Court Opinion

ID: 9306026
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-12-02 17:17:02.146347+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:13:54.643221
License: Public Domain

Ross, J.
These cases have been argued and submitted together. The suits are brought to quiet the complainants’ alleged title to certain lands and to enjoin defendant from asserting or claiming any title thereto. The lands are claimed by the defendant by virtue of the act of congress of March 3, 1871, entitled “An act to incorporate the Texas Pacific Railroad Company, and to aid in the construction of its road, and for other purposes.” 16 St. U. S. 573. By the 23d section of that act it was provided as follows:
“That for the purpose of connecting the Texas Pacific Railroad with the city of San Francisco, the Southern Pacific Railroad Company of California is. hereby authorized (subject to the laws of California) to construct a line of railroad from a point at or near Tehachapa Pass, by way of Los Angeles, to the Texas Pacific Railroad at or near the Colorado river, with the same rights, grants, and privileges, and subject to the same limitations, restrictions, and conditions as were granted to said Southern Pacific Railroad Company of California by the act of Juiy 27,1866: provided, however, that this section shall in no way affect or impair the rights, present or prospective, of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company, or any other railroad company.”
The evidence in the case shows that the defendant company accepted this grant and on the 3d of April, 1871, filed in the office of the commissioner of the general land-office, a plat showing the definite location of the road it was thereby authorized to build, and proceeded to build it and completed its construction, to the satisfaction of the government, in January, 1878. It thereby earned the lands embraced by the grant to it.- The point that the present Southern Pacific Railroad'Company is not the same Southern Pacific Railroad Company to which the act of *693March 3, 1871, applied, was decided against the government in the recent cases of U. S. v. Railroad Co. and U. S. v. Colton, etc., Co., 45 Fed. Rep. 596, (March 6, 1891.) The reasons for so holding were given at length in the opinions then rendered, and need not now be repeated.
It is admitted that the lands in controversy in the present suits are situate within 20 miles of the line of road so located and built by the Southern Pacific Company, but as they are also within 20 miles of the line that the Atlantic & Pacific .Railroad Company, under the act of congress of July 27, 1866, designated for its road, it is earnestly contended on behalf of the government that they are excluded from the grant to the Southern Pacific Company. When the cases of U. S. v. Railroad Co. and U. S. v. Colton, etc., Co., 39 Fed. Rep. 132, were before the court on demurrers to the bills — the lands then involved being within the indemnity limits of the Atlantic & Pacific grant and within the primary limits of that to the Southern Pacific Company — it was said:
“Had they been situated within 20 miles of the designated route of the Atlantic i% Pacific Company they would clearly have fallen within the grant to that company and consequently have been excluded from the subsequent grant to the Southern Pacific Company; for, if the construction above put upon the act of July 27, 1866, be the correct one, every alternate section of public land, designated by odd numbers, within 20 miles of the line of the road, as definitely fixed, would have passed to the Atlantic & Pacific Company as of the date of its grant. ”
That, though obiter, would undoubtedly have been so had the Atlantic & Pacific Company earned the lands by building the road for which the grant was made. But is it true where it appears that the road was not built and where the grant to the Atlantic & Pacific Company for that reason has been subsequently declared forfeited by congress? is the question now involved and to be decided. The grant to the Atlantic & Pacific Company was the prior grant — it having been made by the act of July 27,1866, entitled “An act granting lands to aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line in the states of Missouri and Arkansas to the Pacific coast.” 14 St. U. S. 293. By that act the Atlantic & Pacific Company was authorized to construct a railroad—
“Beginning at or near the town of Springfield, in the state of Missouri, thence to the western boundary of said state, and thence, by the most eligible railroad route as shall be determined by the said company, to a point on the Canadian river; thence to the town of Albuquerque on the river Del Norte, and thence by way of the Agua Frio or other suitable pass to the headwaters of the Colorado Chiquito, and thence along the 35th parallel of latitude, as near as may be found most suitable for a railroad route, to the Colorado river at such point as may b> selected by said company for crossing: thence by the most practicable and eligib.e route to the Pacific.”
To aid in the construction of the road there was granted to the Atlantic & Pacific Company, by the third section of the act, every alternate section of public land, not mineral, designated by odd numbers, to the amount of 10 sections on each side of the road whenever it passes through a state—
“And whenever on the line thereof the United States have full title, not reserved, sold, granted, or otherwise appropriated, and free from pre-emption *694or other-claims or rights, at the time the line of said road is designated by a plat thereof filed in the office of the-commissioner of the general land-office, and whenever,” etc.
