New York Land Co v. Votaw

• Decision Date: 23 October 1893
• Docket Number: No. 74,74
• Citation: 14 S.Ct. 1,37 L.Ed. 983,150 U.S. 24
• Parties: NEW YORK & T. LAND CO., Limited, v. VOTAW
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

150 U.S. 24

14 S.Ct. 1

37 L.Ed. 983

NEW YORK & T. LAND CO., Limited,

v VOTAW.

No. 74.

October 23, 1893.

O. W. Ogden, for plaintiff in error.

A. W. Houston, for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice SHIRAS delivered the opinion of the court.

This was an action brought in the circuit court of the United States for the western district of Texas to try the title to a large tract land in the county of Dimmitt and state of Texas.

The New York & Texas Land Company, the plaintiff, based its claim upon patents issued by the state of Texas to the International & Great Northern Railroad Company, and upon certain deeds of conveyance from said company through several parties down to the plaintiff. The defendant's title originated in a grant of land by the state of Texas to the heirs of one Juan Francisco Lombrano. This grant appears to have been made by the state in recognition of a previous Spanish grant made in 1812 to Lombrano, but the defendant, though reading this Spanish grant as evidence on the question of the boundaries of the tract in question, relied wholly on the patent from the state of Texas.

The record presents on question as to the validity of the title of either party, nor any bill of exception touching the admission or rejection of evidence. It was admitted by the plaintiff that the defendant had a valid title to all of the land included in the Lombrano grant, and that such title was prior in time to that asserted by the plaintiffs. The sole controversy was whether the elder Lombrano grant included the lands subsequently granted to the International & Great Northern Railroad Company. This was the issue that was before the court and jury for determination, and to which the evidence of both parties was directed.

We are not asked by the plaintiff in error to consider the evidence in the cause with a view of determining whether it warranted the jury in their verdict in favor of the defendant. The errors complained of are found in certain portions of the charge of the court to the jury, and our only concern with the evidence is to enable us to perceive whether the court committed error in its instructions to the jury.

The description contained in the Spanish grant, and which is followed in the patent made by Texas to the Lombrano heirs, does not give courses, but the lines are run from one natural object to another. The controverted lines are the southern and eastern boundary lines of the Lombrano grant; that is, the lines called for in the Spanish grant as running from Tasa creek, on the Rio Grande, to the junction of the San Ambrosia and San Pedro creeks, and following up the San Pedro creek and terminating near its head, and the line running from the head of the San Pedro creek to the Carrizo springs.

Several surveys were made, as well under the grant to the Lombrano heirs as that patented by Texas in 1883 to the International & Great Northern Railroad Company. It appears by these surveys, and by the testimony of the engineers who made them, that there were either two creeks used as natural objects in running the lines, viz. San Pedro creek and San Pablo creek, or that one creek was known by different persons, and at different times, by the two names.

In this condition of the evidence the court instructed the jury as follows:

'(1) You are to determine from the evidence whether the San Pedro creek called for in the field notes of the grant is the creek now called the 'San Pedro,' or whether the creek called at this time the 'San Pablo' was, at the time this survey was made by the surveyor, called the 'San Pedro' creek; and you will look to all the calls along the creek, and from all the evidence adduced you will determine this, as well as all other questions of fact, by a preponderance of the evidence, wherever the evidence is found to be conflicting.

'(2) I may here say that if the lower creek, now called the 'San Pablo,' is the south line of the Lombrano grant, then your verdict will be for the defendant.

'(3) If from the evidence you find that some of the calls for natural objects in the grant cannot be ascertained,—or, in other words, if the natural objects are not all identified and some of them are,—then, and in that case, you will locate the grant with reference to those that are made certain, whether course and distance would reach the natural objects or not; but, in case no natural or artificial objects called for can be found and established, then artificial monuments would be of next controlling power; these failing, then course and distance would be the next best means of locating the true boundary of the grant.

'(4) From an established point it is competent to reverse the calls, if by so doing we can better ascertain the true boundary of the grant.

'(5) The map required by law to be returned by the surveyor with his field notes, upon which a patent is issued, may properly be considered in connection with the field notes, and is part thereof in locating the lines of the survey, unless there are calls that control the same.

'(6) The field notes of a survey returned to the general land office for patent, and upon which a patent issues, are, to all intents and purposes, a part of the patent, and if a...