Simmons v. Wagner
| Decision Date | 01 October 1879 |
| Citation | 25 L.Ed. 910,101 U.S. 260 |
| Parties | SIMMONS v. WAGNER |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
ERROR to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of Illinois.
The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.
Mr. A. L. Knapp for the plaintiff in error.
Mr. Charles P. Wise for the defendant in error.
This was an action of ejectment brought by Simmons, the plaintiff in error, against Wagner, the defendant, to recover the possession of the N. E. fr. 1/4 sec. 19, T. 4, N. R. 9 W. of the third principal meridian, Illinois. Simmons claimed title under a patent from the United States, dated April 25, 1871, granting him the lands as the assignee of one Mecke, who entered them at the land-office Jan. 25, 1871. Wagner claimed through a purchase made under the old credit system, April 17, 1816, by one John Lewis, and a paper bearing date July 8, 1829, which purported to be a certificate of full payment of the purchase-money in favor of William Russell.
A trial was had to the court without a jury, and resulted in a judgment for the defendant. There was no special finding of facts, but the evidence is set out in full in a bill of exceptions, which concludes as follows: 'The court found the issue joined for the defendant on the ground that the premises in controversy, on the issue of the final certificate to William Russell, ceased to be a part of the public domain, and were not thereafter subject to entry by individuals or sale by the United States, and to which finding the plaintiff then and there excepted.'
To justify this conclusion, the court must have found as a fact that the final certificate in question was a genuine document, and issued by the proper officer in the regular course of his official duty. This finding is conclusive on us, for we have many times decided that a bill of exceptions cannot be used to bring up the evidence for a review of the findings of fact. The Abbotsford, 98 U. S. 440, and the cases there cited. We have to consider, then, upon this branch of the case, only the question whether one in possession under such a certificate, without a patent, can successfully defend against an action of ejectment to recover the possession by the holder of a patent issued upon a subsequent purchase of the land as part of the public domain.
It is well settled that when lands have once been sold by the United States and the purchase-money paid, the lands sold are segregated from the public domain, and are no longer subject to entry. A subsequent sale and grant of the same lands to another person would be absolutely null and void so long as the first sale continued in force. Wirth v. Branson, 98 id. 118; Frisbie v. Whitney, 9 Wall. 187; Lyttle v. The State of Arkansas, 9 How. 314. Where the right to a patent has once become vested in a purchaser of public lands, it is equivalent, so far as the government is concerned, to a patent actually issued. The execution and delivery of the patent after the right to it has become complete are the mere ministerial acts of the officers charged with that duty. Barney v. Dolph, 97 U. S. 652; Stark v. Starrs, 6 Wall. 402.
This leads us to the inquiry whether Lewis and his assigns had, under the facts as...
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