Jeems Bayou Fishing Hunting Club v. United States United States v. Jeems Bayou Hunting Fishing Club

• Decision Date: 02 January 1923
• Docket Number: Nos. 119,137,s. 119
• Citation: 67 L.Ed. 402,260 U.S. 561,43 S.Ct. 205
• Parties: JEEMS BAYOU FISHING & HUNTING CLUB et al. v. UNITED STATES. UNITED STATES v. JEEMS BAYOU HUNTING & FISHING CLUB et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

260 U.S. 561

43 S.Ct. 205

67 L.Ed. 402

JEEMS BAYOU FISHING & HUNTING CLUB et al.

v UNITED STATES.

UNITED STATES

v. JEEMS BAYOU HUNTING & FISHING CLUB et al.

Nos. 119, 137.

Argued Nov. 21 and 22, 1922.

Decided Jan. 2, 1923.

Messrs. Hampden Story, of Shreveport, La., and Harry T. Klein, of New York City, for Jeems Bayou Fishing & Hunting Club.

Mr. Assistant Attorney General Riter, for the United States.

Mr. Justice SUTHERLANDdelivered the opinion of the Court.

The United States brought suit in equity in the District Court of the United States for the Western District of Louisiana, against the defendants(appellants and cross-appellees here), to have its title to 85.22 acres of land in the parish of Caddo, La., confirmed, possession restored, assertion of claims thereto by defendants enjoined, and an accounting had for the value of o l removed therefrom by the defendants, or any of them.

That court, upon the report of a master, entered a decree for the plaintiff and awarded damages for the value of the oil removed, after deducting the cost of drilling and operating the wells by means of which the oil was recovered.

The case is here by appeal from the decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals, affirming that of the District Court.274 Fed. 18.

The Fishing & Hunting Club claimed title through mesne conveyances from one Stephen D. Pitts, to whom a patent had been issued in 1860 for the southwest fractional quarter of section 10, in township 20 north, range 16 west, 'according to the official plat of the survey of said lands, returned to the General Land Office by the Surveyor General.'The other defendants depend upon a lease from the Fishing & Hunting Club to the Producers' Oil Company.The official plat referred to in the Pitts patent was the plat of a survey made by A. W. Warren, in 1839, and approved and filed in the General Land Office the same year.The fractional quarter section described contained about 48 acres, though the patent erroneously gave it as 23 acres.The land in question lies west and south and immediately adjoining, but other lands still intervene between it and the permanent lake shore.According to the plat, the land so patented to Pitts borders upon Ferry Lake, or Jeems Bayou, a navigable body of water, and is shown on the plat as a small peninsula extending into the water and connected by a narrow neck with the mainland.The evidence which is voluminous and substantially uncontroverted, makes it very clear that no such peninsula exists or existed at the time of the survey in 1839.On the contrary, a later survey, called an extension survey, made in 1916-17 shows that a large compact body of upland, more than 500 acres in extent, which is, and in 1839 was, well timbered with a growth of pine, oak and other trees lies between this supposititious peninsula and the shore line of the lake in every direction, except for a short distance along the east boundary as delineated upon the plat.This body of land extends beyond the boundaries of section 10 into the adjoining sections 9,15, and16.Across the lands in controversy, which are included in the larger body just mentioned, the actual shore line of the lake is, and was in 1839, from a few hundred feet to three-quarters of a mile distant from the outside boundaries of the land patented to Pitts, as shown on the Warren plat.

The Warren field notes describe the peninsular-shaped tract of land, not by lines purporting to meander the margin of any body of water, but by courses and distances.There is nothing in the field notes to indicate a water boundary, unless as a matter of mere inference, which the most casual inspection of the locality would instantly dissipate.The inaccuracy of the plat is plainly apparent upon a like inspection.Why Warren made the survey and returned the plat as he did is...