Opinion ID: 1495644
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Appellees' patents embody the plats showing their upland borders in Malheur Lake, and hence by their terms convey the adjoining land in the lake bottom. The suit, in effect, is one to cancel fourteen patents as to part of the land they convey in which an exceptional heavy burden rests upon the United States.

Text: It is agreed by the parties that the Oregon law controls the transfers of land by the patents and that if the fractional lots, which contain no reservation or exception of the lake land, are bounded (as described in the Roosevelt map) by the mean or ordinary high water mark of the shores of Malheur Lake, they also conveyed to the patentees the land in the bed of the lake bounded by the shore line of the patent and two lines from the opposite ends of the shore line to the lake's center. The fourteen underlying patents on which the defendants rely are not in evidence. However, their terms are known and found by the district court. A homestead and a desert land patent for the lands in the Malheur Lake area are in evidence as typical of the others. In such homestead and desert land patents, after the description of the irregular lots, appears the words according to the official plat of the survey of the said lands returned to the General Land Office by the surveyor general. The plats thereby became parts of the instruments of conveyance. The Supreme Court holds that a meandered water boundary of a non-navigable lake shown on the plat referred to in the patent made the shore of the lake the true upland boundary, and that the patent conveyed the title to the center of the lake, reasoning as follows: The patent itself does not contain all the particulars of the survey, but the grant of the lands is recited to be according to the official plat of the survey of said lands, returned to the general land office by the surveyor general, thereby adopting the plat as a part of the instrument. (Emphasis supplied) Hardin v. Jordan, 140 U.S. 371, 380, 11 S.Ct. 808, 811, 35 L.Ed. 428. This case was followed in Chapman & Dewey Co. v. St. Francis Levee Dist., 232 U.S. 186, 197, 34 S.Ct. 297, 299, 58 L.Ed. 564, holding that such plats and the data thereon are as much to be considered in determining what it [the patent] is intended to include as if they were set forth in the patent. Cragin v. Powell, 128 U.S. 691, 696, 9 S.Ct. 203, 32 L.Ed. 566. Following Hardin v. Jordan, supra, the Supreme Court defines in detail the function of a platted meander line of a water boundary and reiterates the rule that the plat is a part of the patent, holding    The difficulty of following the edge or margin of such projections, and all the various sinuosities of the water line, is the very occasion and cause of ruling the meander line, which by its exclusions and inclusions of such irregularities of contour produces an average result closely approximating to the truth as to the quantity of upland contained in the fractional lots bordering on the lake or stream. The official plat made from such survey does not show the meander line, but shows the general form of the lake deduced therefrom, and the surrounding fractional lots adjoining and bordering on the same. The patents when issued refer to this plat for identification of the lots conveyed, and are equivalent to and have the legal effect of a declaration that they extend to and are bounded by the lake or stream. Such lake or stream itself, as a natural object or monument, is virtually and truly one of the calls of the description or boundary of the premises conveyed; and all the legal consequences of such a boundary, in the matter of riparian rights and title to land under water, regularly follow. Mitchell v. Smale, 140 U.S. 406, 413, 11 S.Ct. 819, 821, 840, 35 L.Ed. 442. The rule as stated in Mitchell v. Smale is approved in the more recent case of United States v. Lane, 260 U.S. 662, 665, 43 S.Ct. 236, 67 L.Ed. 448. Each of these basic patents thus shows the lake as a naturally fixed call of the boundary to which the patented land extends. Hence the patents on their face assure the homesteader that his land is bounded by the lake, even though in any particular case the figured survey calls of the patent may not reach it. Typical of these plat portions of the patent is that covering the lands of two of the present owners in Township 26 South, Range 32 East. It will be noted that the shore line in the lake is the same as that in the Roosevelt map of Lake Malheur. It will be noted also that the plat does not make the field notes of the survey a part of the patent. Instead, on its face, it contains plaintiff's administrative determination (and assurance to the homesteader) that it has been accepted by the Commissioner of the General Land Office and also plaintiff's administrative determination