Patrick Moran v. Joseph Horsky, Jr

• Decision Date: 21 May 1900
• Docket Number: No. 177,177
• Citation: 20 S.Ct. 856,178 U.S. 205,44 L.Ed. 1038
• Parties: PATRICK MORAN, Plff. in Err. , v. JOSEPH HORSKY, JR
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

178 U.S. 205

20 S.Ct. 856

44 L.Ed. 1038

PATRICK MORAN, Plff. in Err.,

v JOSEPH HORSKY, JR.

No. 177.

Argued and Submitted March 12, 1900.

Decided May 21, 1900.

The facts in this case are as follows: On June 15, 1872, a patent was issued to the probate judge of Lewis and Clarke County, Montana territory, for the townsite of Helena, in trust for the benefit of the occupants. In 1874 Joseph Horsky, Jr., the plaintiff below, defendant in error, became by purchases from prior occupants and conveyances from the probate judge the holder of the legal title to certain lots, shown on the plat of the town. He entered into occupation at the date of his purchase, and has been in undisturbed and peaceful possession from that time to the present. Among these lots are two known and described as lots Nos. 19 and 20, in block 37, on the original plat of the townsite. Subsequent surveys disclosed that, measured by the description on the plat and the calls of the deed, there was an extra area of ground 22 feet front by 103 feet deep. When that fact was discovered the grantor of the plaintiff applied to the probate judge for a conveyance of this extra ground, and paid him the requisite price therefor. However, he received no deed at that time, apparently supposing the deeds for lots 19 and 20 would carry the ground; but afterwards, and on December 15, 1888, on application of the plaintiff, and upon the basis of the prior applicaio n and the payment of the necessary price, the probate judge made a deed to him of that extra area known and described on a subsequent plat as lot 31, block 37. In 1891 he filed his complaint in the district court of the first judicial district of the state of Montana, setting forth these facts, and that the defendant, Patrick Moran, had, on December 11, 1888, obtained from the probate judge a deed for this lot 31, alleging that it was wrongfully obtained, and praying for a decrec quieting his title.

The case thus presented was litigated in the state courts for two or three years, passed to the supreme court of the state (13 Mont. 250, 34 Pac. 360), where a decree in favor of the plaintiff was reversed, and finally came on for hearing in the district court upon the bill of plaintiff, setting forth the facts, as above stated, and an amended answer of the defendant, containing these averments: That on the 2d day of March, 1869, the probate judge of Lewis and Clarke county made an entry of the tract of land for the benefit of the occupants of the townsite of Helena; that prior to the entry of said townsite a certain placer mining claim had been located within the exterior limits of the tract so entered, which included within its boundaries the lot in controversy that the location had been made pursuant to the laws of the United States, the local laws, and the rules and regulations of the mining district, and all had been done required thereby to make a perfectly valid location of said placer mining claim, and that the title to this mining claim thus located passed to the defendant; that it was a valid and subsisting mining claim at the time of the entry of the land by the brobate judge and of the patent to him; that after the entry of the townsite, and prior to 1874, the defendant left the state of Montana, leaving the mining claim in possession of an agent; that during his absence the plaintiff obtained his deeds for the premises referred to, and entered into possession; that when the defendant returned to Montana he found the plaintiff in possession; that he had ever since been, by the action of the plaintiff, prevented from entering upon or working such mining claim; and that in December, 1888, finding that no deed had ever been made to the plaintiff for this portion of the property, he obtained in furtherance and protection of his own title a deed from the probate judge, which was the deed referred to in plaintiff's complaint.

Upon these pleadings a decree was entered by the district court in favor of the plaintiff, quieting his title to the premises. On appeal to the supreme court of the state this decree was affirmed (21 Mont. 345, 53 Pac. 1064), whereupon the case was brought on error to this court.

Messrs. Thomas J. Walsh and Rufus C. Garland for plaintiff in error.

Mr. E. W. Toole submitted the case for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice Brewer delivered the opinion of the court:

The supreme court of the state affirmed the decree of the trial court primarily on the ground of laches. If this be an independent ground, involving no question under the Federal statutes, the decision of the supreme court must be sustained and the writ of error dismissed. Eustis v. Bolles, 150 U. S. 361, 37 L. ed. 1111, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 131.