The Atlantic & Pacific Company did nothing towards locating its line of road in California until March 12,1872, and never did do anything towards building it; in consequence of which congress, in 1886, passed an act declaring its land grant forfeited. In the mean time, that is to say, March 3, 1871, the grant under which the defendant company claims the lands in controversy was made. Those lands were at that date public lands of the United States, for it is not pretended that the Atlantic & Pacific Company designated the route of its road prior to March, 1872, and its grant, as has been seen, was only for such public lands, designated by odd numbers and non-mineral in character, as should i’all within the designated limits and be, at the time the line of its road should be designated by a plat thereof filed in the office of the commissioner of the general land-office, not reserved, sold, granted, or otherwise appropriated and i'ree from pre-emption or other claims or rights. No valid reason, therefore, existed why congress could not include the lands in controversy in the grant it made to the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. Did it do so? The act of March 3, 1871, refers to that of July 27, 1866, for the terms of the grant thereby made to the Southern Pacific Company to aid it in building a road from a point at or near Tehachapi Pass, by way of Los Angeles, to the Texas Pacific Railroad at or near the Colorado river, for the purpose of connecting the Texas Pacific Railroad with the city of San Francisco. The grant was for 10 odd-numbered sections of public land, not mineral, on each side of the road. As has already been said, the lands in controversy here were at that time public lands of the United States. They are within 20 miles of the line of road the Southern Pacific Company was by the act of March 3, 1871, authorized to locate and build and which it did locate and build and which the government accepted as having been built in compliance with the terms of that act and which-it has since used for its own purposes. The lands in controversy are therefore within the primary limits of that grant and justly belong to the Southern Pacific Company unless there be something in the act of March 3,1871, excluding them from the grant thereby made to it. It is urged that such exclusion is effected by the concluding clause of the section making the grant, which is in these words: “Provided, however, that this section shall in no way affect or impair the rights, present or prospective, of the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad Company, or any other railroad company.”
It is plain that this clause is not in the form of an exception from the grant. Congress was, of course, aware of its previous grant to the Atlantic & Pacific Company of date July 27, 1866, and being desirous of making that to the Southern Pacific Company subordinate and subject to its previous grants, inserted the proviso that thé grant to the Southern Pacific Company should “in no way affect or impair the rights, present or prospective, of the Atlantic & Pacific Company, or any other railroad company.” This is by no means saying, nor is it the equivalent of say*695ing, that any public lands of the United States that would otherwise be embraced by the grant to the Southern Pacific Company should be excluded from that grant. It was not to reserve anything to the United States, but to protect the “present and prospective” rights of the Atlantic & Pacific Company and any other railroad company to which congress may have made grants of lands that the proviso was inserted. Had the line of road the Atlantic & Pacific Company was authorized to build by the act of July 27, 1866, been definitely located at the time of the grant to the Southern Pacific Company of March 3, 1871, and had the Atlantic & Pacific Company thereafter built its road and thereby earned the lands covered by its grant, the lands in controversy would have gone to it without regard to the proviso in question; for its grant which would have attached to such lands at the time of the definite location of the route of its road would have been perfected by the building of the road and the title thus perfected have related back to the date of the grant, July 27, 1866, and of course have excluded any subsequent grant covering the same lands. But the Atlantic & Pacific Company had not designated the route of its road at the time of the grant to the Southern Pacific Company of March 3, 1871. It might do so, however, thereafter and might build the road it was authorized to build and thereby earn the lands embraced by the grant to it of July 27, 1866. It had a “present and prospective ” right to do so. If it did both of those things, it would be entitled to the lands granted to it by that act. If it did not do both of those things, it would not be so entitled and the lands would remain as they then were, public lands of the United States. Congress, therefore, in making its grant to the Southern Pacific Company of March 3, 1871, made it subject to those “present and prospective” rights. Had they been perfected by a compliance on the part of the Atlantic & Pacific Company with the conditions on which they were based, the title to the lands in controversy would have become vested in the Atlantic & Pacific Company as of date July 27, 1866. But as that company never did comply with the conditions of the grant and as all of its rights thereunder became forfeited in 1886 by act of congress because of such noncompliance, there remain no rights of that company to be, or that ever can be, affected or impaired by the grant to the Southern Pacific Company of March 3, 1871. The proviso to the twenty-third section of that act, in my opinion, was only intended to protect, and its scope went only to the protection of, the rights of the Atlantic & Pacific Company and any other railroad company t,o which congress had previously made a grant. It was not intended to reserve to the United States any land that would otherwise be included in the granting clause of the act. The lands in controversy were public lands of the United States at the time of that grant; the terms of the granting clause include them, provided, only, that the grant be without prejudice to the present or prospective rights of the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad Company, or any other railroad company. The Atlantic & Pacific Company having forfeited its right to earn the lands in question by failing to build the road it was required to build as a consideration for the grant, it never acquired any title thereto *696and thenceforward there remained no right, “present or prospective,” to be affected or impaired. When its rights became forfeited (there being no pretense that' the case is affected by the rights of any other railroad company than those herein spoken of) there came to an end the only condition imposed by congress upon the grant to the Southern Pacific Company of Maxell 3, 1.871.
These views render it unnecessary to determine the question elaborately and ably argued by counsel as to whether there ever was a valid designation of the route of the proposed road of the Atlantic & Pacific Company.
I concur in the dismissal of the amended bill in each case, without costs, and wish to add that I would not have written this brief opinion had X known the circuit judge was engaged in the preparation of an opinion; but as each of us reached the same conclusion in a separate examination of the cases, at his suggestion both opinions are filed.