Pueblo of Nambe v. Romero

• Decision Date: 02 May 1900
• Citation: 10 N.M. 58,61 P. 122
• Parties: PUEBLO OF NAMBE et al.v.ROMERO et al.
• Court: New Mexico Supreme Court

10 N.M. 58

61 P. 122

PUEBLO OF NAMBE et al.

v.ROMERO et al.

Supreme Court of the Territory of New Mexico.

May 2, 1900.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. A finding of fact made by a referee is equivalent to the special verdict of a jury, and cannot be disturbed unless the evidence is manifestly insufficient to support it.

2. Uninterrupted, open, visible, notorious, exclusive, and adverse possession for more than 10 years before suit instituted of a tract of land embraced within the pueblo of Nambe, entry being under an alleged deed of conveyance from said pueblo long prior to the act of confirmation by congress of said pueblo's grant, vests a perfect title by adverse possession by virtue of the statute.

Appeal from district court, Santa Fé county; before Justice John R. McFie.

Action by Simon Romero and others against the pueblo of Nambe and others. Judgment for plaintiffs. Defendants appeal. Affirmed.

A finding of fact made by a referee or master is equivalent to the special verdict of a jury, and cannot be disturbed unless the evidence is manifestly insufficient to support it.

Benjamin M. Read and George Hill Howard, for appellants.

R. C. Gortner, for appellees.

CRUMPACKER, J.

This cause was instituted by complaint, seeking to quiet title, and to restrain repeated trespasses, under section 2685, subsec. 33, Comp. Laws 1897. Demurrer and answer were interposed by appellants. The demurrer was overruled, and the cause was referred, by consent, to a referee, who reported his conclusions of law and findings of fact. Appellants' exceptions to the report being overruled, final judgment was entered in favor of appellees by the court below. The pueblo of Nambe, being the owner of a league of land in Santa Fé county, as is shown by the referee's report, assembled on April 8, 1854, in public meeting, when an instrument alleged to be the fee-simple deed of the corporation of the pueblo of Nambe was there drawn, executed, read to all the people, acquiesced in, and publicly acknowledged and delivered. The seisin of the lands described, to the extent of the boundaries named, was delivered, and the vendees, Vicente Lopez and Manuel Romero, entered into open, notorious, adverse possession, built their houses on the cultivable portion of the land, cultivated that part, and occupied the tract, claiming under said instrument. Said vendees occupied these lands for many years. Their children and associates received the said lands from them, and continued uninterruptedly said adverse, open, and notorious possession, claiming under said instrument adversely to, and in the eyes of, the Indians of the Nambe pueblo. As evidencing that possession, mesne conveyances appear in evidence, showing the occupation, claim, ownership, and possession of said parties down to and including appellees.

It is argued by appellants' counsel that the fee of the land in controversy, being a tract within the ancient pueblo of Nambe, was, prior to the confirmation of said pueblo's grant, on December 22, 1858, not vested in said pueblo, but in the United States, and that said pueblo, therefore, could not, by deed in 1854, have conveyed the same. The question as to in whom or in what authority the fee of an Indian pueblo grant in New Mexico was vested prior to confirmation of such a grant seems to have been settled by the supreme court of the United States in the case of U. S. v. Joseph, 94 U. S. 614, 24 L. Ed. 295, wherein...