Quinby v. Conlan
| Citation | 26 L.Ed. 800,104 U.S. 420 |
| Parties | QUINBY v. CONLAN |
| Decision Date | 01 October 1881 |
| Court | United States Supreme Court |
ERROR to the Supreme Court of the State of California.
The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.
Mr. Robert H. Bradford and Mr. Willis Drummond for the plaintiff in error.
Mr. James Coleman for the defendant in error.
This was an action for the possession of certain real property in the county of Los Angeles, in the State of California. The complaint is in the usual form in such actions, according to the system of pleading prevailing in that State, alleging the ownership of the premises by the plaintiff and his right to their possession on a day designated, the wrongful entry thereon by the defendant, and his subsequent occupation thereof, to the plaintiff's damage.
It also alleges the value of the rents and profits during the occupation of the defendant, and prays judgment for restitution of the premises to the plaintiff, for his damages for their occupation, and for the rents and profits lost.
The answer of the defendant denies the several allegations of the complaint, and then sets up in a special count, by way of a cross-complaint, various matters which, as he claims, constitute in equity a good defence to the action and entitle him to a decree, that he has an equitable right to the premises, and that the plaintiff holds the legal title for him.
Under the system of pleading which obtains in California an equitable defence of this nature, as well as a defence at law, may be set up to an action for the possession of land. In such case the grounds of equitable relief must be set forth separately from the defence at law. The answer presenting them is in the nature of a bill in equity, and must contain all its essential allegation. It must disclose a case which, if established, will justify a decree adjudging that the title be transferred to the defendant, or enjoining the further prosecution of the action. The equitable defence is, therefore, first to be disposed of by the court before the legal remedy is considered. Upon its disposition the necessity of proceeding with the legal action will depend. When that action does procee , the ordinary rules as to the controlling influence of the legal title will apply. Estrada v. Murphy,19 Cal. 248 273; Arguello v. Edinger, 10 id. 150.
This statement will explain Estrada v. Murphy, 19 Cal. 248, singular in the record, that one judge heard the issues raised by the special answer in the nature of a cross-complaint in equity, and another judge of the same court subsequently tried the issues in the action at law. There was no more impropriety in this hearing of the different issues by different judges, or incongruity with established modes of procedure, than there would have been had the issues in the cross-action been presented in an independent suit.
The grounds put forth for equitable relief consist of alleged erroneous rulings of the Land Department upon two matters,—the possession and improvement of the lands in controversy by the parties claiming a pre-emption right to them; and the time when that portion of the lands in controversy, claimed to be within the limits of a confirmed Mexican grant, was shown, by a survey of the grant and the appropriation of other lands to its satisfaction, to be without them and thus open to settlement and pre-emption.
1. The lands in controversy constitute the west half and the southeast quarter of a quarter-section. The plaintiff, Conlan, entered upon them in February, 1865, occupying a portion thereof, and declaring his purpose to acquire, as a settler, a pre-emption right to them. The township was surveyed by the authorities of the United States in February, 1868, and the plat filed in the proper land-office in April following. In May, 1868, Conlan filed his declaratory statement in the form required by law, claiming the quarter-section as a pre-emptor. In May, 1869, four years after Conlan's settlement, the defendant, Quinby, settled upon the quarter-section, occupying a portion thereof, declaring his intention to acquire, as a settler, a pre-emptive right to the land, and in November, 1871, he filed his declaratory statement claiming it as a pre-emptor. Previously to his possession various parties had occupied portions of the section, and had conveyed to him whatever interest they held. It would seem from the answer and the frequent reference to the prior occupation of these parties, that it was supposed that this fact in some way increased the equity of his possession and gave him a better pre-emptive right to the lands than that claimed by the plaintiff. But to this position there are two answers: 1st, It does not appear that the grantors of the defendant ever contemplated the acquisition of a pre-emptive right to the lands by their settlement; and, 2d, The act of Congress forbids the sale of pre-emptive rights to the public lands acquired by settlement and improvement. The general pre-emption law declares that all transfers and assignments of rights thus obtained prior to the issuing of the patent shall be null and void. This court held looking at the purpose of the prohibition—that it did not forbid the sale of the land after the entry was effected, that is, after the right to a patent had become vested, but did apply to all prior transfers. The policy of preventing speculation through the instrumentality of temporary settlers would otherwise be defeated. Myers v. Croft, 13 Wall. 291.
The claim of the defendant to a right of pre-emption stands, therefore, in no better plight than if there had been no prior occupant of the lands. His own settlement can alone be considered, and that dates, as already said, from May, 1869. He had no claim to the lands when the plaintiff settled upon them, and he acquired none by his purchase of parties who had previously occupied them.
He must also be considered as settling upon them with notice of the plaintiff's prior claim by his declaratory statement filed in the land-office the year before. The plaintiff could not, it is true, have asserted a pre-emptive right to the whole quarter-section as against parties at the time of his settlement in the occupation of a portio of them. Had such parties followed up their occupation and improvement by a declaratory statement when the public surveys were extended over the lands, the case would have been different. A settlement cannot be made upon public land already occupied; as against existing occupants, the settlement of another is ineffectual to establish a pre-emptive right. Such is the purport of our decisions in Atherton v. Fowler, 96 U. S. 513, and Hosmer v. Wallace, 97 id. 575.
But a settlement upon a...
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