United States v. Beebe

Citation32 L.Ed. 121,8 S.Ct. 1083,127 U.S. 338
PartiesUNITED STATES v. BEEBE et al . 1
Decision Date30 April 1888
CourtUnited States Supreme Court

[Statement of Case from pages 338-341 intentionally omitted] H. M. Baker, for appellant.

U. M. Rose and S. W. Williams, for appellees.

Mr. Justice LAMAR, after stating the facts as above, delivered the opinion of the court.

The points involved in the pleadings and made before the court below have been presented and urged with much earnestness, both in the brief and in the oral argument of counsel.

*1. As to the right of the attorney general to bring this suit. The authority of the attorney general, under the constitution and laws of the United States, to institute a suit in the name of the United States to set aside a patent alleged to have been obtained by fraud or other mistake, whenever denied by a specific pleading before this court, has been uniformily maintained. And it may now be accepted as settled that the United States can properly proceed by bill in equity to have a judicial decree of nullity and an order of cancellation of a patent issued in mistake, or obtained by fraud, where the government has a direct interest, or is under an obligation respecting the relief invoked. See the opinion of the court delivered by Mr. Justice MILLER in U. S. v. San Jacinto Tin Co., ante, 850, (decided this term of the court.) Even if it had not been thus authoritatively settled, it would have been difficult, upon principle, to reach any other conclusion. The public domain is held by the government as part of its trust. The government is charged with the duty, and clothed with the power, to protect it from trespass and unlawful appropriation, and, under certain circumstances, to invest the individual citizen with the sole possession of the title which had till then been common to all the people as the beneficiaries of the trust. If a patent is wrongfully issued to one individual which should have been issued to another, or if two patents for the same land have been issued to two different individuals, it may properly be left to the individuals to settle, by personal litigation, the question of right in which they alone are interested. But if it should come to the knowledge of the government that a patent has been fraudulently obtained, and that such fraudulent patent, if allowed to stand, would work prejudice to the interests or rights of the United States, or would prevent the government from fulfilling an obligation incurred by it, either to the public or to an individual, which personal litigation could not remedy, there would be an occasion which would make it the duty of the government to institute judicial proceedings to vacate such patent. In the case before us the bill avers that the patents whose cancellation is asked for were obtained by fraud and imposition on the part of the patentee, Beebe. It asserts that there exists, on the part of the United States, an obligation to issue patents to the rightful owners of the lands described in the bill; that they cannot perform this obligation until these fraudulent patents and annulled: and that they, therefore, bring this suit to annul these fraudulent instruments. whose existence renders the United States incapable of fulfilling their said prior obligation. The court below held that the bill in this case having been filed on the recommendation of the secretary of the interior, for the declared purpose of having the questions which were being pressed upon the land department, in connection with the claims of the Philbrook heirs against the government, determined by the judicial department, which claims were unsettled and important, the appeal to the court was proper. In this we think the learned judge is in full accord with the principle laid down by Mr. Justiee MILLER in the San Jacinto Tin Co. Case, and within the following language of the court in Hughes v. U. S., 4 Wall. 236, which was a suit brought in the name of the United States to set aside a patent for the benefit of a private citizen entitled to the land covered by said patent. Mr. Justice FIELD, who delivered the opinion of the court, speaking of the patent to Hughes, said: 'Whether regarded in that aspect, or as a void instrument, issued without authority, it prima facie passed the title, and therefore it was the plain duty of the United States to seek to vacate and annul the instrument, to the end that their previous engagement be fulfilled by the transfer of a clear title, the one intended for the purchaser by the act of congress.' Unless, therefore, it appears on the face of the bill that the claim set up has no equity, or that there are valid defenses to the suit, the jurisdiction of the court to entertain it cannot be denied.

Next, as to the defense of the statute of limitations, laches, and lapse of time. The grounds on which the court below sustained the demurrer were (1) that distinct from and independent of the statute of limitations, and the laches of the public officers of the government, the lapse of time constitutes a good defense to this suit, upon those principles of equity which would be administered as between two citizens litigating in this tribunal; and (2) that the United States is bound by the same law. The counsel for the complainant maintain that this conclusion, upon which the decree of dismissal rests, is erroneous, and contrary to the decisions of this court, and of every circuit and district court in the United States. The principle that the United States are not bound by any statute of limitations, nor barred by any laches of their officers, however gross, in a suit brought by them as a sovereign government to enforce a public right, or to assert a public interest, is extablished past all controversy or doubt. U. S. v. Railway Co., 118 U. S. 125, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1006, and cases there cited. But this case stands upon a different footing, and presents a different question. The question is, are these defenses available to the defendant in a case where the government, although a nominal complainant party, has no real interest in the litigation, but has allowed its name to be used therein for the sole benefit of a private person?

It has been not unusual for this court, for the purposes of justice, to determine the real parties to a suit by reference, not merely to the names in which it is brought, but to the facts of the case as they appear on the record. Thus, in the case decided at this term, (In re Ayers, 123 U. S. 492, 493, ante, 164,) the court held that the state of Virginia, though not named as a party defendant, was the actual party in the controversy. Mr. Justice MATTHEWS, who delivered the opinion, said: 'It is therefore not conclusive of the principal question in this case that the state of Virginia is not named as a party defendant. Whether it is the actual party * * * must be determined by a consideration of the nature of the case as presented on the whole record.' So, in the cases of New Hampshire v. Louisiana and New...

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