Le Marchel v. Teagarden

• Decision Date: 07 April 1907
• Citation: 152 F. 662
• Parties: LE MARCHEL v. TEAGARDEN.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Arkansas

152 F. 662

LE MARCHEL v. TEAGARDEN.

United States Circuit Court, W.D. Arkansas, Harrison Division.

April 7, 1907

Crump &amp Trimble and Woods Bros., for complainant.

Sewell & Sewell and J. W. Story, for defendant.

ROGERS District Judge.

On November 4, 1848, William Goodall made cash entry for the S.E. 1/4 N.W. 1/4, section 11, township 17 N., range 15 W (situate in Marion county, Ark.), at the Batesville (now Harrison, Ark.) district land office. The practice of the office at that time, when a cash entry was made, was this The receiver, when the money was paid for the land entered issued duplicate receipts, describing therein the land entered, the price paid, and the quantity of the land. One of these receipts he gave to the purchaser and the other to the register. Predicated on this receipt the register made the necessary entries on the tract book and plats of his office, and issued the certificate of entry in favor of the purchaser for the land so entered. Monthly reports were made of his action to the General Land Office, and, on presentation of the certificate of entry to the General Land Office, the patent was issued thereon if everything appeared regular. In this case the receiver's receipt correctly described the land entered, shows the price paid, and the number of acres, and the land described in the receipt is the S.E. 1/4 N.W. 1/4, section 11, township 17 N., range 15 W.; but the register's certificate, issued the same day, incorrectly shows the land entered by Goodall to have been the S.E. 1/4 N.W. 1/4, section 11, township 16 N., range 15 W. The first tract is in Marion county, and the latter in Searcy county, and are situate several miles apart. July 1, 1850, the patent was issued upon the Goodall entry, in accordance with the erroneous description appearing in the register's certificate. The patent so issued was duly transmitted to the local land office at Batesville, for delivery, but was never delivered, and in 1896 was burned, with other records of the Harrison land office. In 1892 the local land office, having discovered some confusion in the records of the local office as to the Goodall entry, advised the General Land Office that their tract books showed Goodall's entry to be for the S.E. 1/4 N.W. 1/4, section 11, township 17 N., range 15 W. (that being the tract described in the receiver's receipt), while the plat in their office showed it to be for the S.W. 1/4 N.W. 1/4 of said township, section, and range, which was a different tract from that described in either the receivers' receipt or the registers' certificate, or the tract book or in the patent issued, and inquired what land was covered by the Goodall entry. At that time, obviously, the officers of the General Land Office had not discovered that the registers' certificate differed from the receivers' receipt, and consequently the patent which had been issued was for a tract not entered by Goodall. Accordingly, on March 26, 1892, the Commissioner of the General Land Office advised the local officers at Harrison, Ark., that the Goodall entry was for the S.E. 1/4 N.W. 1/4, section 11, township 16 N., range 15 W., and that the entry had been patented July 1, 1850. Without any notice to Goodall, or his heirs, or those claiming under him, the officers of the General Land Office and the local land office at Harrison, on March 2, 1892, arbitrarily altered the tract books in both offices, which from November 4, 1848, had shown that Goodall entered the S.E. 1/4 N.W. 1/4, section 11, township 17 N., range 15 W., so as to make it appear that his entry was for the S.E. 1/4 N.W. 1/4, section 11, township 16 N., range 15 W., thereby making the tract books conform to the patent previously issued, and which was predicated on the incorrect description in the registers' certificate. These alterations were not made by erasures, but by simply running a line with pen and ink through the correct entry where it appeared on the tract book and then inserting the incorrect entry opposite, and was manifestly done in good faith by the local office, and in the General Land Office, which had not discovered the error in the register's certificate.

