Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/236/635
Timestamp: 2014-10-21 14:01:24
Document Index: 710408094

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2', '§ 2223', '§ 4457', '§ 699', '§ 3', '§ 1']

WILSON CYPRESS COMPANY, Appt., v. ENRIQUE DEL POZO Y MARCOS et al. | LII / Legal Information Institute
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236 U.S. 635 (35 S.Ct. 446, 59 L.Ed. 758)
WILSON CYPRESS COMPANY, Appt., v. ENRIQUE DEL POZO Y MARCOS et al.
Argued: January 19, 1915.
Decided: January 19, 1915
[HTML] Suit to quiet title, brought in the circuit court for the southern district of Florida by appellees, whom we shall call throughout complainants and the appellant defendant.
The bill alleges that the complainants are the heirs at law of Miguel Marcos, a lieutenant in the Spanish Army; that he was granted by the lawful authorities of the King of Spain on the 18th of October, 1815, 5,500 acres of land in the then province of East Florida, on two banks of a creek which empties into the St. John's river about 2 miles north of Long Lake; that the grant was confirmed to his widow, Teresa Rodriguez, in her own right and for and on behalf of her children by the United States to the extent of a league square; that the grant was an inchoate right to said tract, under the laws of Spain called a first title or permit to occupy the land, and, after occupancy and proof thereof, to secure a complete or Royal title; but before such title issued Spain ceded East Florida to the United States, who, by the 8th article of the treaty between the United States and Spain 8 Stat. at L. 258, occupied the position of Spain with regard to this and like grants of land, and were pledged to confirm title thereto; that the lands were neither surveyed nor segregated from the public domain during the sovereignty of Spain; that the same were wild and uncultivated, were never in the actual occupancy of the grantee or of his widow and children, and the title thereto at the time of the cession of the Floridas passed to the United States, subject to the equitable claim of the complainants.
That it was held by the judicial and executive branches of the government that a league square was 4,438.68 acres. That by the laws then in force in the territory of Florida it was the duty of the surveyor general of the territory to make the survey of the lands confirmed to complainants' ancestor, and make certificate thereof, and file the same in the land office of the United States in said territory. That among the acts of Congress extending to said territory was the act of March 3, 1807 2 Stat. at L. 445, chap. 46, by the terms of which it was made unlawful to take possession of, survey, or cause to be surveyed or settle upon, any lands ceded or secured to the United States by any treaty with a foreign nation, or any land, claim to which had not been recognized and confirmed by the United States, under a penalty of forfeiture of the right, title, and claim to such lands. That the ancestors of complainants were residing in Cuba on the 23d of May, 1828, and they and their descendants have since that date resided there, and none of them have resided or been in the United States since the passage of the act of May 23, 1828, confirming the grant to the extent of a league square. That the United States never surveyed and segregated the lands as confirmed, as held by the Land Department of the United States, and the confirmees had no power to cause such survey to be made. That the lands embraced in the grant were surveyed as public lands by the United States in 1847, and such survey was approved May 15, 1848. A certified copy of the official plat of survey is attached to the bill, and it is alleged that the lands were held by the Land Department of the United States to be public lands, and were so treated from 1831 to February 12, 1894, upon which date the grant described in the bill was, by the Land Department of the United States, declared to be a valid, confirmed private grant to Teresa Rodriguez, and ordered to be patented, and thereafter it was so patented to her, her heirs, assigns, and legal representatives, and the lands described as section 37, township 19, south of range 28, and section 41, township 19, south of range 29, according to the plat of the public surveys made by the United States, and for the aggregate of 5,486.46 acres. That until such recognition of the title of complainants and those under whom they claim from and after May 23d, 1828, complainants were excluded from the possession of the lands, and the United States had both the legal title and possession and right of possession of them, and any occupancy of them by any other than the United States was a mere trespass; that before February 12, 1894, complainants and those under whom they take title were not able to take possession of the lands because the United States claimed the entire grant as public lands.
The decree was affirmed by the circuit court of appeals. The opinion of the court was as follows: 'The lands in controversy were not segregated from the public domain, and the title thereto remained in the United States until the issuance of the patents; therefore they were not taxable by the state of Florida at the several times they were listed for taxes and sold for nonpayment thereof.' 121 C. C. A. 578, 202 Fed. 743.
