Santa Fe Pac Co v. Payne, s. 108
| Decision Date | 29 May 1922 |
| Docket Number | 109,Nos. 108,s. 108 |
| Citation | 42 S.Ct. 466,259 U.S. 197,66 L.Ed. 896 |
| Parties | SANTA FE PAC. R. CO. v. PAYNE, Secretary of the interior (two cases) |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Mr. Francis W. Clements, of Washington, D. C., for appellant.
Mr. Assistant Attorney General Riter, for appellee.
These are two bills in equity brought in respect of different parcels of land but seeking the same kind of relief against the Secretary of the Interior, and raising the same question of law. The facts are simple. Under the land grant to its predecessor, the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad Company, the Santa Fe Pacific Railroad Company was the owner of coal lands in New Mexico. By the Act of April 28, 1904, c. 1810, § 1, 33 Stat. 556, the first named road and its successors 'may, when requested by the Secretary of the Interior so to do, relinquish or deed, as may be proper, to the United States,' any sections of their land grant in New Mexico any portion of which was and had been occupied by a settler as a homestead for not less than 25 years, 'and shall then be entitled to select in lieu thereof, and to have patented other sections of vacant public land of equal uqality in said Territory, as may be agreed upon with the Secretary of the Interior.' Under this Act at the request of the Secretary of the Interior the Railroad Company relinquished specified tracts of coal land, and on May 1, 1911, selected other tracts also of coal land. After the selections questions were raised as to the value of the selected lands, and ultimately after some years, the selections were rejected on the ground of the greater value of the latter lands as shown by investigations since the choice. Thereupon the Railroad Company brought these bills to enjoin the Secretary of the Interior from cancelling its selections and from taking further action except to issue patents to the Company for the selected lands. The bills were dismissed on motion by the Courts below. 50 App. D. C. 95, 267 Fed. 653.
The Government argues that there was no jurisdiction over the bills because the question whether the lands selected were of the same quality as those relinquished rested wholly in the judgment of the Secretary. But the position of the Railroad Company is that the Secretary went beyond the powers conferred upon him by the statute when he took into account facts not known at the time of the selection, and we are of opinion that the Company is entitled to bring that question into court.
We are of opinion also that the Company's position is right. At first sight the words of the statute entitling the...
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