Andrieus Jones v. St Louis Land Cattle Company

• Decision Date: 24 February 1914
• Docket Number: No. 203,203
• Citation: 58 L.Ed. 636,34 S.Ct. 419,232 U.S. 355
• Parties: ANDRIEUS A. JONES, Receiver, Appt., v. ST. LOUIS LAND & CATTLE COMPANY
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

232 U.S. 355

34 S.Ct. 419

58 L.Ed. 636

ANDRIEUS A. JONES, Receiver, Appt.,

v ST. LOUIS LAND & CATTLE COMPANY.

No. 203.

Argued and submitted January 27, 1914.

Decided February 24, 1914.

Mr. Andrieus A. Jones for appellant.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 355-357 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Charles A. Spiess and S. B. Davis, Jr., for appellee.

[Argument of Counsel from page 357 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice McKenna delivered the opinion of the court:

In the year 1876 this suit was instituted by William P. Beck et al. for the purpose of determining the title of the parties to what is known as the Preston Beck grant, and for a partition of the same. This grant conflicts with a certain other grant, known as the Perea grant, to the extent of about 5,000 acres. In the year 1903, Andrieus A. Jones, appellant, was appointed receiver of the Beck grant, and entered into possession of it, including the land in conflict. The St. Louis Land & Cattle Company appellee, filed an intervening petition in the cause, and set up a claim to the land in conflict and prayed as relief that the receiver be ordered to surrender to it the land claimed. Answer was filed to the petition, which, among other things, denied that the Land & Cattle Company had any right, title, or interest in the land.

After hearing, the district court decided in favor of the receiver, and dismissed the petition in intervention. The decree was reversed by the supreme court of the territory, and this appeal was then taken.

The question in the case is, Of which grant is the conflict land a part?

Both grants were reported favorably by the surveyor general of the territory to Congress for confirmation, the Beck grant September 30, 1856, the Perea grant September 15, 1857. Both were confirmed by Congress in the act of June 21, 1860 (12 Stat. at L. 71, chap. 167). The act recited the fact of the recommendation for confirmation by the surveyor general of the territory of certain private land claims in the territory, and confirmed them under the numbers by which he had designated them, the Beck grant being No. 1 and the Perea grant being No. 16.

Section 4 of the act provided 'that the foregoing confirmation shall only be construed as quitclaims or relinquishments, on the part of the United States, and shall not affect the adverse rights of any other person or persons whomsoever.'

The arguments of counsel have taken a wide range, but we think the decision of the case can be put on a short ground. Both grants have the same Mexican source; that is, they are grants by the political chief (governor) and the territorial deputation. The Beck grant was the prior one, its date being December, 1823; that of the Perea grant, March, 1825. Juridical possession was given of the Beck grant; it was not of the Perea grant. The Beck grant was presented for confirmation to the surveyor general of New Mexico in May, 1855, and declared valid by that officer, and a report made thereof September 30, 1856, to the Secretary of the Interior for confirmation by Congress. The Perea grant was presented for confirmation in 1857, decided to be valid, and reported to the Secretary of the Interior. Both grants, we have seen, were con- firmed by Congress by the same act. In 1860 the Beck grant was duly surveyed and the survey approved, and on the 13th of June, 1883, a patent was duly issued for the grant as surveyed. The survey of the Perea grant was not made until 1871. It will be observed, therefore, that the Beck grant, in all of its steps, preceded the Perea grant.

The supreme court of New Mexico, however, was of opinion that those steps could not be considered and that both grants were invalid under the Mexican law, and took their efficacy solely from the act of Congress, and that, therefore, the parties 'holding by the same act of Congress, in so far as their grants conflict or overlap, have each an 'equal undivided moiety of the lands within the conflict," applying the principle of Southern P. R. Co. v. United States, 183 U. S. 519, 46 L. ed. 307, 22 Sup. Ct. Rep. 154. In this, we think the court erred. The act of Congress was not a gratuity, it was intended to be a discharge of the obligations of the treaty between the United States and Mexico. It was a confirmation of rights which existed, and as they existed.

The reports of the surveyor general were made under the authority of the act of Congress of 1854, which made it the duty of that officer 'to ascertain the origin, nature, character, and extent of all claims to lands under the laws, usages, and customs of Spain and Mexico.' He was required to make report thereof, 'denoting the various grades of title, with his decision as to the validity or invalidity of each of the same under the laws, usages, and customs of the country before its cession to the United States, . . . which report shall be laid before Congress for such action thereon as may be deemed just and proper, with a view to confirming bona fide grants, and give full effect to the treaty of eighteen hundred and forty-eight between the United States and Mexico,' [9 Stat. at L. 922]. 10 Stat. at L. 308, chap. 103.

The proceedings, therefore, for the confirmation of titles derived from Mexico, commenced with the surveyor general, and were consummated by the confirming act, the surveyor general deciding in the first instance. The petition to him 'is the commencement of proceedings, which necessarily involve the validity of the grant from the...