St Paul Co v. Winona St Co

• Citation: 5 S.Ct. 334,28 L.Ed. 872,112 U.S. 720
• Parties: ST. PAUL & S. C. R. CO. and others v. WINONA & ST. P. R. CO. 1
• Decision Date: 05 January 1885
• Court: United States Supreme Court

112 U.S. 720

5 S.Ct. 334

28 L.Ed. 872

ST. PAUL & S. C. R. CO. and others v. WINONA & ST. P. R. CO.¹

January 5, 1885.

E. C. Palmer, for plaintiffs in error.

Thos. Wilson, for defendant in error.

MILLER, J.

This is a writ of error to the supreme court of the state of Minnesota, and a motion is made to dismiss it for want of jurisdiction. It will sufficiently appear in the opinion on the merits that the rights asserted by both parties are founded on acts of congress, and require the construction of those acts to determine their conflicting claims. The motion to dismiss, therefore, cannot prevail. The source of this controversy is to be found in the act of congress of March 3, 1857, (11 St. 195,) making grants of land to the territory of Minnesota and the state of Alabama to aid in the construction of railroads. The first section of this statute—the important one in the case—is as follows:

'Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that there be, and is hereby, granted to the territory of Minnesota, for the purpose of aiding in the construction of railroads from Still water, by way of St. Paul and St. Anthony, to a point between the foot of Big Stone Lake and the mouth of Sioux Wood river, with a branch via Saint Cloud and Crow Wing to the navigable waters of the Red River of the North at such point as the legislature of said territory may determine; from St. Paul and from St. Anthony via Minneapolis to a convenient point of junction west of the Mississippi, to the southern boundary of the territory, in the direction of the mouth of the Big Sioux river, with a branch via Faribault to the north line of the state of Iowa, west of range sixteen; from Winona via St. Peter to a point on the Big Sioux river south of the forty-fifth parallel of north latitude; also from La Crescent via Target Lake, up the valley of Root river, to a point of junction with the last-mentioned road, east of range seventeen,—every alternate section of land designated by odd numbers, for six sections in width on each side of each of said roads and branches; but in case it shall appear that the United States have, when the lines or routes of said roads and branches are definitely fixed, sold any sections, or any parts thereof, granted as aforesaid, or that the right of pre-emption has attached to the same, then it shall be lawful for any agent or agents to be appointed by the governor of said territory or future state to select, subject to the approval of the secretary of the interior, from the lands of the United States, nearest to the tiers of sections above specified, so much lands in alternate sections or parts of sections as shall be equal to such lands as the United States have sold or otherwise appropriated, or to which the rights of pre-emption have attached as aforesaid; which lands (thus selected in lieu of those sold, and to which pre-emption rights have attached as aforesaid, together with the sections and parts of sections designated by odd numbers as aforesaid and appropriated as aforesaid) shall be held by the territory or future state of Minnesota for the use and purpose aforesaid: provided, that the land to be so located shall, in no case, be further than fifteen miles from the lines of said roads or branches, and selected for and on account of each of said roads or branches: provided further, that the lands hereby granted for and on account of said roads and branches, severally, shall be exclusively applied in the construction of that road for and on account of which such lands are hereby granted, and shall be disposed of only as the work progresses, and the same shall be applied to no other purpose whatsoever: and provided further, that any and all lands heretofore reserved to the United States by any act of congress, or in any other manner by competent authority, for the purpose of aiding in any object of internal improvement, or for any other purpose whatsoever, be, and the same are hereby, reserved to the United States from the operation of this act, except so far as it may be found necessary to locate the routes of said railroads and branches through such reserved lands, in which case the rights of way only shall be granted, subject to the approval of the president of the United States.'

