Court Opinion

ID: 9629837
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:50:46.314032+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:29:09.709272
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice White,
with whom concurs Mr. Justice Mr. Kenna,
dissenting.
This case, in some aspects, involves contentions supposed to have been finally decided by this court in Hardin v. Jordan, *521140 U. S. 371, and Mitchell v. Smale, 140 U. S. 406. In those cases there was a controversy between persons holding the patents of the United States to fractional lots abutting on the meander line of Wolf Lake in Illinois and those holding the patents of the United States subsequently issued to the bed of the lake. The latter patents were based upon a survey made of the bed, approved after contest in the Land Department. It was held in the cases referred to that the rights of the claimants to the bed of the lake were to be determined by the local law of Illinois. Ascertaining what the local law was, it was decided that the abutting lot owners took to the center of the lake, and hence the subsequent patents to the bed were void.
The controversy presented by this record originated from conflicting claims made in two suits (subsequently consolidated) to the bed of Wolf Lake, between Mrs. Hardin (who was the plaintiff in Hardin v. Jordan) and one of her grantees, as owners of the border lots, Shedd, (grantee of Mitchell, the plaintiff in Mitchell v. Smale,) also as an owner of border lots, and various claimants under patents of the United States based upon the survey of the bed of the lake.. Although the judgment below was against the second patentees, they have not prosecuted error. The Supreme Court of Illinois declined to apply the rule laid down by this court because it-held that this court had in Hardin v. Jordan and Mitchell v. Smale misconceived the state law. By the local law it was held that the lot owners by the conveyance to them of lots abutting on the meander line took no title whatever to the bed of the lake. It was,' however, decided that the effect of the-con-Vey anee by the United States to private persons of the border lots was to transfer the title of the bed of the lake to the State of Illinois. The doctrine of the Supreme Court of Illinois on the subject is not only shown in the opinion of that court in this case, Fuller v. Shedd, 161 Illinois, 462, but also in the subsequent case of Hammond v. Shepard, 186 Illinois, 235. In .the first case, Fuller v. Shedd, after expressly deciding that the .State of Illinois did not acquire title to the bed' of the lake under the swamp land act,, the court declined to hold “ that the grant to the riparian owner conveys the bed of non-navigable (meander) lake, and make its waters mere private waters;” *522and, further, said that,. “ so long as such meander lakes exist, over their waters, and bed when covered with water, the State exercises control, and holds the same in trust for all the people,. who.alike have benefit thereof, in fishing, boating, and the like.” In the second case, Hammond v. Shepard, the Supreme Court of Illinois said (p. 241):
“The law. of this State, as repeatedly announced, is that shore owners on meandered lakes, whether navigable or non-navigable, take title, only to the water’s edge, the bed of the .lake being in the State.
“No shore owner can take away from the State its title to the former bed of the lake unless he can establish by proof that the dry land was formed by the water receding from his shore line.”
Under the doctrine thus stated; having treated the- bed of the lake as the property of the State, the court determined the rights of the parties by reference to principles of accretion which it deemed applicable to the property in the bed of the lake owned by'the State. Now, in Kean v. Calumet Canal & Improvement Company, ante, p. 452, quite recently decided by this court, the doctrine announced in Hardin v. Jordan was reexamined, and it was in effect held that that case, whilst recognizing that the ownership of the beds of non-navigable lakes on the public domain was in the United States, simply decided that when the United' States sold lots' bordering on such a lake the question whether or not the bed of the lake passed by. the grant of the border lots was to be determined, by the principles of conveyancing in force undér the local law of the State where the lake was situated. Now, as the settled rule in Illinois.is that under the principles of conveyancing prevailing in that State no title to the bed of a lake passes to the patentees of the United States by..the sale of border lots, I do not perceive how the United States has been divested of its title to the bed. of Wolf Lake. To say that, although on the principles'of conveyancing under the local law, the bed did not pass, nevertheless, because the United States sold the border lots, the State of Illinois thereby became the owner of the bed of the lake, is, *523as I understand it, to declare that it is in .the power of the State of Illinois to appropriate the property of the United States.
The suggestion that the considerations just stated are immaterial, because, even although by the local law, the United States did not convey to the patentees of the border lots title to the bed of the lake, it may have parted with its title to the bed by the swamp lands act, involves a departure from the settled construction of the swamp lands act'to which attention was called in the dissent in Kean v. Calumet Canal & Improvement Company, ante, p. 452. Besides the disturbance of vested rights to which it seems to me such a suggestion must give rise, it must be remembered that it is directly in conflict with the opinion of the Supreme Court of Illinois in this very case, where it was expressly declared that the State did not take title to the bed of Wolf Lake under the swamp lands act, because as a matter of fact the converse had been explicitly decided by the Secretary of the Interior in a contest before the Land Department to which the State of Illinois was a party. The result of the suggestion as to the swamp lands act then, as I see it, is to cause the State of Illinois to become the owner of the bed of the lake under the swamp lands actj in derogation of the act of Congress, contrary to the rulings of this court ■and of the. Supreme Court of the State, and in disregard of the express findings of fact made by the Secretary of the Interior when he approved the second survey, and also when he rendered the decision on the contest to which the State of Illinois was a party.
I fail ■ to perceive if, as a matter of conveyancing under the local law, the title to the bed of the lake did not pass with the sale of the border lots, how the United States has lost its title. If it be conceded that the view of the local law, announced by this court in Hardin v. Jordan, was a mistaken one, and that the local law must be taken to be what the lower court held it to be in this case, then it seems to me the only foundation upon which the title of the United States to the bed of the lake , can be disputed has disappeared, since in my opinion the theory of accretion which the court below applied cannot be *524sustained either by reason, or authority. I content myself with merely stating this view, which involves the merits, and do not elaborate, because, in my opinion, if it be — as the court now decides — that the question whether thé title of .the United States to the bed of Wolf lake passed to. the State of Illinois is to be determined solely by .the local law of Illinois, as construed by the courts of that State, I do not perceive how a Federal question arises on this record, since 1 find it impossible to think that there can be a Federal question depending exclusively for its solution upon non-Federal or state law.
I am authorized to say that Mr. Justice McKenna concurs in this dissent.