Notwithstanding they had a grant confirmed to them of a possible league square, possession was not taken, it is alleged, because, under the act of March 3, 1807 2 Stat. at L. 445, chap. 46, to have taken possession would have forfeited their right, and that it was not until February 12, 1894, when their title was recognized by the Land Department of the United States, that they were able to assert ownership of the land. In other words, that until such date the United States did not relinquish its title and possession of the lands; that the obligation to confirm grants of lands, assumed by the United States by the treaty with Spain, was political in character, and to be discharged as the United States deemed expedient; and as to the grant to Marcos, the United States retained possession and title thereto from May 23, 1828, to the issuance of the patent; that before the approval of the survey of the lands granted to Marcos, the legal title was in the United States, and the claim of complainants attached to no particular lands.
This, however, we assume, is but another way of stating that complainants had no interest in the land that they could assert, or that the state of Florida could tax, until the United States issued its patent; and yet the United States has done no more than recognize the title derived from Spain and as derived from Spain. It is true there were at first some doubts and hesitation, but ultimately the recognition was complete, following and in pursuance of the confirmation of the Marcos grant by the act of May 23, 1828, and upon a survey made as early as 1851. At whose instance the survey was made does not appear. Section 1 of the act of May 23, 1828, requires the land confirmed by it 'to be located by the claimants, or their agents, within the limits of such claims or surveys . . . which location shall be made within the bounds of the original grant, in quantities of not less than one section and to be bounded by sectional lines.' Some uncertainty arises from § 2. It provides that no more than the number of acres contained in a league square shall be confirmed within the bounds of any one grant; and no confirmation shall be effectual until a full and final release of all claim to the residue contained in the grant. And something is made of the provision by complainants to refute the contention of defendant that the act was an absolute confirmation of the grant, but it certainly cannot be contended that it took all power from the act and left the grant without any foundation whatever; and we are brought back to the consideration that a valuable property was confirmed to complainants, which only needed a survey to identify it, and, when surveyed, was segreated from the public domain, and subject to the taxing jurisdiction of the state. The survey was made, we have seen, in 1851, under contract, with Benjamin A. Putnam, surveyor general. The act of June 28, 1848 (9 Stat. at L. 242, chap. 83), directed that surveys be made as soon as practicable of the private claims or grants which had been duly confirmed, situated in the state of Florida. It is probable that the survey was made in obedience to this direction. The field notes of the survey and the official plat thereof were approved by the surveyor general June 20, 1851, and the patent recites that the description of the land therein given is taken 'from the approved field notes of the survey thereof as executed by M. A. Williams, a deputy surveyor, in the month of January, 1851,under his contract with Benjamin A. Putnam, surveyor general of Florida, of the 19th of October, 1850.' Indeed, the patent rests alone on the survey as a description and segregation of the land, the grant of which was confirmed by the act of Congress of May 23, 1828, as claim No. 22, recommended for confirmation December 16, 1825, by the Board of Commissioners in pursuance of the act of Congress of March 3, 1823 3 Stat. at L. 750, chap. 28.
All the conditions of a taxable property existed, unless there be merit in the contention of the complainants that the survey of 1851, upon which the patent was predicated, was of no effect unless and until approved by the Commissioner of the General Land Office. This contention has been earnestly pressed upon our attention, but is untenable. It has no support in any statute or regulation that was in force at the time. The confirmatory act of May 23, 1828, and the act of June 28, 1848, were both silent upon the subject, and in the absence of some applicable special provision the general statute relating to public surveys was controlling. The general statute was then embraced in the act of May 18, 1796 (1 Stat. at L. 464, chap. 29), and its amendments, and was afterwards incorporated in chapters 1 and 9 of title 32 of the Revised Statutes, more especially §§ 2223 and 2395 (Comp. Stat. 1913, §§ 4457 and 4803). It expressly dealt with the survey of private land claims as well as of public lands, but contained no requirement that the survey of either be approved by the Commissioner. This is apparent upon an inspection of the statute, and is shown by two decisions of this court, one relating to the survey of a private land claim resting upon a confirmed Mexican grant, and the other to the survey of public lands. Frasher v. O'Conner, 115 U. S. 102, 115, 29 L. ed. 311, 315, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1141; Tubbs v. Wilhoit, 138 U. S. 134, 142-144, 34 L. ed. 887, 890, 891, 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 279. In both cases the court approvingly referred to a decision of the Secretary of the Interior, in the latter case quoting the Secretary of the Interior as follows: 'There is nothing in the act of 1796, or in the subsequent