French v. Fyan Et Al
| Decision Date | 01 October 1876 |
| Parties | FRENCH v. FYAN ET AL |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
ERROR to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Missouri.
Argued by Mr. D. T. Jewett for the plaintiff in error, and by Mr. Montgomery Blair for the defendants in error.
This action of ejectment was tried by the court below without a jury, by agreement of the parties; and the only finding made by the court was a general one in favor of defendant, on which judgment was rendered in bar of the action.
The single question in this case is raised on the refusal of the court to receive oral testimony to impeach the validity of a patent issued by the United States to the State of Missouri for the land in question, under the act of 1850, known as the 'swamp-land grant,' the purpose being to show by such testimony that it was not in point of fact swamp-land within the meaning of that act.
The bill of exceptions shows that the land was certified, in March, 1854, to the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company, as part of the land granted to aid in the construction of said road by the act of June 10, 1852; and the plaintiff, by purchase made in 1872, became vested with such title as this certificate gave.
To overcome this prima facie case, defendant gave in evidence the patent issued to Missouri, in 1857, under the swampland act, and it was admitted that defendant had a regular chain of title under this patent.
It was at this stage of the proceeding that the plaintiff offered to prove, in rebuttal, by witnesses who had known the character of the land in dispute since 1849 till the time of trial, that the land in dispute was not swamp and overflowed land, made unfit thereby for cultivation, and that the greater part thereof is not and never has been, since 1849, wet and unfit for cultivation.
But the court ruled, that, since the defendant had introduced a patent from the United States to the State for the said land under the act of Sept. 28, 1850, as swamp-land, this concluded the question, and the court, therefore, rejected said parol testimony; to which ruling of the court the plaintiff then and there excepted.
This court has decided more than once that the swamp-land act was a grant in praesenti, by which the title to those lands passed at once to the State in which they lay, except as to States admitted to the Union after its passage. The patent, therefore, which is the evidence that the lands contained in it had been identified as swamp-lands under that act, relates back and gives certainty to the title of the date of the grant. As that act was passed two years prior to the act granting lands to the State of Missouri, for the benefit of the railroad, the defendant had the better title on the face of the papers, notwithstanding the certificate to the railroad company for the same land was issued three years before the patent to the State, under the act of 1850. For while the title under the swampland act, being a present grant, takes effect as of the date of that act, or of the admission of the State into the Union, when this occurred afterwards, there can be no claim of an earlier date than that of the act of 1852, two years later, for the inception of the title of the railroad company.
The only question that remains to be considered, is, whether, in an action at law in which these evidences of title come in conflict, parol testimony can be received to show that the land in controversy was never swamp-land, and, therefore, the patent issued to the State under that act is void.
The second section of the swamp-land act declares, 'That it shall be the duty of the Secretary of the Interior, as soon as practicable after the passage of this act, to make out an accurate list and plats of the land described as aforesaid, and transmit the same to the governor of the State, and, at the request of the governor, cause a patent to be issued to the State therefor, and on that patent the fee-simple to said lands shall vest in said State, subject to the disposal of the legislature thereof.' It was under the power conferred by this section that the patent was issued under which defendant holds the land. We are of opinion that this section devolved upon the Secretary, as the head of the department which administered the affairs of the public lands, the duty, and conferred on him the power, of determining what lands were of the description granted...
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