Russell v. Maxwell Land 8212 Grant Co, 321

• Decision Date: 20 May 1895
• Docket Number: No. 321,321
• Citation: 158 U.S. 253,15 S.Ct. 827,39 L.Ed. 971
• Parties: RUSSELL et al. v. MAXWELL LAND—GRANT CO
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

158 U.S. 253

15 S.Ct. 827

39 L.Ed. 971

RUSSELL et al.

v MAXWELL LAND—GRANT CO.

No. 321.

May 20, 1895.

On May 19, 1888, the defendant in error, as plaintiff, commenced this action in the circuit court of the United States for the district of Colorado to recover the possession of a cer- tain tract of land. After answer, the case came on for final trial on October 10, 1890. The verdict and judgment were in favor of the plaintiff, and the defendants allege error.

The facts disclosed by the testimony are substantially these: On May 19, 1879, a patent was issued by the United States to Charles Beaubien and Guadalupe Miranda, their heirs and assigns, for a tract of land known as the 'Maxwell Land Grant.' This patent recites that on January 11, 1841, the territorial governor of New Mexico (that being at the time a part of the Republic of Mexico) made a grant to Beaubien and Miranda of a tract of land with specified boundaries; that on June 21, 1860, congress passed an act confirming such grant, with the boundaries therein specified; that on December 16, 1878, the surveyor general of the United States for the territory of New Mexico returned to the land department at Washington a survey officially made, giving in detail the boundaries as established by that survey; and in terms 'grants to tract of land embraced and described in the foregoing survey.' The land in controversy is within the limits of the survey, and thus within the terms of the patent. In 1871 the regular surveys of public lands in the southern part of Colorado were extended so as to include this land, which, by those surveys, was marked and described as the 'west half of the southeast quarter, and the northeast quarter of the southwest quarter, and the southwest quarter of the northeast quarter of section 20, township 33 south, range 68 west of sixth principal meridian.' On April 6, 1874, Richard D. Russell, the ancestor of defendants, applied at the local land office to enter this tract under the homestead laws, and on September 5, 1876, proved up, and received his final receipt therefor.

Ira W. Buell, for plaintiffs in error.

Chas. E. Gast and Frank Springer, for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice BREWER, after stating the facts in the foregoing language, delivered the opinion of the court.

The Maxwell land grant is no stranger to this court. After the issue of the patent a bill was filed by the United States to set it aside on the ground of error and fraud, and after an exhaustive investigation, both in the circuit and this court, a decree was entered, dismissing the bill. Maxwell Land-Grant Case, 121 U. S. 325, 7 Sup. Ct. 1015; Id., 122 U. S. 365, 7 Sup. Ct. 1271; Interestate Land Co. v. Maxwell Land-Grant Co., 139 U. S. 569, 580, 11 Sup. Ct. 656, in which it was said:

'The confirmation and patenting of the grant to Beaubien and Miranda operated to divest the United States of all their rights to the lands embraced in the grant which this country acquired from Mexico by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. And the only way that that grant can be defeated now is to show that the lands embraced in it had been previously grat ed by the Mexican government to some other person.'

See, also, Beard v. Federy, 3 Wall. 478; More v. Steinbach, 127 U. S. 70, 8 Sup. Ct. 1067. The confirmation of this grant was made by act of congress of June 21, 1860 (12 Stat. 71). Whatever doubts might have existed before as to the limits or extent of the grant, were settled by that confirmation. Langdeau v. Hanes, 21 Wall. 521; Tameling v. Emigration Co., 93 U. S. 644. The only claim of the defendants is one under the United States, arising on April 6, 1874, 14 years after the confirmation of the Maxwell land grant. It is therefore inferior and subordinate to that of the plaintiff.

In order to obviate that effect of this, the defendants offered to prove on the trial that the survey described in and upon which the patent was based was inaccurate, and that a correct survey would run the lines of the Maxwell land grant so as to exclude therefrom the tract in controversy. This testimony was rejected by the court, and this is the error complained of.

In the suit brought to set aside the patent, it was said by this court (121 U. S. 382, 7 Sup. Ct. 1015):

'In regard to the questions concerning the surveys, as to their conformity to the original Mexican grant, and the frauds which are asserterd to have had some influence in the making of those surveys, so far from their being established by that satisfactory and conclusive evidence which the rule we have here laid down requires, we are of opinion that, if it were an open question, unaffected by the respect due to the official acts of the government upon such a subject, depending upon the bare preponderance of evidence, there is an utter failure to establish either mistake or fraud.'

The accuracy of the survey is, therefore, so far as the government is concerned, no longer open to inquiry. If, in a direct proceeding in equity brought by the United States to set aside the patent on the ground of error in the survey, the matter has become res adjudicata, it would seem that the patentee could not be compelled in every action at law between itself and its neighbors to submit the question of the accuracy of the survey as a matter of fact to determination by a jury. Nor is the matter open to such inquiry. A survey made by the proper officers of the United States, and confirmed by the land department, is not open to challenge by any collateral attack in the courts. By section 453, Rev. St., full jurisdiction over the survey and sale of the public lands of the United States, and also in respect to private claims of land, is vested in the commissioner of the general land office, subject to the direction of the secretary of the...