Court Opinion

ID: 9687456
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:28:30.588902+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:27.519576
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing.
TEIGEN, Judge.
The defendant Margaret H. Erling has petitioned for a rehearing. The petition is limited to property claimed by her described as Lots 1 and 2, and the Northeast Quarter of the Northwest Quarter of Section 8. This is a portion of the tract described in the receiver’s receipt issued to Ireland in 1873. There are no new issues raised in the petition that have not been considered and disposed of in the original opinion, with the possible exception of one to which we will devote some consideration.
The petitioner points to 43 U.S.C.A., Sec. 1165, the pertinent parts which provide as follows:
* * * That after the lapse of two years from the date of the issuance of the receipt of such officer as the Secretary of the Interior may designate upon the final entry of any tract of land under the * * * pre-emption laws, or under the Act of March 3, 1891, and when there shall be no pending contest or protest against the validity of such entry, the entryman shall be entitled to a patent conveying the land by him entered, and the same shall be issued to him; * * *.
*415The petitioner argues that we must recognize, as to the receipt issued to Ireland, a significant matter of law contemporaneous with the inception of title was the two-year statute of limitations quoted above. We do not think so.
The record in this case discloses that the pre-emptor, Ireland, filed a declaratory statement on May 13, 1873, in which he stated the date of settlement was April 6, 1872, and thereafter he paid the required amount by surrendering a military bounty land warrant issued to Esther Wykoff and payment. A receipt was issued to him by the receiver on August 18, 1873. The record also discloses that the entry was not allowed because Ireland failed to make the necessary pre-emption proof and, therefore, the allowance was denied. The land remained a part of the public domain. The two-year statute of limitations was enacted in 1891, C. 561, Sec. 7, 26 Stat. 1098. It would be presumptuous for us to speculate that the Land Department adjudication denying the allowance was made after 1891, more than eighteen years after the issuance of the receipt. The record before us makes no such disclosure. In fact, it discloses that the lands in question were listed as public lands in the late 1880’s on the records of the Land Department, which was after the issuance of the receipt and before the • enactment of the statute. We believe it is reasonable to conclude the denial was made prior to that date.
For the petitioner, Margaret H. Erling, to successfully invoke the two-year federal statute of limitations, she has the burden to produce evidence to support it. This has not been done and, on the basis of the record in this case, we find no genuine issue as to any material fact on this question.
For these reasons, rehearing is denied.
STRUTZ, C. J., and ERICKSTAD, KNUDSON and PAULSON, JJ., concur.