Case Name: Charles F. Guenther, Jr. v. J. T. Robison, Commissioner of General Land Office
Court: Supreme Court of Texas
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1929-06-05
Citations: 118 Tex. 485
Docket Number: No. 5730. Motion No. 8609
Parties: Charles F. Guenther, Jr. v. J. T. Robison, Commissioner of General Land Office.
Judges: 
Reporter: Texas Reports
Volume: 118
Pages: 485–491

Head Matter:
Charles F. Guenther, Jr. v. J. T. Robison, Commissioner of General Land Office.
No. 5730. Motion No. 8609.
Decided June 5, 1929.
(17 S. W., 2d Series, 765.)
J. B. Lewright, Walter P. Luck and R. J. Randolph, for relator.
T. G. Hendrick was not the owner of the land at the date of the forfeiture, but the title and ownership rested in the separate estate of his wife, and she alone had the preference right to repurchase, and having declined to exercise her right, the sale to her husband was like a sale to any other stranger, unauthorized and absolutely void.
It is clearly apparent that the Repurchasing Act contemplates ownership of the mineral estate by the State in event the owner at the date of forfeiture should not exercise his right to repurchase, the only disposition of the land otherwise authorized being with mineral reservation.
The land was not only not off the market during the year but the minerals therein were not beyond the application for an oil and gas permit. An unauthorized sale is void, and does not have the effect of placing the lands or the minerals outside of the law pertaining to their disposition. Briggs v. Key, 30 C. A., 565.
As Relator understands the present case it is not one to require the commissioner to adjudicate the title to titled land, but is merely to require him to correct an error made in an adjudication by him prior to the issuance of a patent, an adjudication that the statute required him to make, and one which he is fully competent to review as in the state of facts suggested above by Judge Gaines.
The land in controversy was not titled land when relator’s application was filed, and not being such it was on the market for sale, because that statute does not withhold land from sale unless it is titled land. The result was Relator secured a vested right to the ' land before it was titled by the patent.
If by issuing a patent to land after an adverse application has been filed, the Commissioner can make the land titled land within the meaning of the statute and the constitutional provision cited, as against the adverse applicant, such adverse applicant’s rights are thereby adjudicated and terminated, as by such act of the Commissioner the land is withdrawn from sale under the terms of the said statute with retroactive effect, and an action of trespass to try title is not available, and the applicant has been deprived of his. rights without his day in court.
Claude Pollard, Attorney-General, and C. W. Trueheart, Assistant, for respondent
cited the per curiam opinion refusing leave to file in Ray v. Robison, Newman v. Robison and McCook v. Robison, ante, p. 331.
A mandamus proceeding in this court as against the head of a department of State Government is emphatically not á review, either i of his executive or his incidental judicial functions, but simply and purely an ascertainment, with a view to his compulsion, of a clear unmistakable ministerial duty under the law, which involves no exercise of discretion and leaves no alternative. DePoyster v. Baker, 89 Texas, 155; Caven v. Coleman, 100 Texas, 467; Insurance Co. v. Love, 102 Texas, 277; Houston Tap Ry. Co. v. Randolph, 24 Texas, 332; Lacey v. State Banking Board, 11 S. W. (2nd) 499.
No such clear unmistakable ministerial duty can be said, to exist, involving no exercise of discretion and leaving no alternative duty, where an adverse patent stands as an apparent impediment and the Land Commissioner is to be required either to disregard it or declare it void and to grant rights in conflict with it.

Opinion:
Mr. Presiding Judge HARVEY
delivered the opinion of the Commission of Appeals, Section A.
Undpr leave granted by the Supreme Court, the relator, Chas. F. Guenther, Jr., filed his application for mandamus to compel respondent, J. T.. Robison, State Land Commissioner, to issue to relator a permit to explore for oil and gas certain land in Winkler County, which is alleged to be unsold public school land. After the filing of the application for mandamus the respondent filed motion seeking to have the leave to file withdrawn and the application dismissed. This motion has been referred to us and we have heard arguments of counsel thereon.
