62 1130 United States v. St Paul Ry Co

• Decision Date: 03 June 1918
• Docket Number: No. 75,75
• Citation: 38 S.Ct. 525,247 U.S. 310
• Parties: 62 L Ed. 1130 UNITED STATES v. ST. PAUL, M. & M. RY. CO. et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

247 U.S. 310

38 S.Ct. 525

62 L Ed. 1130

UNITED STATES

v ST. PAUL, M. & M. RY. CO. et al.

No. 75.

Argued Jan. 15 and 16, 1918.

Decided June 3, 1918.

Mr. Assistant Attorney General Kearful, for the United States.

Messrs. I. Parker Veazey, Jr., of Great Falls, Mont., and E. C. Lindley, of St. Paul, Minn., for appellees.

Mr. Justice PITNEY delivered the opinion of the Court.

This was a suit by the United States to annul a patent issued June 24, 1907, to the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway Company (referred to below as the Manitoba Company), for certain lands in the state of Montana, upon the ground of fraud and mistake—fraud on the part of the agents of the company in representing that the land was nonmineral in character, and mistake on the part of the officers of the Land Department in failing to notify the register and receiver of the local land office that the lands had been classified as mineral and the classification sustained by the Secretary of the Interior under the act of February 26, 1895 (chapter 131, 28 Stat. 683). The District Court granted a motion to dismiss the bill upon the ground that the suit was barred by the proviso of section 1 of the act of March 2, 1896 (chapter 39, 29 Stat. 42 [Comp. St. 1916, § 4901]); and its decision was affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals, 225 Fed. 27, 139 C. C. A. 301.

It appears that by act of March 3, 1857 (chapter 99, 11 Stat. 195), certain public lands were granted to the territory of Minnesota for the purpose of aiding in the construction of railroads, and the Manitoba Company afterwards succeeded to the rights and privileges of the territory under the granting act. At the time of the grant the Missouri river formed the western boundary of the territory; but in the following year the state of Minnesota was admitted into the Union, with its western boundary fixed on a line some distance east of that river (Act of May 11, 1858, ch. 31, 11 Stat. 285); the excluded land being left to become a part of the territory of Dakota (Act March 2, 1861, c. 86, 12 Stat. 239), afterwards admitted as the states of North Dakota and South Dakota. After the admission of Minnesota, the Land Department, in the administration of the land grant, rejected the claim of the Manitoba Company to lands within the limits of the grant but without the limits of that state, and recognized the rights of settlers and purchasers to Dakota lands within the limits of the grant. In St. Paul, etc., Railway Co. v. Phelps (1890) 137 U. S. 528, 11 Sup. Ct. 168, 34 L. Ed. 767, this court set aside the departmental construction and sustained the company's claim to the Dakota lands. To obviate the resulting hardships to settlers and patentees, Congress passed an act of August 5, 1892 (chapter 382, 27 Stat. 390), providing that the Secretary of the Interior should cause to be prepared and delivered to the Manitoba Company a list of the lands claimed by purchasers or occupants, and, that the company should be permitted to select in lieu of these 'an equal quantity of nonmineral public lands, so classified as nonmineral at the time of actual government survey * * * not reserved and to which no adverse right or claim shall have attached or have been initiated at the time of the making of such selection lying within any state into or through which the railway owned by said railway company runs, to the extent of the lands so relinquished and released.' The Montana lands here in question were selected by the company in March, 1906, and patented to it in June, 1907, in lieu of Dakota lands relinquished by the company pursuant to its acceptance of the act of 1892.

There is no question but that the bill of complaint sets forth sufficient grounds of fraud and mistake to warrant the annulment of the patent, were it not for the bar set up under the act of March 2, 1896; and whether that bar applies is the sole matter presented for decision upon this appeal.

The act is entitled 'An act to provide for the extension of he time within which suits may be brought to vacate and annul and patents, and for other purposes,' and its first section reads as follows:

'Be it enacted * * * That suits by the United States to vacate and annul any patent to lands heretofore erroneously issued under a railroad or wagon road grant shall only be brought within five years from the passage of this act, and suits to vacate and annul patents hereafter issued shall only be brought within six years after the date of the issuance of such patents, and the limitation of section eight of chapter five hundred and sixty-one of the acts of the second session of the Fifty-First Congress and amendments thereto¹ is extended accordingly as to the patents herein referred to. But no patent to any lands held by a bona fide purchaser shall be vacated or annulled, but the right and title of such purchaser is hereby confirmed: Provided, that no suit shall be brought or maintained, nor shall recovery be had for lands or the value thereof, that were certified or patented in lieu of other lands covered by a grant which were lost or relinquished by the grantee in consequence of the failure of the government or its officers to withdraw the same from sale or entry.' Comp. St. 1916, § 4901.

