St. Louis Smelting and Ref. Co. v. Kemp

• Decision Date: 01 October 1881
• Citation: 26 L.Ed. 875,104 U.S. 636
• Parties: St.Louis Smelting and Refining Company v. Kemp
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

104 U.S. 636

104 U.S. 636

26 L.Ed. 875

St.Louis Smelting and Refining Company v. Kemp.

Oct. Term, 1881

Error to the Circuit Court of the United States for the

District of Colorado.

This was an action at law brought in one of the courts of Colorado by the St. Louis Smelting and Refining Company, a corporation created under the laws of Missouri, for the possession of a parcel of land in the city of Leadville. On appli- cation of the defendants it was removed to the Circuit Court of the United States. The complaint is in the usual form of actions for the possession of real property under the practice obtaining in Colorado. It alleges that the plaintiff was duly incorporated, with power to purchase and hold real estate; that it was the owner in fee and entitled to the possession of the premises mentioned, describing them, and that the defendants wrongfully withheld them, to the damage of the plaintiff of $5,000.

The defendants filed an answer admitting that the plaintiff was incorporated as averred, but denying that it was the owner in fee of the demanded premises, or that they were wrongfully detained from its possession, or that it had sustained any damage. The answer also alleged that the plaintiff, as a foreign corporation, was incompetent to acquire title to any real estate in Colorado, except such as might be necessary for the transaction of its business as a smelting and refining company, and that the premises in controversy were not necessary for that purpose, but were acquired for speculation.

The plaintiff i led a replication, denying its incompetency to hold real estate as alleged, and averring that it was authorized, under the laws of Missouri, to buy, sell, and deal in real estate for any purpose whatever; that the property in controversy was acquired as a site for smelting and reduction works, and that such works were afterwards erected upon it and used for reducing and smelting silver ones.

The case was tried in November, 1879. To maintain the issues on its part the plaintiff offered in evidence a patent of the United States to Thomas Starr, dated March 29, 1879, for mining ground, which, it was admitted, included the premises in controversy. The patent recited that pursuant to provisions of chapter six of title thirty-two of the Revised Statutes, there had been deposited in the General Land-Office the plat and field-notes of the placer mining claim of Thomas Starr, the patentee, accompanied by a certificate of the register of the land-office at Fairplay, Colorado, within which district the premises are situated; that Starr had, on the 6th of March, 1879, entered an application for the said claim, which contained one hundred and sixty-four acres of land and sixty-one hundredths of an acre, more or less. The patent also specified the boun- daries of the tract according to the field-notes, and contained the recitals and words of grant and transfer usually inserted in patents for place mining land. To the introduction of this patent the defendants objected; but the record does not state on what grounds the objection was founded, and it was overruled. The patent was accordingly admitted in evidence. The plaintiff traced title to the land by sundry mesne conveyances from the patentee. It also introduced the certificate of the register of the same land-office, showing that the application of Starr at that office to enter and pay for his claim was made on the 18th of March, 1878; also a copy of the articles of incorporation of the plaintiff, and of the laws of Missouri under which the incorporation was had; and proved that, in 1877, prior to the existence of the town of Leadville, the company purchased of the claimant the tract embraced in the patent, for the purpose of erecting reduction works thereon, and that at the time of the purchase and when it commenced the construction of the works the land was unoccupied by other parties.

The plaintiff having rested its case, the defendants offered in evidence a certified copy of the record of proceedings in the General Land-Office at Washington, upon which Starr obtained his patent; to the introduction of which the plaintiff objected, on the ground that it could only show or tend to show the regularity or irregularity of the proceedings before the executive department in obtaining the patent, or the validity or invalidity of the possessory title or pre-emption right upon which the patent was founded, and that no evidence could be introduced to impeach the patent or attack it collaterally, or in any way affect it in this action. But the court overruled the objection and admitted the record. To this ruling an exception was taken.

