Atchafalaya Land Co v. Williams Cypress
| Decision Date | 13 March 1922 |
| Docket Number | No. 106,106 |
| Citation | 42 S.Ct. 284,258 U.S. 190,66 L.Ed. 559 |
| Parties | ATCHAFALAYA LAND CO., Limited, et al. v. F. B. WILLIAMS CYPRESS Co., Limited |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Argued by Plaintiff in Error, Court Declining to Hear Defendant in Error, March 3, 1922.
Messrs. Walter J. Burke, of New Iberia, La., and Charles F. Consaul, of Washington, D. C., for plaintiffs in error.
Mr. Monte M. Lemann, of New Orleans, La., for defendant in error.
Suit by the Atchafalaya Land Company to have declared null and void certain patents issued by the register of the state land office of Louisiana to a partnership composed of John N. Pharr and Frank B. Williams, of which the F. B. Williams Cypress Company became grantee May 23, 1903, and that the lands of the patents be adjudged to have been included in the grant of the state to the Board of Commissioners of the Atchafalaya Basin Levee District anterior to the patent to Pharr and Williams, and by the Board of Commissioners transferred to Edward Wisner and J. M. Dresser, under a contract dated July, 1900, confirmed April 11, 1904, and by them to the Land Company.
It was prayed that the Board of Commissioners be cited to join in the vindication of the Land Company's rights. The Board responded to the citation by intervening, answering and joining in the prayer of the bill. The other plaintiff in error also intervened.
The answer of the Cypress Company brought into the case a statute of limitations of the state approved July 5, 1912 (Act. La. 1912, No. 62), that prescribes the time of bringing suits which attack patents from the state, or any transfer of property by any subdivision of the state.1
This suit was not brought within the time prescribed.2
The following are the other facts, stated narratively:
The state of Louisiana is the grantee under the acts of Congress of 1849 (9 Stat. 352) and 1850 (9 Stat. 519, Comp. St. §§ 4958-4960) of the swamp and overflowed lands in the state.
The state in 1890 (Acts La. 1890, No. 97) created the Board of Commissioners of the Atchafalaya Basin Levee District and constituted it a corporate body. The Act created the Levee District and declared that all lands in the District then belonging to the state or that might thereafter be acquired, were thereby granted to the Board of Commissioners of the District. And it was further provided, to accommodate the time for redemption of the lands sold for taxes, even those forfeited for nonpayment, after the expiration of six months from the passage of the Act, that it should be the duty of the state auditor and the register of the state land office to convey the lands to the Board of Commissioners whenever requested to do so by the Board or its president, and that after the recording of the instruments of conveyance the title and possession of the lands should vest absolutely in the Board, its successors or grantees.
This request was not made, but the Board nevertheless sold to Edward Wisner and John M. Dresser, the lands in controversy and bound itself in the instrument of conveyance 'to lend itself, with all its rights, powers and privileges and prerogatives to perfect its title, or the title acquired under this agreement to all lands to which it could have, and Wisner and Dresser can now justly lay claim to, and to do so whenever so requested. * * *'
The Land Company has become the assignee and representatives of Wisner and Dresser with their rights. The Lumber Company has acquired rights to the timber on the land and to that extent claims to be entitled to call for a conveyance.
The Board of Commissioners, in view of having bound itself to make deed to Wisner and Dresser, unites with the Land Company and the Lumber Company, as we have said, to seek the relief desired by them, which includes the cancellation of patents issued to the partnership composed of John N. Pharr and F. B. Williams (of which the Williams Cypress Company is grantee) and the recognition of title in the land and the Lumber Companies.
To the cause of action thus stated, the Cypress Company pleaded the statute of the state heretofore referred to limiting the time of suit.
In reply to the plea of the statute the Land Company and interveners averred that its application would violate the Constitution of the United States in that it would deprive them of their property without due process of law, and would impair the obligation of the contract entered into between the state and the Board of Commissioners of the Levee District and Wisner and Dresser and their assignees.
The specification of this effect is that the grant from the state to the Board of Land Commissioners took from the state the right to otherwise dispose of the lands, and further, that the right to acquire by transfer from the state was perpetual, and that this right constituted a contract, and the right to demand perfection of the title was in the Board of Commissioners or its assignees, and that these rights were the obligation of the...
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