United States v. Title Ins Trust Co
| Decision Date | 09 June 1924 |
| Docket Number | No. 358,358 |
| Citation | 265 U.S. 472,44 S.Ct. 621,68 L.Ed. 1110 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES v. TITLE INS. & TRUST CO. et al |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
The Attorney General and Mr. George A. H. Fraser, of Denver, Colo., for the United States.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 473-479 intentionally omitted] Mr. Walter K. Tuller, of Los Angeles, Cal., for appellees.
This is a suit by the United States, as guardian of certain Mission Indians, to quiet in them a 'perpetual right' to occupy, use, and enjoy a part of a confirmed Mexican land grant in Southern California, for which the defendants hold a patent from the United States. The District Court dismissed the bill, as not showing a cause of action, and its decree was affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals. 288 Fed. 821.
The grant was made by Mexico in 1843. After California was ceded to the United States, Congress, in 1851, passed an act providing for the ascertainment and adjudication of private land claims in the ceded territory. 9 Stat. 631, c. 41. The act created a commission to consider and pass on such claims; provided for a review in the District Court of that district, and for a further review in this court; required that the claims be presented to the commission within 2 years, in default of which they were to be regarded as abandoned; provided for the issue of patents on such as were confirmed; and declared the patents should be 'conclusive between the United States and the said claimants,' but should not 'affect the interests of third persons.' This grant was presented to the commission, and, after a hearing in which the United States participated, was confirmed. On an appeal by the United States the District Court affirmed that decision, and a further appeal to this court was abandoned and dismissed. Thereafter, in 1863, the patent under which the defendants claim was issued.
The bill alleges that under the laws of Mexico the Indians in whose behalf the bill is brought became entitled to the 'continuous and undisturbed' occupancy and use of a part of the lands in the grant before it was made; that the Indians were in open, notorious, and adverse occupancy of such lands at the date of the grant; and that they ever since have remained in such occupancy, save as they have been more or less disturbed by the defendants and their predecessors at different times since the patent issued. The bill was brought in 1920. It does not question the validity of the grant or of the patent, but proceeds on the theory that the grant was made, and the title under the patent is held, subject to a 'perpetual right' in the Indians and their descendants to occupy and use the lands in question. The Indians never presented their claim to the commission, nor did the United States do so for them.
The courts below held that the claim of the Indians, if they had any, was abandoned and lost by the failure to present it to the commission, and that the patent issued on the confirmation of the grant passed the full title, unincumbered by any right in the Indians. In so holding, those courts gave effect to what they understood to be the decision of this court in Barker v. Harvey, 181 U. S. 481, 21 Sup. Ct. 690, 45 L. Ed. 963.
The questions to be considered here are whether the decision in that case covers this case, and, if it does, whether it should be followed or overruled. That was a suit by the owner of a Mexican grant in Southern California against Mission Indians to quiet his title under a confirmation and patent against their claim to a permanent right to occupy and use a part of the lands. In the state court, where the suit was brought, the plaintiff had a decree, which the Supreme Court of the state affirmed. In the right of the Indians the United States then brought the case here, and took charge of and presented it for them. This court sustained the decision of the state courts.
In the trial court the Indians had produced evidence tending to show that they and their ancestors had been occupying and using the lands openly and continuously from a time anterior to the Mexican grant, and that while they remained under the dominion of Mexico that government protected them in their right and recognized its permanency. But at the conclusing of the trial that evidence had been stricken out over their objection, because it appeared that their claim had not been presented to the commission under the act of 1851. On the evidence remaining the decree necessarily had been against them. Thus the question presented was whether there was error in striking out the evidence of their prior occupancy and use, and of the permanency of their right as recognized by Mexico.
This court, after observing that under the treaty with Mexico and the rules of international law the United States was bound to respect the rights of private property in the ceded territory, said there could be no doubt of the power of the United States, consistently with such obligation, to provide reasonable means for determining the validity of all titles within the ceded territory, to require all claims to lands therein to be presented for examination, and to declare that all not presented should be regarded as abandoned. The court further said the purpose of the act of 1851 was to give repose to titles...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Elec. Contractors, Inc. v. Dep't of Educ., No. 18525.
...decision rests on two or more grounds, none can be relegated to the category of obiter dictum”); United States v. Title Ins. & Trust Co., 265 U.S. 472, 486, 44 S.Ct. 621, 68 L.Ed. 1110 (1924) (“where there are two grounds, upon either of which an appellate court may rest its decision, and i......
-
Robinson v. Salazar
...not presenting them to the commission for consideration." Barker v. Harvey, 181 U.S. at 491. Similarly, in United States v. Title Ins. & Trust Co., 265 U.S. 472, 44 S.Ct. 621 (1924), the court held that the Tejon Mission Indians lost their rights to land for failure to present their claim t......
-
Robinson v. Salazar
...would have been unable to grant the land patents by the Board of Commissioners if the Indians had a claim of permanent occupancy. Title Ins., 265 U.S. at 484.6 As the Supreme Court noted, there would be "little reason for presenting to the land commission his claim to land, and securing a c......
-
California v. United States
...R. Co. v. Mason City & Fort Dodge R. Co., 199 U.S. 160, 166, 26 S.Ct. 19, 20, 50 L.Ed. 134 (1905); United States v. Title Ins. Co., 265 U.S. 472, 486, 44 S.Ct. 621, 623, 68 L.Ed. 1110 (1924). See also Woods v. Interstate Realty Co., 337 U.S. 535, 537, 69 S.Ct. 1235, 1236, 93 L.Ed. 1524 (194......
-
Case summaries.
...Or. ex rel. State Land Bd. v. Corvallis Sand & Gravel Co., 429 U.S. 363, 381 (1977), and United States v. Title Ins. & Trust Co., 265 U.S. 472,486-87 (478) United States v. Milner, 583 F.3d 1174, 1185 (9th Cir. 2009). (479) See United States v. Alaska, 521 U.S. 1, 41-46, 55-61 (1997......
-
"We Hold the Government to Its Word": How McGirt v. Oklahoma Revives Aboriginal Title.
...it extinguished "Mission Indians[']" aboriginal title), aff'd per curiam, 271 U.S. 643 (1926); United States v. Title Ins. &Tr. Co., 265 U.S. 472, 486-87 (1924) (concluding that title was extinguished because Barker had "affected many tracts of land in California... [and] [i]n the meant......
-
Precedent and Reliance
...advance planning of great precision is most obviously a necessity . . . ." (citation omitted)); United States v. Title Ins. & Trust Co., 265 U.S. 472, 486 (1924) ("The [precedent was issued] twenty-three years ago and affected many tracts of land . . . . In the meantime there has been . . .......
-
Getting Public Rights Wrong: The Lost History of the Private Land Claims.
...See id. at 489-91 (opinion of the Court). (381.) Mat 487-89,491. (382.) Id. at 492. (383.) United States v. Title Ins. & Tr. Co., 265 U.S. 472,481,486 (384.) Summa Corp. v. California ex rel. State Lands Comm'n, 466 U.S. 198,209 (1984). (385.) Id. at 201,206,209. (386.) United States ex......