Del Pozo v. Wilson Cypress Co

• Decision Date: 16 November 1925
• Docket Number: No. 184,184
• Parties: DEL POZO et al. v. WILSON CYPRESS CO
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

269 U.S. 82

46 S.Ct. 57

70 L.Ed. 172

DEL POZO et al.

v WILSON CYPRESS CO.

No. 184.

Submitted on Motion to Dismiss Oct. 5, 1925.

Decided Nov. 16, 1925.

[Syllabus from pages 82-84 intentionally omitted]

Messrs. W. W. Dewhurst, of St. Augustine, Fla., and John

C. Jones and Joseph H. Jones, both of Orlando, Fla., for appellants.

Messrs. Henry C. Clark of Washington, D. C., and J. C. Cooper, of Jacksonville, for appellee.

Mr. Justice VAN DEVANTER delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is a suit to quiet title to a confirmed land grant in Florida. The plaintiffs claim as heirs of the original grantee. The defendant claims under tax deeds, and also asserts that the plaintiffs are barred from maintaining the suit, first, by adverse possession on the part of the defendant and those through whom it claims for the period fixed in the local statute of limitation; and, secondly, by inexcusable laches.

The grant was made in 1815 by Spain to Miguel Marcos, purported to cover 5,500 acres, and described the land in terms which made a survey essential to give precision to its boundaries. There was no survey during the Spanish dominion. After the cession to the United States, the heirs of the grantee presented a claim for confirmation to commissioners charged by Congress with the duty of examining and reporting on such claims. The commissioners found that the grant valid and recommended it, with others, to Congress for confirmation. The report stated that the grant was without any condition. 4 Am. State Papers (Duff Green Ed.) pp. 276, 283, 471.

By the Act of May 23, 1828, c. 70, 4 Stat. 284. Congress acted on the commissioners' report by confirming this and other claims, with the general qualification that, if any claim exceeded the number of acres in a league square, the confirmation was limited to such acreage, to be located by the claimants, within the original grant. That and other acts contemplated that the claims should be surveyed by way of precisely defining their boundaries and of con- necting them with the public land surveys. Because of delay in making the surveys, possibly resulting from inaction on the part of claimants, Congress, by the Act of June 28, 1848, c. 83, 9 Stat. 242, directed that the work proceed as soon as practicable. Early in 1851 this claim was surveyed under the direction of the Surveyor General, and on June 20 of that year the survey received the approval of that officer. As surveyed the claim contained 5,486.46 acres.¹ In 1889 the grantee's heirs applied for a patent for the claim as surveyed. The application was denied by the Commissioner of the General Land Office on the mistaken theory that the claim as surveyed was more than a league square, and therefore more than was confirmed by the act of 1828. On an appeal from that ruling the Secretary of the Interior recognized that a league square, in the sense of the confirmatory act, comprised 6,002.50 acres, and directed that a patent issue for the claim 'in accordance with the survey.' 18 Land Dec. 64. In 1895 a patent was issued under that direction.

The tax deeds under which the defendant claims were issued-the earliest in 1852 and others before 1872. The one of 1852 may be put out of view. The plaintiffs say in their bill that the others 'are fair upon their face,' but otherwise invalid. The bill contains a like statement respecting the mesne conveyances whereby the defendant succeeded to the tax title.

This suit by the heirs was begun in 1907. The present appeal is the second one to this court.

Originally the District Court and the Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the title was in the United States, and the land not taxable, until the issue of the patent, and therefore that the tax deeds, all of which preceded the patent, were absolutely void, and did not give even color of title. In that view the District Court gave and the Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a decree for the plaintiffs, without considering the conformity of the tax proceedings to the local law, or the questions arising out of the evidence bearing on the defenses of adverse possession and laches. On the first appeal to this court that view was disapproved and the decree reversed. 236 U. S. 635, 35 S. Ct. 446, 59 L. Ed. 758. In keeping with prior decisions this court held, in substance, that—

(1) The purpose of the confirmatory act of 1828 was not to create a new right, but to recognize, in fulfillment of treaty obligations, a right conferred by Spain while the land was under her dominion.

(2) As the grant contained a less acreage than a league square, the confirmation by that act was subject only to a needed survey giving precision to the boundaries of the grant.

(3) When the survey was made and received the approval of the Surveyor General, the confirmation was complete, and the land was thenceforth effectively separated from the public domain and subject to the taxing power of the state.

(4) The survey did not require the special approval of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, for under the law and practice of that period the approval of the Surveyor General sufficed.

(5) The patent was in the nature of a convenient muniment or record of the confirmation already effected by the act of 1828 and the approved survey rather than a conveyance speaking from the date of its issue.

The cases of Beard v. Federy, 3 Wall. 478, 497, 18 L. Ed. 88, and Boquillas Cattle Co., v. Curtis, 213 U. S. 339, 344, 29 S. Ct. 493, 53 L. Ed. 822, were cited in support of the last proposition and were pertinent; but the proposition has further and special support in other cases, where rights based on tax sales, adverse possession, etc., occurring after a like legislative confirmation and before the issue of patent, were upheld, such as Langdeau v. Hanes, 21 Wall. 521, 529, 22 L. Ed. 606; Morrow v. Whitney, 95 U. S. 551, 554, 555, 24 L. Ed. 456; Joplin v. Chachere, 192 U. S. 94, 24 S. Ct. 214, 48 L. Ed. 359.

On the first appeal this court did not pass upon the question of the conformity of the tax proceedings to the local law, nor on those arising out of the evidence bearing on the defenses of adverse possession and laches. They had not been considered in the courts below, and were of a kind that should be examined and determined in the first instance by the District Court, and then, if need be, by the Circuit Court of Appeals. The decree of reversal was so framed as to require that this course be taken.

When the case got back to the District Court, it was heard anew on the record before made. That court found that the defenses of adverse possession and laches were well taken in fact and in law, and accordingly entered a decree dismissing the bill on the merits. The Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that decree. 299 F. 261. The plaintiffs then brought the case here on the present appeal.

Various motions have been...