Indeed, if the matter of laches can be recognized at all, it is difficult, independently of the question of jurisdiction, to perceive any error in the ruling of the state supreme court. One who, having an inchoate right to property, abandons it for fourteen years, permits others to acquire apparent title, and deal with it as theirs, and as though he had no right, does not appeal to the favorable consideration of a court of equity. We need only refer to the many cases decided in this court and elsewhere, that a neglected right, if neglected too long, must be treated as an abandoned right which no court will enforce. See, among others, Felix v. Patrick, 145 U. S. 317, 36 L. ed. 719, 12 Sup. Ct. Rep. 862; Gallicer v. Cadwell, 145 U. S. 368, 36 L. ed. 738, 12 Sup. Ct. Rep. 873, and cases cited in the opinion. There always comes a time when the bet of rights will, by reason of neglect, pass beyond the protecting reach of the hands of equity, and the present case fully illustrates that proposition.

We therefore pass to an inquiry whether the question of laches is so intermingled with that of Federal right that the former cannot be considered an independent matter. As this case was disposed of upon bill and answer, we must take the facts to be as they are presented by the pleadings.

At the time of the commencement of the several proceedings referred to in the bill and answer, the entire area of ground compassed within the limits of the townsite of Helena was public land of the United States, subject to be taken under the pre-emption, homestead, townsite, or mineral laws. There was no reservation in behalf of any railroad company, or for military or other purposes. The whole tract was subject to private appropriation. Under those circumstances, the probate judge of the county made an application for an entry of the tract, as a whole, as a townsite. His application was entertained, the entry made, and thereafter a patent issued to him for the entire tract, including the premises in controversy. Apparently, therefore, by the terms of the patent the legal title to this land had passed to the probate judge in trust for the several occupants. But we are referred by counsel to Deffeback v. Hawke, 115 U. S. 392, 393, 29 L. ed. 423, 424, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 95, 96, in which it was held that a patent under the townsite act is 'inoperative as to all lands known at the time to be valuable for their minerals, or discovered to be such before their occupation and improvement for residences or business under the townsite title;' and this by virtue of the express provisions of the law relating to the disposition of lands for town sites, as follows: 'No title shall be acquired under the foregoing provisions of this chapter to any mine of gold, silver, cinnabar, or copper, or to any valid mining claim or possession held under existing laws.' Rev. Stat. § 2392.

The ruling in this case was qualified in Davis v. Weibbold, 139 U. S. 507, 35 L. ed. 238, 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 628, and it was held that the title of a lotowner holding a deed from the probate judge who had entered the lands under the townsite act could not be defeated because after the issue of the patent there was a subsequent discovery of minerals and an issue of a patent therefor to the discoverer, the court saying, on p. 524, L. ed. p. 244, Sup. Ct. Rep. p. 634, after referring to some decisions of the land department:

'It would seem from this uniform construction of that department of the government specially intrusted with supervision of proceedings required for the alienation of the public lands, including those that embrace minerals, and also of the courts of the mining states, Federal and state, whose attention has been called to the subject, that the exception of mineral lands from grant in the acts of Congress should be considered to apply only to such lands as were at the time of the grant known to be so valuable for their minerals as to justify expenditure for their extraction.'

The allegations of the answer are to the effect that there was a known mining claim, actually located and worked, at the time of the entry and patent of the townsite, and the argument is that the mining claim was excepted from the scope of the townsite patent as completely as though the exception had been in terms named on the face of the instrument and the boundaries claimed described. The probate judge, therefore, never took title, and having none conveyed none to the plaintiff; the title remained in the government, and neither laches nor limitation run against the rights and title of the government. The mining claim existed, and although defendant had abandoned it for years, yet as no one had taken steps to relocate it, he had the right to resume possession and continue his work in the way of perfecting his title.

In an opinion by the judge f the state district court, delivered in deciding this case, is an interesting discussion of the difference between a void and voidable patent, and many authorities from this...