformed, corrected, declared void, or other appropriate relief granted.
7. The Land Office, dealing as it does with private rights of great value in a manner particularly liable to be imposed upon by fraud, false swearing, and mistakes, exemplifies the value and necessity of this jurisdiction.
i. That the judiciary will not interfere by mandamus, injunction, or otherwise with the officers of the land department in the exercise of their duties, while the matter remains in their hands for decision.
ii. That their decision on the facts which must be the foundation of their action, unaffected by fraud or mistake, is conclusive in the courts.
iii. But that after the title has passed from the government to individuals, and the question has become one of private right, the jurisdiction of courts of equity may be invoked to ascertain if the patentee does not bold in trust for other parties.
9. In deciding this question, if it appears that the party claiming the equity has established his right to the land to the satisfaction of the land department in the true construction of the acts of Congress, but that, by an erroneous construction, the patent has been issued to another, the court will correct the mistake. Minnesota v. Bachelder, 1 Wall. 109, Silver v. Ladd, 7 Wall. 219.
10. The fourth section of the Act of March 3, 1843, concerning two declaratory statements of the same preemptor, is confined to preemptions of land subject to private entry.
11. The fifth section of that act, relating to lands not proclaimed for sale, does not forfeit the preemptor's right absolutely when he has failed to make his declaratory statement within three months, but it gives the better right to anyone else who has made a settlement or declaratory statement on the same land before the first settler has made the requisite declaration.
12. Therefore a declaratory statement on such land is valid if made at any time before another party commences a settlement or files a declaration.
any number of acres not exceeding 160, or a quarter-section of land, to include the residence of such claimant, upon paying to the United States the minimum price of such land, subject, however to the following limitations and exceptions: no person shall be entitled to more than one preemptive right by virtue of this act,"
"SECTION 11. That when two or more persons shall have settled on the same quarter-section of land, the right of preemption shall be in him or her who made the first settlement &c.; and all questions as to the right of preemption arising between different settlers shall be settled by the register and receiver of the district within which the land is situated, subject to an appeal to and a revision by the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. "
"SECTION 14. That this act shall not delay the sale of any of the public lands of the United States beyond the time which has been or may be appointed by the proclamation of the President, nor shall the provisions of this act be available to any person or persons who shall fail to make the proof and payment and file the affidavit required before the day appointed for the commencement of the sales as aforesaid."
"SECTION 15. That whenever any person has settled or shall settled and improve a tract of land, subject at the time of settlement to private entry, and shall intend to purchase the same under the provisions of this act, such person shall in the first case, within three months after the passage of the same, and in the last within thirty days next after the date of such settlement, file with the register of the proper district a written statement, describing the land settled upon and declaring the intention of such person to claim the same under the provisions of this act, and shall, where such settlement is already made, within twelve months after the passage of this act, and where it shall hereafter be made, within the same period after the date of such settlement, make the proof, affidavit, and payment therein required, and if he or she shall fail to file such written statement as aforesaid or shall fail to make such affidavit, proof, and payment, within the twelve months aforesaid, the tract of land so settled and improved shall be subject to the entry of any other purchaser."
"SECTION 4. That where an individual has filed, under the late preemption law, his declaration of intention to claim the benefits of said law for one tract of land, it shall not be lawful for the same individual at any future time, to file a second declaration for another tract."
"SECTION 5. That claimants under the late preemption law, for land not yet proclaimed for sale, are required to make known their claims, in writing, to the register of the proper land office, . . . within three months from the time of the settlement, . . . giving the designation of the tract, and the time of settlement; otherwise his claim to be forfeited and the tract awarded to the next settler, in the other of time, on the same tract of land, who shall have given such notice and otherwise complied with the conditions of the law."
"SECTION 10. That the 11th section of the Act of Congress approved 4 September, 1841, entitled 'An act to appropriate the proceeds of the public lands, and to grant preemption rights,' be so amended that appeals from the decisions of the district officers, in cases of contest between different settlers for the right of preemption, shall hereafter be decided by the Commissioner of the General Land Office, whose decision shall be final unless appeal therefrom be taken to the Secretary of the Interior."
statement of his intention to preempt the same land under the act of 1841.
