Lee Wilson Co v. United States
| Decision Date | 05 November 1917 |
| Docket Number | No. 110,110 |
| Citation | 38 S.Ct. 21,245 U.S. 24,62 L.Ed. 128 |
| Parties | LEE WILSON & CO. v. UNITED STATES |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
[Syllabus from pages 24-26 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Charles T. Coleman, of Little Rock, Ark., and Henry D. Ashley, of Kansas City, Mo., for appellant.
Mr. Solicitor General Davis, of Washington, D. C., for appellee.
The United States, asserting that designated parcels of land were part of its public domain, sought a decree quieting its title. Sustaining the title thus asserted and rejecting a claim to the contrary on the part of the defendant, the trial court awarded the relief prayed ([D. C.] 214 Fed. 630), and the appellant, who was defendant, seeks on this appeal to reverse the decree of the court below sustaining the trial court (227 Fed. 827, 142 C. C. A. 351). A reference to the origin and subject-matter of the controversy and a statement of some undisputed and indisputable facts will clarify and limit the issues to be passed upon.
The public survey of the United States concerning the area in which the land was situated (township 12 north, range 9 east of the fifth principal meridian, county of Mississippi, state of Arkansas) was filed in 1841. By that survey and the plat and field notes thereof it appeared that in sections 22, 26 and 27 there was stated to be a body of water styled a lake which was excluded from the survey by means of a meander line, diminishing to the extent of the excluded area the acreage surveyed in the sections in question and thereby causing them to become fractional. As a matter of course also the meander line to the extent that it excluded the body of water from the survey diminished the area of surveyed land lying within the exterior boundaries of the township. In 1853 the state of Arkansas, it may be assumed, complying with legal requisites and conforming to the administrative regulations of the Land Department, filed a list of selections under the grant made to it of swamp and overflowed lands by the Act of Congress of 1850. 9 Stat. 519. The selections included township 12 and stated the acreage which it embraced conformably to the reduction of such acreage made by the meander line. In 1857 Congress confirmed 'the selection of swamp and overflowed lands granted to the several states * * * heretofore made and reported to the Commissioner of the General Land Office' and provided that such selection 'shall be approved and patented to the said several states. * * *' Chapter 117, 11 Stat. 251 [Comp. St. 1916, § 4963]. In 1858 a patent was issued by the United States to the state of Arkansas, the land patented being described as follows:
The acreage thus stated substantially conformed to the reduction brought about by the omission of section 16 which had already been given to the state and of the area of the lake which had been meandered and excluded from the survey.
Undoubtedly following the patent for a considerable period of time the officers of the Land Department treated the meandered and excluded surface of the lake as not being part of the public domain subject to survey and to disposal by the United States, upon the theory that the same by the operation of the meander had been excluded from the survey and made subject to the riparian rights of the several abutting owners under the state law. And it may be admitted that the state of Arkansas acted upon the assumption that all the land, whether surveyed or unsurveyed, within the exterior limits of the township had passed to it. In 1907 or thereabouts, growing out of some asserted right to have the meandered and unsurveyed area surveyed and disposed of as part of the public domain, on the ground that through fraud, error or mistake, the area in question had been stated in the survey to be a lake when in fact it was not and was on the contrary land which should have been surveyed, the Land Department after due notice undertook an investigation of the subject. Without stating the proceedings which ensued, it suffices to say that in 1909 it was definitely found that the alleged fraud, error or mistake of the survey was established because there was no lake to meander at the time the survey was made, it being found that all the evidence conclusively so established. Giving effect to this the unsurveyed area was were initiated thereon. This controversy were initiated thereon. This controbersy arose between the rights of the United States and such entrymen and those asserted by the defendant below who held the rights of the state of Arkansas, if any, to the area in question as evidenced by the patent or as embraced by the grant of swamp and overflowed lands and the action of the United States authorities taken on the subject.
It thus becomes apparent that the subject of the controversy relates solely to the unsurveyed area resulting from the erroneous assumption as to the existence of a lake and embraces only 853.60 acres. It also is certain that as the result of the concurrent findings of fact by the two courts and the admission made by the parties there is no controversy as to the facts concerning the error committed as to the supposed lake, leaving therefore to be decided only the legal questions which arise from the admitted facts. As a means of putting out of view questions which are not debatable we at once state two legal propositions which are indisputable because conclusively settled by previous decisions.
First. Where in a survey of the public domain a body of water or lake is found to exist and is meandered, the result of such meander is to exclude the area from the survey and to cause it as thus separated to become subject to the riparian rights of the...
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