Martha Sweringen v. City of St Louis

• Decision Date: 07 April 1902
• Docket Number: No. 187,187
• Citation: 22 S.Ct. 569,46 L.Ed. 795,185 U.S. 38
• Parties: MARTHA J. SWERINGEN, Plff. in Err. , v. CITY OF ST. LOUIS
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

185 U.S. 38

22 S.Ct. 569

46 L.Ed. 795

MARTHA J. SWERINGEN, Plff. in Err.,

v CITY OF ST. LOUIS.

No. 187.

Argued March 4, 5, 1902.

Decided April 7, 1902.

The plaintiff in error, being the plaintiff below, obtained judgment in the state circuit court for the city of St. Louis for the recovery of certain land described in the judgment. Upon appeal to the supreme court of the state of Missouri this judgment was reversed (151 Mo. 348, 52 S. W. 346), and the plaintiff has brought the case here by writ of error.

The action was ejectment for land described in the petition, which also set up a claim for the rents and profits. The answer of the city denied all the allegations of the petition, set up adverse possession for ten years, and acquiescence on the part of the plaintiff in the possession and use of the premises by the city as and for a public wharf. The property described in the petition is situate in the city of St. Louis, and is bounded on the east by the Mississippi river. The parties went to trial before the court, a jury being waived, and after the evidence was in the issues were found in favor of the plaintiff, although she recovered judgment for but a portion of the property described in her petition, the portion for which she recovered being part of a public wharf of the city running along the west line of the river, and being 90 feet along the line of the wharf from north to south, and running back its whole depth from the east line on the river to its rear or western line.

The question involved in the case upon the merits is, in substance, whether the plaintiff is entitled to the alluvion caused by the recession of the Mississippi river, to the extent of many hundred feet east of the point where it flowed in 1852, at the time when the plaintiff's predecessor took title to the property by virtue of a patent from the United States called the 'Labeaume patent.' The trial court held she was, and the supreme court held she was not.

On the trial the plaintiff offered in evidence as the source of her title a patent from the United States to Labeaume, dated in 1852. It was objected to as not tending to support the issues in the case, and as not showing plaintiff's grantor a riparian owner. The objection was overruled and the patent received in evidence. It recites the proceedings which preceded the issuing of the patent, from which recitals it appears a concession was made of the land described, by the lieutenant governor of the Spanish province of Upper Louisiana, July 15, 1799, and a survey thereafter made, and the proceedings confirmed in accordance with the acts of Congress relating to lands in the province named, approved respectively March 2, 1805, and March 3, 1807, and after some other recitals a description of the land conveyed is set forth, which commences as follows:

'Begin at a stake set on the right bank of the Mississippi river between high and low water mark and on the extension line produced eastwardly from Labeaume's southern ditch, the lower and most eastern corner of this survey, and the upper and most northern corner of the survey of Joseph Brazeau, numbered 3332,' etc.

Then follow in the patent what amounts to several printed pages, giving in detail the courses and distances of the outboundaries of the land described in the patent, from the southeastern corner along to the western limit, thence towards the north and thence back towards the east until the description is brought to the northeastern corner of the survey, which is also a corner of the city of St. Louis, being the northern termination of the northwestern boundary line thereof. This corner is marked 'F' on the plat accompanying the patent, and the description then proceeds to give the eastern line of the grant parallel with the Mississippi river, and commences that line in the following language: 'From the corner of 'F' down the right bank of the Mississippi river, with the meanders thereof, between high and low water mark, south nine degrees east,' etc. The description then goes on with six or eight different courses and distances, altering the United States called the 'Labeaume patent.' the place of beginning.'

It appears that the east boundary line of the land described in this patent was at the time of the execution of the patent, in 1852, several hundred feet west of the waters of the river, and at the present time is about 1,500 feet west thereof. Between those waters and the east line of the grant there was then what is termed on the plat accompanying and referred to in the patent a sand beach, which was, as stated, several hundred feet in width, thus separating by that beach the east line of the grant from the river.

Messrs. G. A. Finkelnburg, Edward S. Robert, and Edward P. Johnson for plaintiff in error.

Messrs. Charles Claflin Allen, B. Schnurmacher, and Charles W. Bates for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice Peckham, after making the foregoing statement of facts, delivered the opinion of the court:

A motion was made in this case to dismiss the writ of error for lack of jurisdiction, and a decision of the motion was reserved until after an argument of the case upon the merits. The whole case having been argued it becomes necessary to dispose of the motion to dismiss.

The motion is based upon the averment that there is no Federal question involved, and that, even if there were one, it was not properly raised in the court below. We think that, for the reasons now to be stated, the motion to dismiss must be granted.

In our judgment there is no Federal question arising by reason of plaintiff's claim under the patent put in evidence by her as the source of her title to the land in question. With reference to the 1st clause of § 709 of the Revised Statutes, it appears plainly that the validity of the patent has never been questioned. Nor has the validity of any treaty or statute of or authority exercised under the United States been drawn in question. It is a pure question of the construction of the language used in the patent, whether the land granted therein reached the waters of the Mississippi river on the east, or whether, according to the courses and distances contained in the patent, the eastern limit of the land conveyed was some hundreds of feet west of the river. It was really a question of fact as to how far east the measurements of the courses and distances carried the boundary. There was no contention made as to the authority of the government to convey the land to the bank of the river where the water was actually flowing, if it chose so to do. The decision did not touch the question as to how far a grant by the government, of land bounded by the waters of a navigable stream, would carry the title, whether to high water or low water, or out to the middle of the stream. If the grant from the United States had been bounded by the waters of a navigable river, and the right to make the grant to the extent claimed by the grantee had been denied by a grantee under a state, the denial of the validity of the authority exercised in making such grant might bring the question of construction within the principle decided in Packer v. Bird, 137 U. S. 661, 34 L. ed. 819, 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 210, and Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U. S. 1, 38 L. ed. 331, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 548. In Packer v. Bird it was a question how far a grant carried the title to land bounded by the margin of the Sacramento river, or, as stated by Mr. Justice Field, who delivered the opinion of the court in that case, 'The question presented is whether the patent of the United States, describing the eastern boundary of the land as commencing at a point on the river, which was on the right and west bank, and running southerly on its margin, embraces the island within it, or whether, notwithstanding the terms of apparent limitation of the eastern boundary to the margin of the river, the patent carries the title of the plaintiff holding under it to the middle of the stream. The contention of the plaintiff is that the land granted and patented, being bounded on the river, extends to the middle of the stream, and thus includes the island. It does not appear in the record that the waters of the river at the point where the island is situated are affected by the tides; but it is assumed that such is not the case. The contention of the plaintiff proceeds upon that assumption.' The opinion then proceeds with an examination of the question of what was the common law upon the subject, and whether that law had been adopted in the state of California where the land was. It was stated that it was 'undoubtedly the rule of the common law that the title of...