The same Towsley had previously, to-wit, on the 2d of April, 1858, filed a declaratory statement giving notice that he had settled, March 25, 1858, upon other land, described in the usual manner, and claimed a preemption right therein, which land had not yet been offered at public sale and thus rendered subject to private entry. From this land he withdrew claim early in the following June and waived all claim to it in favor of an opposing settler.
An investigation as to the respective rights of the two parties was had before the local office, which resulted in a decision in favor of Towsley. This decision was affirmed by the Commissioner of the General Land Office, and on the 20th of September, 1862, Towsley received a patent. The dispute between the parties being taken by appeal before the Secretary of the Interior, that officer on the 11th of July, 1863, as appeared from a statement of the Assistant Secretary, decided in favor of Johnson on the ground that Towsley, previously to filing his declaratory statement claiming the land in question, had filed a declaratory statement claiming the other lands.
After this, Johnson entered on the lands, and a patent was issued to him.
1. Whether, conceding that the courts of Nebraska had jurisdiction in the case, this Court had any under the Judiciary Act of 1789 or 1867.
2. Admitting, upon the concession stated, that it had, whether in view of the language of the 10th section of the Act of June 12, 1858 (quoted, supra, p. 80 U. S. 75 ), as to the effect of decisions by the Commissioner of the General Land Office, in cases of contest between different settlers for the right of preemption, either of the courts below had any jurisdiction. Since if they had not, this Court would have none now.
3. Whether, admitting that all three courts had jurisdiction, and that the matter was now properly here for review, the decision of the Supreme Court of Nebraska, affirming the validity of Towsley's patent, was correct.
and he relied upon certain acts of Congress as making good his title, and the decision of the state courts was against the right and title set up by him under those statutes. Undoubtedly the case is fairly within one or both of these clauses of the act of 1867, and the conclusiveness of the patent and the right of the plaintiffs in error claimed under the statutes must be considered.
The contest arises out of rival claims to the right of preemption of the land in controversy. The register and receiver, after hearing these claims, decided in favor of Towsley, the complainant, and allowed him to enter the land, received his money, and gave him a patent certificate. On appeal to the Commissioner of the Land Office, their action was affirmed, but on a further appeal to the Secretary of the Interior, the action of these officers was reversed on a construction of an act of Congress, in which the secretary differed from them, and under that decision the patent was issued to Johnson.
It will be seen by this short statement of the case that the rights asserted by complainant, and recognized and established by the Nebraska courts, were the same which were passed upon by the register and receiver, by the commissioner, and by the Secretary of the Interior, and we are met at the threshold of this investigation with the proposition that the action of the latter officer terminating in the delivery to the defendant of a patent for the land is conclusive of the rights of the parties not only in the land department, but in the courts and everywhere else.
This proposition is not a new one in this Court in this class of cases, but it is maintained that none of the cases heretofore decided extend, in principle, to the one before us, and the question being pressed upon our attention with an earnestness and fullness of argument which it has not perhaps before received, and with reference to statutes not heretofore considered by the Court, we deem the occasion an appropriate one to reexamine the whole subject.
"be so amended that appeals from the decision of the district officers, in cases of contest between different settlers for the right of preemption, shall hereafter be decided by the Commissioner of the General Land Office, whose decision shall be final, unless appeal therefrom be taken to the Secretary of the Interior."
"The executive duties now prescribed or which may hereafter be prescribed by law appertaining to the surveying and sale of the public lands . . . and the issuing of patents for all grants of land under the authority of the United States shall be subject to the supervision and control of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, under the direction of the President of the United States."
different settlers should be settled by the register and receiver of the district within which the land is situated, subject to an appeal to and revision by the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. This provision, in the class of cases to which it referred, superseded the functions of the Commissioner of the Land Office, as revising officer to the register and receiver, and, so far as the act of 1836 associated the President with the commissioner, superseded his supervisory functions also. It left the right of appeal from the register and receiver to the Secretary of the Treasury direct as the head of the department. The 10th section of the act of 1858, so much relied upon by the plaintiffs in error, the operative language of which we have quoted, was clearly intended to remedy this defect or oversight and to restore to the commissioner his rightful control over the matters which belonged to his bureau. In the use of the word "final" we think nothing more was intended than to say that, with the single exception of an appeal to his superior, the Secretary of the Interior, his decision should exclude further inquiry in that department. But we do not see, in the language used in this connection, any intention to give to the final decision of the Department of the Interior, to which the control of the land system of the government had been transferred, any more conclusive effect than what belonged to it without its aid.