The case being closed, the court instructed the jury substantially as follows: That a patent for a mining claim, since the passage of the act of Congress of 1870, could not embrace more than one hundred and sixty acres; that individuals and associations were, by that act, put upon the same footing, and that either might take that amount, but that by the mining act of Congress of 1872 an individual claimant was limited to twenty acres, whilst an association of persons could still take one hundred and sixty, as before; that the proceedings in the land-office were allowed in evidence, in order to show whether the patent was issued upon locations made prior to 1870, and that they showed that the claim of Starr was based upon twelve or fifteen locations, some of which were prior to 1870, and some since then; and added, that "if Mr. Starr was the owner of these claims, if he had obtained them by purchase, and they were valid and regula locations, he would, under the act, be required, if he desired to obtain a patent for them, to make application for each one of them, to post the notice, as required by the statute, and give the publication, and file his plan and survey, and do all these things which are required in the several claims upon each one of them.

If he had done so, and his right had been supported as to all of them, and the patent had been issued for all of these claims, and each of them described in the patent, there would have been no objection to the patent; but it was not competent for him to consolidate these claims and put them all in as one claim, and upon notice given as one claim, and publication as one claim, and proceeding throughout as one claim embracing 164 acres," and that the officers of the Land Department had no authority, in law, to proceed in that way and, therefore, the patent upon which the plaintiff relied was void and its title failed.

To the instructions given, exceptions were taken. The jury thereupon found for the defendants, and judgment in their favor was accordingly entered. To review this judgment the plaintiff has brought the case to this court on writ of error.

Messrs, A.T. Britton and Walter H. Smith, G.G. Symes and J.H. McGowan, for plaintiff in error.

Mr. A.G. Thurman, appeared for others interested, in support of the plaintiff in error.

Messrs. William Drummond, Robert H. Bradford, Fletcher P. Cuppy, Edward C. Ingersoll, T.A. Green, T.M. Patterson and Robert G. Ingersoll, for defendants in error.

Mr. Justice Field, after stating the case as above, delivered the opinion of the court, as follows:

As seen by the statement of the case, the plaintiff relies for a reversal of the judgment upon three grounds: 1. Error in admitting the record of the proceedings of the land-office to impeach the validity of the patent to Starr issued upon them; 2. Error in instructing the the jury that a patent for a placer claim, since the Act of 1870, could not embrace in any case more than one hundred and sixty acres; and 3. Error in instructing the jury that the owner by purchase of several claims must take separate proceedings upon each one in order to obtain a valid patent, and that it was not lawful for him to prosecute a single application upon a consolidation of several claims into one, nor for the land officers to allow such application and to issue a patent thereon.

We are of opinion that these several grounds are well taken and that, in each particular mentioned, the court below erred.

The patent of the United States is the conveyance by which the Nation passes its title to portions of the public domain. For the transfer of that title, the law has made numerous provisions, designating the persons who may acquire it and the terms of its acquisition. That the provisions may be properly carried out, a Land Department, as part of the administrative and executive branch of the government, has been created to supervise all the various proceedings taken to obtain the title, from their commencement to their close. In the course of their duty, the officers of that department are constantly called upon to hear testimony as to matters presented for their consideration, and to pass upon its competency, credibility and weight. In that respect they exercise a judicial function and, therefore, it has been held in various instances by this court that their judgment as to matters of fact, properly determinable by them, is conclusive when brought to notice in a collateral proceeding. Their judgment in such cases is, like that of other special tribunals upon matters within their exclusive jurisdiction, unassailable except by a direct proceeding for its correction or annulment. The execution and record of the patent are the final acts of the officers of the government for the transfer of its title, and as they can be lawfully performed only after certain steps have been taken, that instrument, duly signed, countersigned and sealed, not merely operatest o pass the title, but is in the nature of an official declaration by that branch of government to which the alienation of the public lands, under the law, is intrusted, that all the requirements preliminary to its issue have been complied with. The presumptions thus attending it are not open to rebuttal in an action at law. It is this unassailable character...