The effect of all this was to make it appear on the records of both the General Land Office and the local office at Harrison that the land in controversy at that time the S.E. 1/4 N.W. 1/4, section 11, township 17 N., range 15 W., was vacant land and subject to homestead entry. Indeed, some time in 1893 (letter not dated) complainant wrote the General Land Office inquiring the status of the land in controversy, and advising it that 'the books of the Harrison land office show it to be vacant, which is disputed. ' On September 30, 1893, the acting commissioner of the General Land Office replied, stating that the tract books showed the land vacant so far as returns had been received, but some entry might have been made at the local office. Some other correspondence ensued about the status of the land, and finally, on December 28, 1893, complainant entered the land in controversy, among others, as a homestead, and in January, 1894, began improving it, and finally, in apt time, moved on the land and made it his home. After living there 5 years, he gave the notice and made his final proof. Meantime the land was forfeited to the state for the taxes of 1896 and 1897, and on January 24, 1901, defendant bought and obtained a deed therefor from the state, and in March of the same year obtained quitclaim deeds from the heirs of Goodall. On February 15, 1901, defendant, in the name of the Goodall heirs, and with their consent, filed an application in the General Land Office to cancel the patent issued on July 1, 1850, to their ancestor William Goodall, because it misdescribed the land entered by him, and also for the issuance of a patent to the land actually entered by him; it being the land in controversy. Notice of this application was given complainant and he appeared. Both sides offered evidence, and the case was heard by the Commissioner, and decided in favor of the complainant. On appeal to the Secretary of the Interior, the Commissioner of the General Land Office was reversed, the patent canceled as erroneous, and a patent for the land in controversy was issued on the 27th of May, 1903, to the Goodall heirs, reciting that it was issued in lieu of the one canceled. This patent, of course, inured to the benefit of Grant Teagarden, who, as stated, already had quitclaim deeds from the Goodall heirs, and also a deed from the state. Thereupon Grant Teagarden instituted ejectment against complainant and recovered judgment against him in this court. Before said judgment was recovered this bill was filed, and a decree was asked declaring said Grant Teagarden a trustee for the complainant, and compelling him to convey the lands to him; he being the equitable owner under his homestead entry. That complainant has complied with the homestead law so far as residence and improvement of the land is concerned is not in controversy.

The rules of law governing cases of this character, where the action of a department of the government having jurisdiction of the subject-matter and parties is assailed for error and fraud, is so well stated in James v. Germania Iron Company, 107 F. 597, 46 C.C.A. 476, that I quote from the opinion of Judge Sanborn (Judges Caldwell and Thayer, both concurring) as follows:

'The land department of the United States is a quasi judicial tribunal, invested with authority to hear and determine claims to the public lands subject to its disposition, and its decisions of the issues presented at such hearings are impervious to collateral attack, and presumptively right. A patent to land of the disposition of which the department has jurisdiction is both the judgment of that tribunal and a conveyance of the legal title to the land. Act March 3, 1849, c. 108, Sec. 3, 9 Stat. 395; Rev. St. Secs. 441, 453 (U.S. Comp. St. 1901, pp. 253, 257); U.S. v. Winona & St. Paul R. Co., 67 F. 948, 955, 15 C.C.A. 96, 103, 32 U.S.App. 272, 283. But the judgment and conveyance of the department do not conclude the rights of the claimants to the land. They rest on established principles of law and fixed rules of procedure, which condition their initiation and prosecution, the application of which to the facts of each case determines its right decision; and, if the officers of the land department are induced to issue a patent to the wrong party by an erroneous view of the law, or by a gross or fraudulent mistake of the facts, the rightful claimant is not remediless. He may avoid this decision, and charge the legal title derived from the patent which they issue with his equitable right to it on either of two grounds: (1) That upon the facts found, conceded, or established without dispute at the hearing before the department its officers fell into an error in the construction of the law applicable to the case which caused them to refuse to issue the patent to him, and to give it to another (Bogan v. Mortgage Co., 63 F. 192, 195, 11 C.C.A. 128, 130, 27 U.S.App. 346, 350; U.S. v. Winona & St. P.R. Co., 67 F. 948, 958, 15 C.C.A. 96, 106, 32 U.S.App. 272, 288; U.S. v. Northern Pacific R. Co., 95 F. 864, 870, 37 C.C.A. 290, 296; Cunningham v. Ashley, 14 How. (U.S.) 377, 14 L.Ed. 462; Bernards' Heirs v. Ashley's Heirs, 18 How. (U.S.) 43, 15 L.Ed. 283; Garland v. Wynn, 20 How. (U.S.) 6, 15 L.Ed. 801; Lytle v. Arkansas, 22 How. (U.S.) 193, 16 L.Ed. 306; Lindsey v. Hawes, 2 Black (U.S.) 554, 562, 17 L.Ed. 265; Johnson v. Towsley, 13 Wall. (U.S.) 72, 85, 20 L.Ed. 485; Moore v. Robbins, 96 U.S. 530, 538, 24 L.Ed. 848; Bernier v. Bernier, 147 U.S. 242, 13 Sup.Ct. 244, 37 L.Ed. 152); or (2) that through fraud or gross

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