The territory of Minnesota accepted this grant and conferred the right to the lands which came to it by means of its provisions on certain railroad corporations, which failed to perform their obligations to the state; by reason of which, and by the foreclosure of statutory mortgages, the state resumed control of the lands. It is unnecessary to pursue the various steps by which it was done, but it may be stated shortly that the right to build one of the roads mentioned in the act of congress, and to receive the land granted in aid of the enterprise, namely, from St. Paul and St. Anthony, by way of Minneapolis, to the southern boundary of the state, in the direction of the mouth of the Big Sioux river, became vested in the St. Paul & Sioux City Railroad Company, the plaintiff in error in this case. A similar right in regard to the road to be built from Winona via St. Peter to a point on the Big Sioux river, south of the forty-fifth parallel of latitude, and to the lands granted by the act in aid of it, became vested in the Winona & St. Peter Railroad Company, the defendant in error. These companies have complied with the terms of the grant by congress and by the Minnesota legislature, and completed the construction of the roads which they undertook to build. They have also, each of them, received large quantities of the land appropriated by the act of March, 1857, and by subsequent acts on the same subject, and, at one point where the lines of the two roads crossed, so that the grant of lands to each of the roads ran into the other's limits, the conflict has been settled by adopting the principle of an equal undivided interest in the lands so situated.

The present controversy has relation to another part of the general course of these roads, where the lines of their location, not approaching each other so close that the limits of six miles within which the alternate six sections are to be first sought for interfere with each other, but so close that the fifteen miles limits, under the act of 1857, of selection for lands sold or preempted do overlap each other, as do also the limits of the extension of the grants under the acts of 1864 and 1865, to be hereafter considered. It is in regard to the lands to be selected under all these grants, and chiefly in regard to the claim of the St. Paul com- pany, that, in search of its deficient lands in place, (using that phrase for lands within six miles of its road,) which had been disposed of before its location, it can, within its limit of fifteen miles under the original act, or its twenty miles under the subsequent acts, make those selections of odd-numbered sections within the six-mile limit of the Winona company, that the present controversy arises. The secretary of the interior, after a contest before the department between the parties to the present litigation, certified to the state of Minnesota, on May 14, 1874, a large quantity of lands, of odd-numbered sections, within the six-miles limit of the Winona road, as land properly selected by the St. Paul Company, to make up its deficiencies of lands within its own six-mile limits, and also to make up its deficiencies within the twenty-mile limits before referred to. A small part of these lands was within the fifteen-mile limits of the Winona road, and not within its six-mile limit. Thereupon the Winona Company brought the present suit, in the proper court of the state, to have a declaration of its rights in the lands desceibed in a schedule attached to the bill, as against the St. Paul Company and others, and to restrain them from receiving a patent or other evidences of title to the lands from the governor of the state. The local court granted relief, but whether to the full extent of the prayer of plaintiff we do not know; for, while the judgment of that court is before us, with a specific description of the pieces of land which it declares to be rightfully owned by the Winona Company, the schedules referred to in the original petition are not in the record. From that judgment the St. Paul Company appealed to the supreme court of the state, where it was affirmed, and then prosecuted this writ of error to that judgment of affirmance. The judge of the district court for Blue Earth county, in which the case was first tried, made an elaborate finding of the facts on which his judgment was rendered, and also an amended finding, and by these, so far as any controversy on the facts arises, the supreme court of Minnesota was governed and so is this court. These findings of fact are very full, and are intended to meet several aspects of the case, some of which are, in our view, immaterial to its decision.

The supreme court of Minnesota divides the lands in controversy in the suit into four classes, only the first two of which are in controversy here, namely: First. Those lying without the six, but within the fifteen, miles limits of the defendant, (the St. Paul Company,) and within the six miles limits of plaintiff, (the Winona Company.) Second. Those lying without the six miles limits of each company, within the fifteen miles limits of plaintiff, (the Winona Company,) and without the fifteen, but within the twenty, miles limits of the defendant, (the St. Paul Company.) The decision of that court gave the lands embraced in both these classes to the Winona Company, and the St. Paul Company assigns for error here that it is entitled to both classes.

The act of March 3, 1857, is of the class of acts which this court has repeatedly held to be a grant in proesenti. Its language is, 'that there be, and hereby is, granted to the territory of Minnesota * * * every alternate...