Lynch v. U.S.
| Decision Date | 10 September 1903 |
| Citation | 73 P. 1095,13 Okla. 142,1903 OK 83 |
| Parties | LYNCH v. UNITED STATES. |
| Court | Oklahoma Supreme Court |
Error from District Court, Kay County; before Justice Bayard T Hainer.
Action by the United States against James W. Lynch and the Ponca City Land & Improvement Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendants bring error. Reversed and dismissed.
The United States, as plaintiff, has no superior rights but is controlled by the same principles of law, and rules of practice as a citizen.
Hackney & Lafferty and James B. Diggs, for plaintiffs in error.
Horace Speed, for defendant in error.
This is a suit by the United States to set aside a sale of land and cancel a patent issued by the United States. It is alleged that the defendant James W. Lynch made homestead entry upon the southwest quarter of section 27, township 26 north, range 2 east, in Kay county, Okl.; that he made final proof for town site purposes, and obtained a patent; that he afterwards conveyed the entire tract to the defendant the Ponca City Land & Improvement Company, an alleged corporation. it is further alleged that Lynch, by bribery and perjury, procured the officers of the land department to allow his homestead entry, certain affidavits and protests, and to accept his final proof; that it was through said fraud, bribery, and perjury that he obtained the patent in controversy. It is further alleged that the so-called Ponca City Land & Improvement Company, the grantee, took said conveyance with full knowledge of the fraudulent acts of Lynch, and that they were not bona fide purchasers without notice. A number of specific allegations of fraud are made against Lynch and the Ponca City Land & Improvement Company and others mentioned in the petition. To this petition as amended the defendants filed separate demurrers, and the first question presented is the ruling of the trial court on these demurrers.
While this pleading is under our Code properly entitled a petition yet it is, in effect, a bill in equity to rescind a contract for fraud and cancel a patent. It must contain all the averments necessary, under the chancery practice, to constitute a showing entitling the petitioner to equitable relief. While the forms of action and the style of pleadings at common law and in chancery have been abolished, and one form of action substituted by our Code, the facts necessary to be pleaded in as case of this character are the same as before the adoption of the Code. A court of equity will not administer equitable relief unless the petitioner shows a superior equity in himself, although it may appear that frauds and bribery have been practiced.
The United States stands in no different relation as a suitor than any individual. When the government comes into a court to submit a question to judicial determination, she is not acting in her capacity as a sovereign, but as a litigant claiming the same rights, and bound by the same rules, as any of her citizens under similar circumstances. This was expressly held in United States v. Bank of Metropolis, 15 Pet. 377, 10 L.Ed. 774; Brent v. Bank of Washington, 10 Pet. 596, 9 L.Ed. 547; United States v. Hughes, 11 How. 552, 13 L.Ed. 809; United States v. Throckmorton, 98 U.S. 61, 25 L.Ed. 93; United States v. Minor, 114 U.S. 233, 5 S.Ct. 836, 29 L.Ed. 110. Hence, in determining whether the petition alleges such equities in the United States as against the defendants as will warrant the court in canceling a patent, we must look to the general rules of chancery pleading in equity cases, and in determining these rules we need look only to the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, where every phase of the subject has been discussed and determined.
It is a well-settled rule that a patent to public lands procured by fraud and perjury conveys the legal title to the patentee, and such patent is not void, but is voidable only. U.S. v. Minor, 114 U.S. 244, 5 S.Ct. 836, 29 L.Ed. 110; Colorado Coal Co. v. U. S., 123 U.S. 307, 8 S.Ct. 131, 31 L.Ed. 182. It is also a settled principle that the equities of bona fide purchasers, who hold the legal title under the patent, are superior to those of the United States, and the plea of bona fide purchasers is an absolute defense to such suit. Bona fide purchasers are the especial favorites of courts of equity. Boone v. Chiles, 10 Pet. 177, 9 L.Ed. 388; U.S. v. Burlington & M. R. R., 98 U.S. 334, 25 L.Ed. 198; Colorado Coal Co. v. U. S., 123 U.S. 307, 8 S.Ct. 131, 31 L.Ed. 182; U.S. v. California Co., 148 U.S. 31, 13 S.Ct. 458, 37 L.Ed. 354; U.S. v. Winona & St. P. R. R., 67 F. 948, 15 C. C. A. 96.
