City and County of San Francisco v. Le Roy

• Decision Date: 02 March 1891
• Parties: CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO v. LE ROY et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

138 U.S. 656

11 S.Ct. 364

34 L.Ed. 1096

CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO v. LE ROY et al.

March 2, 1891.

[Statement of Case from pages 656-659 intentionally omitted] George Flournoy, for appellant.

E. S. Pillsbury and Gordon Blanding, for appellees.

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

It was conceded in the court below that the premises, to remove the cloud from which the present bill is filed, were at the time 'pueblo lands' of San Francisco,—that is, that they were part of the lands claimed by the city as successor of a Mexican pueblo of that name; that they are within the limits of the city of San Francisco as prescribed by the charter of 1851, and are within the four square leagues described in the decree of the United States circuit court for the district of California, entered May 18, 1865, by which the claim of the city as such successor was confirmed and its boundaries established, and also within the lines of the patent of the United States for the pueblo lands, issued to the city in 1884. It was also stipulated that the decree of the circuit court and the patent of the United States should be considered as in evidence, and that all the statutes of California and of the United States affecting the pueblo lands of San Francisco might be referred to, in the consideration of the case, as though formally in troduced in evidence.

The plaintiffs in their bill rely principally upon the decree of the district court for the twelfth judicial district of the state, in the case brought by William J. Shaw to quiet his title against the claim of the defendant herein, contending that the title of Shaw, through whom they deraign their interest, was thereby adjudged to be valid as against the defendant, and parties deriving title under the defendant, and that they are estopped from asserting against that decree any title or interest in the premises. The decree was rendered upon a disclaimer of the city and county of San Francisco, by its attorney, that it had any right, title, or interest in the premises described in the complaint, or any part thereof, at the commencement of the suit, and its consent that the plaintiff might take judgment therein in accordance with his prayer. Whatever authority the attorney of the city and county may have had to conduct its ordinary litigation, he had none to relinquish rights reserved for the benefit of the public by the Van Ness ordinance; and the property in that case was claimed, as will be afterwards seen, under that ordinance alone. The city and county of San Francisco had previously succeeded to all the rights of property, and become subject to all the liabilities, of the city. Act of April 19, 1856, consolidating the government of the city and county of San Francisco.

The plaintiffs did not, however, on the hearing, rely principally, or to any great extent, upon any estopel by that decree, but endeavored to establish their claim of title by conveyances from former occupants of different parcels of land, known as the 'Kissling Tract,' and the 'Thorne and Center Tract,' and of the rights inuring to the occupants under what is known, from its reputed author, as the 'Van Ness Ordinance,' the object of which was to settle and quiet the title of persons in possession of lands in the city of San Francisco; and under the act of the legislature of the state of California, passed in March, 1858, ratifying and confirming the ordinance; and under the act of congress relinquishing and granting to the city all the interest of the United States to lands within the corporate limits of the act of 1851, in trust for the uses and purposes of that ordinance. They also claimed the benefit of a deed of the tide-land commissioners of the state to Eugene L. Sullivan, one of the grantors of William J. Shaw, dated December 3, 1870, which purported, for the consideration of $352.80, to release to the grantee the right, title, and interest of the state of California to the premises therein described.

The testimony, documentary and otherwise, produced in the case, gives a very clear as well as accurate account of the origin, nature, and extent of the title claimed by the city or San Francisco, or the city and county of San Francisco, to its municipal lands, as successors to the rights of the former pueblo. This history has been related in several cases in this court, notably in Trenouth v. San Francisco, 100 U. S. 251; Palmer v. Low, 98 U. S. 1; Grisar v. McDowell, 6 Wall. 364; and Townsend v. Greeley, 5 Wall. 326. A brief statement of the principal facts only will be necessary to an intelligent disposition of the questions presented for consideration. When California was occupied by the forces of the United States in 1846 there was a Mexican pueblo at San Francisco; that is, a settlement or town under the Mexican government, with alcaldes and other officers, for the administration of its municipal affairs. It was the law of Mexico that pueblos or towns, when once recognized by public authority, became entitled, for their benefit and that of their inhabitants, to the use of lands constituting the site of such pueblos or towns, and adjoining territory, to the extent of four square leagues, to be measured off and assigned to them by officers of the government. Townsend v. Greeley, 5 Wall. 326, 336. Under those laws the pueblo of San Francisco asserted a claim to four square leagues, to be measured off from the northern portion of the peninsula on which the present city is situated. The alcaldes or officers of the town, under the Mexican government, exercised the power of distributing the lands in small parcels to the inhabitants, for building, cultivation, and other uses, the remainder being generally held for commons and other public purposes. When our forces took possession of San Francisco, citizens of the United States were appointed by the naval and military commanders to act in the place of the Mexican officers of the pueblo, and they exercised a like authority, which they supposed was invested in them, in making various grants of land in the city. Many persons then there, and many who subsequently settled in California, disputed such authority, and took up and occupied any land which they found vacant within the limits of the pueblo. The natural consequence followed,—confusion and uncertainty in the titles in the city for some years after the acquisition of the country. In April, 1850, San Francisco was incorporated by the state government as a city. She at once claimed the lands of the pueblo as its successor, and, after the board of land commissioners to settle private land claims in California was created by act of congress in March, 1851, prosecuted her claim to this land for confirmation. 9 St. c. 41, p. 631. In December, 1854, that board confirmed her claim to a portion of the four square leagues, and denied it for the balance. Thecit y appealed to the district court of the United States from that decision, and the appeal remained there for some years undisposed of. In September, 1864, the case was transferred from that court to the circuit court of the United States, under the authority of the act of congress to expedite the settling of titles to lands in the state of California, (13 St. c. 194, § 4, p. 333,) and in October following its claim was confirmed to four square leagues, subject to certain reservations. The decree of final confirmation, in its present form, was not entered until the 18th of May, 1865. That decree confirmed the claim of the city to a tract of land embracing so much of the upper portion of the peninsula which is situated above the ordinary high-water mark of 1846 as would contain an area of four square leagues, the tract being bounded on the north and east by the bay of San Francisco, on the west by the Pacific Ocean, and on the south by a due east and west line drawn so as to include the area designated, subject to certain deductions which it is unnecessary to mention here. The confirmation was to San Francisco in trust for the benefit of lot-holders under grants from the pueblo, town or city of San Francisco, or other competent authority, and as to any residue in trust for the benefit of the inhabitants of the city. In April, 1851, the charter of San Francisco was repealed. and a new charter adopted. Pending the appeal of the pueblo claim in the United States district court, the Van Ness ordinance, above mentioned, was passed by the common council of the city, by which the city relinquished and granted all its right and claim to land within its corporate limits as defined by its charter of 1851, with certain exceptions, to parties in the actual possession thereof by themselves or tenants, on or before the 1st of January, 1855; provided such possession was continued up to the time of the introduction of the ordinance into the common council, which was in June, 1855, or, if interrupted by an intruder or trespasser, had been or might be recovered by legal process; and it...