Laying aside other questions raised by the government, we have reached the conclusion that, having regard to the general principle which requires a strict construction to be given to legislation in derogation of the public right, and in view of the legislative history of this particular enactment, the proviso must be given the effect of a curative measure confined to lands theretofore patented, and not granting dispensation for frauds or mistakes thereafter occurring.

It will be observed that the proviso is not a mere statute of limitation, but an absolute bar of suits by the United States; not merely of suits to vacate and annul patents, but of suits to recover either the land or the value thereof; not merely in favor of bona fide purchasers, but also of the immediate recipient of an unlawful certification or patent. The general principle of public policy applicable to all governments, that the public interest should not be prejudiced by the negligence or default of public officers, which underlies the rule of strict construction for statutes of limitation, applies with peculiar force to a statute of this character. United States v. Knight, 14 Pet. 301, 315, 10 L. Ed. 465; Gibson v. Chouteau, 13 Wall. 92, 99, 20 L. Ed. 534; United States v. Thompson, 98 U. S. 486, 489, 25 L. Ed. 194; Fink v. O'Neil, 106 U. S. 272, 281, 1 Sup. Ct. 325, 27 L. Ed. 196; United States v. Nashville, etc., Ry. Co., 118 U. S. 120, 125, 6 Sup. Ct. 1006, 30 L. Ed. 81; United States v. Whited & Wheless, 38 Sup. Ct. 367, 246 U. S. 552, 62 L. Ed. ——.

If the language of the proviso stood alone:

'That no suit shall be brought or maintained, nor shall recovery be had for lands or the value thereof, that were certified or patented in lieu of other lands covered by a grant which were lost or relinquished by the grantee in consequence of the failure of the government or its officers to withdraw the same from sale or entry'

—it hardly would be questioned that the rule of strict construction would confine its effect to past cases presumably known to the lawmaker. Aside from a nice grammatical criticism based upon the use of the imperfect tense, full effect can be given to its language by treating it as a validation of the title of lieu lands theretofore certified or patented under the conditions mentioned. The very particular specification of the circumstances under which it was to apply, with resulting narrowness of its scope, tends to negative the inference that it was designed to lay down a general policy for the future. It conveys rather the impression of a curative measure, upon which the general presumption that legislation is intended to operate prospectively and not retrospectively can have little if any bearing.

It is said that t is view is untenable because in the former part of the section specific reference is made to patents 'heretofore erroneously issued' and to 'patents hereafter issued,' and if Congress had intended to limit the proviso to lands certified or patented before the passage of the act it would have used appropriate and specific language for the purpose. The suggestion has weight, but we cannot regard it as determinative, in view of opposing considerations. Looking at the section as a whole, it will be seen that the proviso expresses a thought so different from what precedes that it seems almost like a separate provision inserted here for convenience, and without much regard for structural conformity with the context.

This impression is confirmed when we review the legislative history of the measure.

By an act of March 3, 1887 (chapter 376, 24 Stat. 556 [Comp. St. 1916, §§ 4895-4900]), Congress had directed the Secretary of the Interior immediately to adjust, in accordance with the decisions of this court, railroad land grants theretofore unadjusted, with the object of restoring to the United States the title to lands erroneously certified or patented under such grants, saving the entries of bona fide settlers erroneously canceled on account of a railroad grant and the rights of bona fide purchasers from the grantee company of lands erroneously patented. The work of adjustment proved to be one of great magnitude, and it had not been completed at the time when the act under consideration was passed. Meanwhile the acts of March 3, 1891 (chapter 561, § 8, 26 Stat. 1095, 1099; chapter 559, 26 Stat. 1093 [Comp. St. 1916, § 4992]), had provided that suits by the United States to vacate and annul any patent theretofore issued should only be brought within five years thereafter (that is, within five years after March 3, 1891). Not long before the end of the period thus fixed, beyond which lands could not be recovered even if the investigation in progress under the ...