Florida Town Imp. Co. v. Bigalsky
| Decision Date | 22 December 1902 |
| Citation | 33 So. 450,44 Fla. 771 |
| Parties | FLORIDA TOWN IMP. CO. v. BIGALSKY. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Error to circuit court, Nassau county; Rhydon M. Call, Judge.
Action by the Florida Town Improvement Company against Gottlob Bigalsky. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff brings error. Affirmed.
Syllabus by the Court
1. The president of the United States had power in 1842 and 1849, by executive order, and without a special act of congress authorizing him so to do, to reserve part of the public domain on the north end of Amelia Island for a military reservation.
2. Public lands of the United States on the north end of Amelia Island, reserved from sale for military purposes by executive orders of the president in 1842 and 1849, were effectually segregated from the public domain, and passed beyond the control or jurisdiction of the general land office, as a part thereof; and any action taken there thereafter, whether resulting in the issuance of a patent to an individual, or in the certification of such lands to the state as swamp and overflowed, under the act of congress passed in 1850, had no binding force or effect, but was and is subject to attack whenever or wherever such proceedings should be asserted as the basis of title.
3. Where documentary evidence on file in the general land office is produced, proving that certain land sought to be recovered was lawfully reserved for military purposes, a court of law can, in an action of ejectment, adjudge a patent and a certification of such land as swamp and overflowed, made in defiance of such reservation, under proceedings had in that office, void, and refuse to give effect to them.
4. A Spanish grant in Florida, whether complete and perfect, or not, was required by various acts of congress to be presented for confirmation to the board of commissioners appointed to adjudicate upon such claims, or to be adjudicated by proceedings in the courts; and all grants not so presented or adjudicated became barred by the limitation in those acts and cannot be now recognized as valid by the courts.
COUNSEL J. C. Cooper, for plaintiff in error.
H. H Buckman and J. N. Stripling, for defendant in error.
This cause was referred by the court to the late supreme court commission for investigation, who reported that the judgment ought to be affirmed. In stating the principles of law controlling the main questions involved, we do so in the language of the opinion prepared by the commission, which we adopt as our own:
This was an action of ejectment instituted in the circuit court of Nassau county by the plaintiff in error against the defendant in error to recover possession of lots 1 and 2 of section 14 township three N., range 28 east, alleged to contain 267 acres of land, more or less, situated on Amelia Island, in Nassau county, to which plaintiff claimed title. Defendant pleaded 'Not guilty,' and, in pursuance of a stipulation entered into by the parties, the case was tried by the court without a jury, whereupon there was a judgment rendered for defendant, which is now brought before this court for review by writ of error.
Plaintiff sought to deduce title to lot 1 under the act of congress of September 28, 1850, granting swamp and overflowed lands within the limits of the state for certain purposes, the selection of this lot thereunder December 17, 1851, and the approval thereof to the state by the secretary of the interior on January 25, 1853. Lot 2 was claimed under a patent to David L. Yulee issued on September 5, 1853, based upon a certificate of entry from the St. Augustine land office, dated August 4, 1851, which entry was based upon certificate No. 2, issued April 15, 1851, in the matter of the grant to Fernando de la Maza Arredondo. Plaintiff also introduced evidence seeking to establish a Spanish grant including, it is claimed, nearly all of both lots, to one Don Juan McClure, in 1813; and it undertook, by various conveyances introduced in evidence, to connect itself with these original sources of title.
Defendant introduced in evidence a certified copy from the general land office of an order of the president of the United States, dated February 9, 1842, directing the commissioner of the general land office to cause reservations to be made for military purposes of the following lands, among others: 'At the north point of Amelia Island, Florida: Fractional section eight of township three north, range twenty-nine east, and fractional section eleven, and lots numbers one and two of fractional section fourteen, of township three north, of range twenty-eight east;' and also a certified copy from that office of an order from the secretary of war to the commissioner of the general land office, dated March 23, 1849, directing that so much of the several tracts of land designated in the report of a board of engineers therewith transmitted as was public land be reserved from sale until the completion of the surveys necessary for the location of required defenses. The order further states, 'This reservation will supersede that heretofore made of the islands on the Florida coast, and so much of the reservation first made as is not included in any of the tracts enumerated in the inclosed report is relinquished by this department.' The report of the board of engineers transmitted with that order contains a 'list of lands recommended to be reserved for purposes of defense by the board of engineers on the coast of Florida.' Among others, the following are designated: 'At Amelia Island: All the public land on the north end of Amelia Island.' The defendant also introduced certified copies of other documents, for the purpose of showing that in 1856 the officers of the war and land departments discovered that the patent to Yulee and the selection of swamp and overflowed lands embraced lands that had been reserved for military purposes, that Mr. Yulee was requested to deliver the patent to lot 2 for cancellation, and that lot 1 was excluded from the patent for swamp and overflowed lands subsequently issued to the state. The defendant also introduced documentary and parol evidence for the purpose of showing that the United States had ever since that time regarded the lots as a part of the military reservation on the north end of Amelia Island, now known as 'Fort Clinch Military Reservation,' and had held actual or constructive possession of them as such. All of this testimony was objected to by plaintiff upon various grounds, but, under the view we take of the case, it is unnecessary for us to review these rulings, as well as many others embraced in the numerous assignments of error, for the reason that we find the patent and certification to be void, without considering that evidence; and therefore the errors, if any, in admitting it, were without injury to the plaintiff. If, as we hold, the patent to Yulee and certification to the state were void and conveyed no title, it is quite evident that plaintiff could not recover; and we reach the conclusion that they were void from a consideration of other evidence which we hold was properly admitted, without giving any effect to the evidence here referred to. We shall confine our decision to the questions presented in argument on behalf of plaintiff in error.
It is an elementary rule in actions of ejectment that the plaintiff must recover on the strength of his own title. If it appeared, therefore, from any evidence properly admitted on the part of the defendant, that the plaintiff had no title to the premises which it sought to recover, the judgment of the court below was right, and ought to be affirmed, even though the court may have erred in other respects, as such errors, if any were committed, could not be prejudicial to the plaintiff. In this view, the only ruling on the admission of evidence that we find it necessary to consider is that complained of under the first assignment of error, relating to the admission in evidence of the certified copy of the order of the president of the United States, dated February 9, 1842, purporting to set apart the premises claimed, as a part of a military reservation on the north end of Amelia Island. Many objections were urged in the court below to the admissibility of this document, but in this court the objections are confined to the following:
(1) That nearly all of lots 1 and 2 were embraced in the Spanish grant to McClure, and could not, therefore, be reserved. We consider the question of the validity of that grant in another part of this opinion, and find that it is invalid.
(2) That the order was subsequently revoked by the order of the secretary of war of 1849. This question is considered in another connection, and determined adversely to the contention of plaintiff in error.
(3) That the president could not, by mere order, without authority of an act of congress, reserve land for military purposes.
It is well settled that the president of the United States, by executive order, could reserve a part of the public domain for a specific lawful purpose, such as a military reservation. Grisar v. McDowell, 6 Wall. 363, 18 L.Ed. 863; United States v. Payne (D. C.) 8 Fed. 883; Apis v. United States (D. C.) 88 F....
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