by the United States Surveyor General for Oregon that the plat is strictly conformable to the field notes of the [Neal's] survey thereof on file in this Office, which have been examined and approved. [1] The weight of these administrative decisions in supporting the title of such homesteaders has always been recognized by the Supreme Court. Recent adjudication clarifying administrative law has given ever broader recognition of such decisions. Cf. Railroad Commission v. Rowan & Nichols Oil Co., 311 U.S. 570, 575, 61 S.Ct. 343, 85 L.Ed. 358. Since each patent by its terms thus shows at one of its boundaries the admittedly non-navigable lake, it transfers the land to the center of the lake. The suit here is, in effect, to cancel fourteen such patents of the lake lands. In such a case the United States has a more than the ordinary burden of proof. To avoid such solemn evidences of title emanating from the government of the United States under its official seal requires the observance of the early established rule that it cannot be done upon a bare preponderance of evidence which leaves the issue in doubt even more than in suits between private parties for such cancellations. Only that class of evidence which commands respect, and that amount of it which produces conviction, shall make such an attempt successful. United States v. Maxwell Land-Grant Co., 121 U.S. 325, 381, 382, 7 S.Ct. 1015, 1029, 30 L.Ed. 949. This burden on the United States seeking to cancel a patent is again held in Wright-Blodgett Co. v. United States, 236 U.S. 397, 403, 35 S.Ct. 339, 341, 59 L.Ed. 637, as follows:    Where a patent is obtained by false and fraudulent proofs submitted for the purpose of deceiving the officers of the government, and of thus obtaining public lands without compliance with the requirements of the law, while the patent is not void or subject to collateral attack, it may be directly assailed in a suit by the government against the parties claiming under it. In such case, the respect due to a patent, the presumption that all the preceding steps required by the law had been observed before its issue, and the immense importance of stability of titles dependent upon these instruments, demand that suit to cancel them should be sustained only by proof which produces conviction. United States v. Minor, 114 U. S. 233, 239, 5 S.Ct. 836, 29 L.Ed. 110, 112; Maxwell Land-Grant Case [United States v. Maxwell Land-Grant Co.], 121 U.S. 325, 381, 7 S.Ct. 1015, 30 L.Ed. 949, 959; United States v. Stinson, 197 U.S. 200, 204, 205, 25 S.Ct. 426, 49 L.Ed. 724, 725; Diamond Coal Co. v. United States, 233 U.S. 236, 239, 34 S.Ct. 507, 58 L.Ed. 936, 939. (Emphasis supplied). The incidence of the burden and the quantum of proof is a procedural matter and the decision in Wright-Blodgett Co. v. United States controls in a suit in the district court to set aside a patent of lands. It is true that the Supreme Court has held that patents embodying fraudulently procured or grossly erroneously approved plats with meandered boundaries do not convey the land abutting the meander. However, it is significant of the heavy burden in such cases that in none has the Supreme Court reversed a decision holding the boundary a true meander line. In all, the affirmances were after both lower federal and state courts had held there was fraud or gross error. In the latest of these, speaking of the rule which made the meandered plat referred to in the patent as a part of the conveyance and the water itself constitutes the boundary, the court describes the burden of proof, saying the rule will not be applied where, as here, the facts conclusively show that no body of water existed or exists at or near the place indicated on the plat or where, as here, there never was, in fact, an attempt to survey the land in controversy. (Emphasis supplied). Jeems Bayou Club v. United States, 260 U.S. 561, 564, 43 S.Ct. 205, 206, 67 L.Ed. 402. In Lee Wilson & Co. v. United States, 245 U.S. 24, 29, 38 S.Ct. 21, 23, 62 L.Ed. 128, the plat was held not a part of the patent as the result of the conclusive finding [ of fact ] as to the mistake committed concerning the existence of the lake and the consequent error in the survey. [2] It is with this character of the burden to show that the homestead and desert land patents do not convey the lake land included in the plats embodied in the patent, that is to be considered the plaintiff's claim of error in the district court's affirmative finding That at the time the said Neal survey was made, approved and platted as herein stated, each of the lots and tracts of land made fractional by the survey and meander line then bordered upon was riparian to Malheur Lake, as shown by the plats and field notes filed in the General Land Office of the United States, and in the local land office where such lands were situated.