It is said, however, that the present case does not come within any of the adjudicated cases on this subject; that in all of them there has been some element of fraud or mistake on which the cases rested.
the certificate conferred a valid claim to the land, and that the patent issued to another party by reason of this mistake must enure to the benefit of the party who had the prior and better right. This Court has at all times been careful to guard itself against an invasion of the functions confided by law to other departments of the government, and in reference to the proceedings before the officers entrusted with the charge of selling the public lands it has frequently and firmly refused to interfere with them in the discharge of their duties, either by mandamus or injunction, so long as the title remained in the United States and the matter was rightfully before those officers for decision. On the other hand, it has constantly asserted the right of the proper courts to inquire, after the title had passed from the government and the question became one of private right, whether, according to the established rules of equity and the acts of Congress concerning the public lands, the party holding that title should hold absolutely as his own, or as trustee for another. And we are satisfied that the relations thus established between the courts and the land department are not only founded on a just view of the duties and powers of each, but are essential to the ends of justice and to a sound administration of the law.
of the statute on that subject, Towsley would have received the patent which was awarded to Johnson.
We must therefore inquire whether the statute, rightly construed, defeated Towsley's otherwise perfect right to the patent, and this inquiry requires consideration of some of the features of our system of land sales.
"That where an individual had filed, under the late preemption law, his declaration of intention to claim the benefit of said law for one tract of land, it shall not be lawful for the same individual, at any future time, to file a second declaration for another tract."
that the effect of a double declaration in defeating the right of the preemptor to the tract which he finally claims to purchase is limited to lands subject, at the time, to private sale. The land in controversy in this suit was never subject to private entry, and the application of the principle by the secretary to Towsley's case was, as we think, a misconstruction of the law, through which his right was denied him.
But it is argued that if the preemption claim of Towsley was not governed by the 4th section of the act of 1843, it certainly was by the 5th section of that act, and as he did not file his declaration of intention within three months from the time of settlement, his claim was forfeited and gave him no right.
time before the first settler makes his declaration, shall have the better right. As Towsley's settlement and possession were continuous, and as his declaration was made before Johnson or anyone else asserted claim to the land or made a settlement, we think his right was not barred by that section, under a sound construction of its meaning.
5 Stat. at Large 455.
5 Stat. at Large 620.
11 Stat. at Large 326.
The reader may see the two acts in Trebilcock v. Wilson, 12 Wall. 687.
11 Stat at Large, 326.
59 U. S. 18 How. 45.
Lytle v. Arkansas, 22 How. 192; Garland v. Wynn, 20 Wall. 8; Lindsey v. Hawes, 2 Black 559.
Finly v. Williams, 9 Cranch 164; McArthur v. Browder, 4 Wheat. 488; Hunt v. Wickliffe, 2 Pet. 201; Green v. Liter, 8 Cranch 229.
68 U. S. 1 Wall. 109.
74 U. S. 7 Wall. 219.
I dissent from the judgment of the Court in this case upon the ground that the case is controlled by the act of Congress which provides that the decision of the Commissioner of the General Land Office shall be final unless an appeal is taken to the Secretary of the Interior. In my judgment, the decree of the commissioner is final if no appeal is taken, and in case of appeal that the decision of the appellate tribunal created by the act of Congress is equally final and conclusive, except in cases of fraud or mistake not known at the time of the investigation by the land department.
MR. JUSTICE DAVIS took no part in the decision of this or the next case, being interested in the question involved.

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