Ordinarily equity will not cancel a contract or patent, although patent, although the same was obtained by fraud, bribery, or perjury, un- less the petitioner has suffered some injury, or can show some special ground of equitable relief, and the mere ground that the patent was procured by fraud is not sufficient. Insurance Co. v. Bailey, 13 Wall. 616, 20 L.Ed. 501; Kimball v. West, 15 Wall. 377, 21 L.Ed. 95; Atlantic Delaine Co. v. James, 94 U.S. 207, 24 L.Ed. 112.
Even though the patentee may have resorted to fraud in procuring the patent, certain conditions must exist before the United States will interfere to cancel it, and one of the leading cases enunciating the rule in such cases is U.S. v. San Jacinto Tin Co., 125 U.S. 286, 8 S.Ct. 850, 31 L.Ed. 747, where it was said: "But we are of opinion that since the right of the government of the United States to institute such a suit depends upon the same general principles which would authorize a private citizen to apply to a court of justice for relief against an instrument obtained from him by fraud or deceit, or any of those other practices which are admitted to justify a court in granting relief, the government must show that, like the private individual, it has such an interest in the relief sought as entitles it to move in the matter. If it be a question of property, a case must be made in which the court can afford a remedy in regard to that property. If it be a question of fraud, which would render the instrument void, the fraud must operate to the prejudice of the United States; and if it is apparent that the suit is brought for the benefit of some third party, and that the United States has no pecuniary interest in the remedy sought, it is under no obligation to the party who will be benefited to sustain an action for its use. In short, if there does not appear any obligation on the part of the United States to the public or to any individual or any interest of its own, it can no more sustain such an action than any private person could under similar conditions. In all the decisions to which we have just referred, it is either expressed or implied that this interest or duty of the United States must exist as the foundation of the right of action. Of course, this interest must be made to appear in the progress of the proceedings, either by pleading or evidence, and if there is a want of it, and the fact is manifest that the suit has actually been brought for the benefit of some third person, and that no obligation to the general public exists which requires the United States to bring it, then the suit must fail.'
The same distinguished court said in the case of U.S. v. Beebe, 127 U.S. 342, 8 S.Ct. 1083, 32 L.Ed. 121: It is also held: "Where a patent has been fraudulently obtained, and such fraudulent patent, if allowed to stand, would work prejudice to the interests or rights of the United States, or would prevent the government from fulfilling an obligation incurred by it, either to the public or to an individual, which personal litigation could not remedy, there would be an occasion which would make it the duty of the government to institute judicial proceedings to vacate such patent.' U.S. v. M., K. & T. Ry. Co., 141 U.S. 358, 12 S.Ct. 13, 35 L.Ed. 766; San Pedro Co. v. U. S., 146 U.S. 120, 13 S.Ct. 94, 36 L.Ed. 911.
There are a number of other cases decided by the same court involving similar questions, but the law as announced in the cases cited fully covers and is controlling in the case at bar.
In the case of U.S. v. Bell Telephone Co., 167 U.S. 239, 17 S.Ct. 809, 42 L.Ed. 144, the court, in reviewing the cases brought to cancel patents to lands, classified the cases into three groups, as follows: "First, where, the government being the only party interested, the patent is charged to have been obtained by fraud in representations or conduct; second, where the land by appropriate reservation is not subject to patent, but is nevertheless erroneously patented: third, where the land, though subject to patent in the ordinary administration of the land office, is patented to the wrong person, either through fraud or by reason of mistake or inadvertence.'
The case under consideration must come within one of these general classes. Clearly it is not of the second...
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