Opinion ID: 1145227
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the cross-appeal as to the hansen property

Text: The patent for the Hansen parcel was issued to Hansen's predecessor-in-interest on June 1, 1950, under the Homestead Act. The homestead entry was made on January 23, 1945, before the promulgation of any of the land orders previously discussed, and before passage of 48 U.S.C. § 321d. The patent to the Hansen property does not contain a section 321d reservation. The PLO 601 withdrawal was expressly subject to valid existing rights. 14 Fed. Reg. 5048 (1949). Homestead entries have been held to give rise to valid existing rights, [16] although those rights may not in all cases take priority over intervening government acts. [17] Here, however, there is no doubt of the intention to except prior homestead entries from PLO 601. As we have noted, PLO 601 was promulgated pursuant to 43 U.S.C. § 141. 43 U.S.C. § 142 states that there shall be excepted from the force and effect of any withdrawal made under the provisions of ... section 141 ... all lands which are, on the date of such withdrawal, embraced in any lawful homestead ... entry... . Since entry was in 1945, and the first withdrawal occurred in 1949, Hansen's predecessor-in-interest, as an entryman, had rights superior to the withdrawals. Section 321d has no effect on the Hansen property. The mandatory reservation required by this statute was limited to patents for lands hereafter taken up, entered, or located in the Territory of Alaska, ... (emphasis added). Since the Hansen land was entered in 1945, it was not hereafter entered and thus was excluded from the operation of that statute. This is consistent with the absence of the section 321d reservation in the Hansen patent, and also consistent with its presence in the patents to the other two parcels of land involved in this appeal where entry occurred after July 24, 1947, the date on which section 321d was adopted. Thus, for reasons different from those articulated by the superior court, the second paragraph of the declaratory judgment is affirmed as to the Hansen parcel.