Mann v. Tacoma Land Co
Decision Date | 30 April 1894 |
Docket Number | No. 375,375 |
Citation | 14 S.Ct. 820,153 U.S. 273,38 L.Ed. 714 |
Parties | MANN v. TACOMA LAND CO |
Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
This was a suit by Jacob C. Mann against the Tacoma Lana Company, in which the court below dismissed the bill (44 Fed. 27), and plaintiff appealed.
On July 12, 1890, appellant, as plaintiff, filed his bill in the circuit court of the United States for the district of Washington to restrain the defendant from entering and trespassing upon certain premises. Subsequently, by leave of the court, an amended bill was filed. In that, plaintiff claimed title to three separate tracts. The allegations as to one were as follows:
'(2) That on the 29th day of October, 1889, the following described premises were unoccupied and unappropriated lands of the United States, not mineral, and unsurveyed, to wit: Commencing at a point which is three thousand nine hundred and sixty feet west of the southeast corner of section 34, in township 21 north, of range 3 east, of the Willamette meridian, running thence north thirteen hundred and twenty feet, thence west thirteen hundred and twenty feet, thence south thirteen hundred and twenty feet, thence east thirteen hundred and twenty feet to place of beginning, and containing forty acres.
'(3) That on the said 29th day of October, 1889, your orator, under and by virtue of an act of the congress of the United States, entitled 'An act for the relief of Thomas B. Valentine,' approved April 5, 1872, selected said tract of land as aforesaid described, at the United States land office at Seattle, Washington territory, that being the land office for the district in which said lands were situated, and thereupon filed with the register and receiver of said land office certificate of location No. E 222 for forty acres, issued by virtue of a decree rendered by the supreme court of the United States upon the 6th day of January, 1874, for the claim of Thomas B. Valentine, or his legal assignee, under said act of congress aforesaid, together with a description by metes and bounds of said described premises and a map of said tract, and on the 30th day of October, 1889, said selection was allowed, and your orator received from said register and receiver a certificate for said lands, entitling your orator to a patent to said lands when the same should have been surveyed by authority of the government of the United States.
'(4) That by virtue of said selection and certificate your orator is the owner of said described premises, and entitled to the sole and exclusive possession of the same.'
The title to the other two tracts was acquired in a similar way, except that plaintiff did not claim to have himself entered them, but only to hold by deed from the locators. The character of the lands, and the use to which plaintiff intended to put them, were thus stated:
'(14) That all the lands described in this amended bill are lands over which the tide ebbs and flows to a distance of 80 chains, and are what are designated on the plats and surveys of the United States as 'mud flats, bare at low water,' and are overflowed at high water at a uniform depth of from 2 to 4 feet by the waters of Commencement bay, at the head of Puget sound, in Pierce county, state of Washington, and are situated about three-fourths of a mile from the line of low water of said Commencement bay and at the mouth of the stream known as 'Puyallup river,' and are valuable and suitable for the construction of wharves, warehouses, commercial purposes, and for agricultural uses.'
'(19) That your orator intends filling in said lands aforesaid and erecting thereon warehouses and other buildings, over and across which lands general traffic may be carried on to and from the city of Tacoma.'
It is upon these lands that the bill alleged that the defendant was trespassing. The certificates of location under which these tracts were entered, being what is known as 'Valentine Scrip,' were issued under the authority of the act of congress of April 5, 1872, entitled 'An act for the relief of Thomas B. Walentine,' which authorized the circuit court of the United States for the district of California to hear and decide upon the merits of the claim of Thomas B. Valentine to a certain specified Mexican grant. The third section of the act is as follows:
(17 Stat. 649.)
Proceedings were had under this statute in the circuit court, and a decree was rendered in favor of the claimant, which afterwards and on January 6, 1874, was affirmed by this court. The facts respecting this grant are thus stated by the secretary of the interior in a decision quoted by plaintiff's counsel:
'On investigation of the facts relative to the Miranda grant, I find that on October 8, 1844, Manuel Micheltorena, Mexican governor of California, granted to Juan Miranda the place known as Rancho Arroyo San Antonio, bounded by the laguna and arroyo of the same name and the pass and estero of Petaluma, containing three square leagues, more or less.
'California was acquired from Mexico by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and by the eighth article of said treaty the United States stipulated to protect the property rights of all residents within the ceded territory in the same manner that the property rights of its own citizens were protected.
'This treaty did not, proprio vigore, operate as a confirmation of Mexican grants, but on the contrary, being executory in character, it addressed itself to the political department of the government, and the duty devolved upon congress of providing means for its enforcement.
'Congress, therefore, by act approved March 3, 1851, established a...
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