The substance of the fact averments of the application for mandamus, so far as» necessary to be stated here, is as follows:
In the year 1906 the land in question belonged to the public school fund. In that year the state sold the land to one R. D. Dorward, who executed his obligations to the state for the unpaid purchase money as prescribed by law. The land was sold to Dorward under the classification of dry grazing land. By mesne conveyances the land passed from Dorward to Ida Hendrick, wife of T. H. Hendrick. In September, 1925, several annual interest installments on the purchase money debt due the state, were past due and unpaid. The Land Commissioner duly declared the land forfeited for non-payment of interest. Ida Hendrick who owned the land, in her separate right, at the time of the forfeiture, did not seek to re-purchase the land. Her husband did make application to repurchase, as owner of the land at the time of the forfeiture, and the land was awarded to him as such in March, 1926. Deeds showing Mrs. Hendrick to have been the owner of the land at the time of said forfeiture, were on file in the Land Office, along with the application of T. H. Hendrick, at the time of such award and at the time patent thereon was issued as hereinafter stated. The proceedings relative to the application of T. H. Hendrick and the award to him, conformed to the requirements of the statutes which relate to the re-purchase, by the "owner" at the time of forfeiture, of school land which had been forfeited for non-payment of interest. In January, 1927, the relator made application to the Land Commissioner for a permit to explore said land for oil and gas. He complied with all statutory requirements in that respect. The Land Commissioner refused to grant the permit. Sometime afterwards, a patent for the land, based upon the sale to T. H. Hendrick in March, 1926, was issued in due form to the assignee of Hendrick.
The claimants under the patent are parties to this mandamus proceeding, as co-respondents. The patent still is outstanding, and the rights of the claimants thereunder are not shown to have been adjudicated. This proceeding for mandamus originated after the patent was issued. The respondent's motion to dismiss the proceed ing is based solely on the ground that said patent has been issued and still outstands. The relator insists that because T. H. Hendrick was not the "owner" of the land at the time of the forfeiture for non-payment of interest, and because such fact appeared of record in the land office when the award to him was made, the award was and is void, and the land is subject to relator's application for an oil and gas permit. He further claims that because of the above facts the patent is void, and therefore can not furnish ground for dismissal of his application for mandamus.
The authority to execute patents to land emanating from the state is placed by law in the Governor and the Land Commissioner. A consideration of this motion does not call for an inquiry as to the valid exercise of this authority in respect of the particular patent in question, but the controlling question is whether authority to annul the instrument, after execution thereof has been completed by issuance, is held by the Land Commissioner. Conceding that the acts of the Governor and the Land Commissioner, relating to the patent, were of a ministerial nature, nevertheless the patent, prior to the commencement of this proceeding for mandamus, had become, a muniment of title under an executed sale. No law can be found which undertakes to authorize the Land Commissioner, except at the instance of patent holders in cases specified in the statutes, to annul any patent which has been fully executed by the proper officials. This requires the exercise of judicial authority. No such authority appertains to his office, and no duty in this respect rests upon him. The patent in question stands as a barrier to- the issuance of the permit sought by the relator. The title evidenced by the patent cannot be adjudicated in this proceeding. Ray v. Robison (recently decided by the Supreme Court); Fitzgerald v. Robison, 110 Texas, 468; O'Keefe v. Robison, 116 Texas, 398.
The case of Jones v. Robison, 104 Texas, 70, is distinguishable on principle from the instant case, and those cited above, by the important fact that the patent involved in the Jones case was issued after the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court had attached to the subject-matter of the controversy.
If the patent in question be void as claimed, and if the relator be vested with prior rights which are injuriously affected, a remedy is available; but that remedy does not lie in the present proceeding.
We recommend that the leave to file the application for mandamus be withdrawn and the application dismissed.