acts, which requires the approval of the Commissioner of the General Land Office before said survey becomes final and the plats authoritative. Such a theory is not only contrary to the letter and spirit of the various acts providing for the survey of the public lands, but is contrary to the uniform practice of this Department. There can be no doubt but that, under the act of July 4, 1836 5 Stat. at L. 107, chap. 352, Comp. Stat. 1913, § 699, reorganizing the General Land Office, the Commissioner has general supervision over all surveys, and that authority is exercised whenever error or fraud is alleged on the part of the surveyor general. But when the survey is correct, it becomes final and effective when the plat is filed in the local office by that officer.' And it was added: 'This practice was changed by the Land Department in April, 1879, and communicated in its instructions to surveyors general on the 17th of that month. It was not until after such instructions that the duplicate plats filed in the local land offices were required to be previously approved by the Commissioner of the General Land Office.' It follows that the land granted and confirmed was fully identified by the survey of 1851, the field notes and plat of which are shown in the record. Of the office of the patent it is enough to repeat what was said in Beard v. Federy, 3 Wall. 478, 491, 18 L. ed. 88, 92: 'In the first place, the patent is a deed of the United States. As a deed, its operation is that of a quitclaim, or rather of a conveyance of such interest as the United States possessed in the land, and it takes effect by relation at the time when proceedings were instituted by the filing of the petition before the Board of Land Commissioners. In the second place, the patent is a record of the action of the government upon the title of the claimant as it existed upon the acquisition of the country.' In Boquillas Land & Cattle Co. v. Curtis, 213 U. S. 339, 344, 53 L. ed. 822, 825, 29 Sup. Ct. Rep. 493, such a patent was described 'as a confirmation in a strict sense.' See also § 3 of the act of May 23, 1828.
It is true, as we have stated, that the Commissioner of the Land Office in 1890 refused to issue a patent, deciding that the claim had been 'surveyed in Twp. 19, S., Rs. 28 and 29 E., for 5,426.82 acres.' The grounds of his decision were these: The claim was before Congress when the act of February 8, 1827 (4 Stat. at L. p. 202, chap. 9), was passed, but that that act only confirmed those claims which were under the quantity of 3,500 acres, and provided 'for the survey of this Teresa Rodriguez and other claims, exceeding in area 3,500 acres.' Referring to the act of May 23, 1828, it was said that by its 6th section those holding claims like that under consideration might secure a confirmation thereof by prosecuting the same in the courts. It was further said that 'patents in this class of cases are based on some confirmatory act of Congress, or upon a confirmation of some tribunal created by Congress for that purpose.' Considering that there was no confirmation by Congress and no decision of any tribunal created by Congress, the Commissioner declined 'to patent the same for the want of proper evidence upon which to base such action.' A review of the decision and action was invoked, and the attention of the Commissioner was directed to § 1 of the act of May 23, 1828, and a confirmation claimed thereunder on the ground 'that its survey contains a less quantity than a league square.' To this the Commissioner answered that the 'grant was made by Spanish authority, and must be understood to mean a grant of 5,500 acres according to the measurement used by Spain in measuring grants of this character. . . . A 'league square' by this measurement contains 25,000,000 varas, or 4438.68 English acres.
In answer to the view expressed by the Commissioner that a Spanish league was meant, it was said that the conclusion was 'at variance with and repugnant to every fact and circumstance in the history of Spanish grants in the provinces mentioned Louisiana and the Floridas and in the legislation of Congress in relation thereto.' It was hence held that a 'league square' of land, as understood by Congress in the act of May 23, 1828, meant a tract of land containing 6,002.50 acres; and that it followed, therefore, that the Rodriguez claim 'contained, as shown by the survey, less than a league square, and is confirmed by the 1st section of the act of May 23, 1828, supra.' The decision of the Commissioner was reversed, and that officer was 'directed to patent said claim in accordance with the survey thereof.'
We think the learned court erred in this. The continuity of possession was a factor to be considered,we do not say determinative. The evidence of numerous witnesses seems to conflict upon the character and extent of such possession, an analysis of which can better be made in the first instance by the master or the trial court than by an appellate court.
We do not pass upon the contention, nor intimate an opinion of the other contentions we have mentioned, or which are presented by the pleadings. We refer to them to show that on account of the view of the courts below on the taxability of the lands, they omitted to pass on a number of important issues, some of which require a consideration of testimony, and someit may be allan examination of the local laws and decisions, as dependent on such testimony. And, we repeat, a consideration of such testimony should be made in the first instance by the trial court. Chicago, M. & St. P. R. Co. v. Tompkins, 176 U. S. 169, 44 L. ed. 418, 20 Sup. Ct. Rep. 336; Owensboro v. Owensboro Waterworks Co. 191 U. S. 358, 48 L. ed. 217, 24 Sup. Ct. Rep. 82.