Stockley v. United States
| Decision Date | 02 January 1923 |
| Docket Number | No. 74,74 |
| Citation | 260 U.S. 532,43 S.Ct. 186,67 L.Ed. 390 |
| Parties | STOCKLEY et al. v. UNITED STATES |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Mr. S. L. Herold, of Shreveport, La., for appellants.
Mr. Assistant Attorney General Riter, for the United States.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 533-535 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice SUTHERLAND delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a suit in equity brought by the United States, as plaintiff, against the appellants, as defendants, by which a decree was sought adjudging the plaintiff to be the owner of a tract of land in the parish of Caddo, La., enjoining all interference therewith, and requiring the defendants to account for the value of oil and gas extracted by them therefrom.
The United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, upon the report of a master, found for the plaintiff and entered a decree in accordance with the prayer of the bill ordering a restoration of possession and awarding damages against some of the defendants, including Stockley, for about $62,000.
The case comes to this court by appeal from the decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals affirming the decree of the District Court. 271 Fed. 632.
The defendants denied plaintiff's title and alleged that the land was the property of the defendant Stockley by virtue of his compliance with the homestead laws of the United States.
The conceded facts are that in 1897 Stockley took possession of the land and on November 13, 1905, made a preliminary entry thereof as a homestead. He complied with the provisions of the homestead laws, submitted final proof, including the required nonmineral affidavit, paid the commissions and fees then due, and on January 16, 1909, obtained the receiver's receipt therefor. Prior to that time, viz. on December 15, 1908, a large body of public lands, embracing within its boundaries the land in question, was withdrawn by an order of the President of the United States from all forms of appropriation. The withdrawal order was expressly made 'subject to existing valid claims.' The receiver § receipt, omitting unnecessary matter, is in the following words:
* * *'
On March 17, 1910, Stockley leased the property in question to the defendant the Gulf Refining Company, which company subsequently drilled wells and developed oil. The rights of the other defendants are wholly dependent upon the title asserted on behalf of Stockley.
On July 16, 1910, after the report of a special agent confirming Stockley's claim of residence upon and cultivation and improvement of the lands, the Commissioner of the General Land Office ordered the case 'clear-listed and closed as to the Field Service Division.' Subsequently, and more than three years after the issuance of the receiver's receipt, viz. on February 27, 1912, a contest was ordered by the Commissioner of the General Land Office before the local register and receiver upon the charge that the land was mineral in character, being chiefly valuable for oil and gas, and that when Stockley made his final proof he knew or, as an ordinarily prudent man, should have known this fact. After a hearing, the register and receiver decided in favor of Stockley, but the Commissioner of the General Land Office reversed the decision and ordered the entry canceled. The Secretary of the Interior affirmed the Commissioner, with a modification allowing Stockley to obtain a patent for the surface only, under the provisions of the Act of July 17, 1914, c. 142, 38 Stat. 509 (Comp. St §§ 4640a-4640c).
The defendants contended that the Commissioner of the General Land Office and the Secretary of the Interior were without authority to entertain this contest because prior thereto full equitable title had vested in Stockley and he had become entitled to a patent by virtue of the provisions of section 7 of the Act of March 3, 1891, c. 561, 26 Stat. 1095, 1099 (Comp. St. § 5113). That section, so far as necessary to be stated, provides:
'That after the lapse of two years from the date of the issuance of the receiver's receipt upon the final entry of any tract of land under the homestead, timber culture, desert land, or pre-emption laws, or under this act, and when there shall be no pending contest or protest against the validity of such entry, the entryman shall be entitled to a patent conveying the land by him entered, and the same shall be issued to him; but this proviso shall not be construed to require the delay of two years from the date of said entry before the issuing of a patent therefor.'
The court below rejected defendants' contention, holding that the receipt issued to Stockley was not a 'receiver's receipt upon the final entry' for the reason that, in the view of that court, a final entry could not become effective until the issuance of the certificate of the register. In other words, it was the opinion of the lower court that in order to constitute a final entry within the meaning of the statute above quoted, there must be an adjudication upon the proofs and the issuance of a final certificate, evidencing an approval thereof.
We think the language of the statute does not justify this conclusion. It must be assumed that Congress was familiar with the operations and practice of the Land Department and knew the difference between a receiver's receipt and a register's certificate. These papers serve different purposes. One, as its name imports, acknowledges the receipt of the money paid. The other certifies to the payment and declares that the claimant on presentation of the certificate to the Commissioner of the General Land Office shall be entitled to a patent.
The evidence shows that prior to the passage of the statute, and thereafter until 1908, the practice was to issue receipt and certificate simultaneously upon the submission and acceptance of the final proof and payment of the fees and commissions. In 1908 this practice was changed, so that the receipt was issued u on the submission of the final proof and making of payment, while the certificate was issued upon approval of the proof and this might be at any time after the issuance of the receipt. The receiver and register act independently, the former alone being authorized to issue the receipt and the latter to sign the certificate. The receipt issued to Stockley was after submission of his proof and payment of all that he was required to pay under the law. No certificate was ever issued by the register.
It is contended by the government that the receiver's receipt named in the statute should be restricted to a receipt issued simultaneously with the register's certificate after approval of final proofs, and that, after the change of 1908 in the practice of the department, a receipt issued before such approval does not come within the meaning of the statute. Such a receipt, it is contended, obtains no validity as a 'receiver's receipt upon the final entry' until after the proof has in fact been examined and approved.
We cannot accept this conception of the law. A change in the practice of the Land Department manifestly could not have the effect of altering the meaning of an act of Congress. What the act meant upon its passage, it continued to mean thereafter. The plain provision is that the period of limitation shall begin to run from the date of the 'issuance of the receiver's receipt upon the final entry.' There is no ambiguity in this language and, therefore, no room for construction. There is nothing to construe. The sole inquiry is whether the receipt issued to Stockley falls within the words of the statute. In Chotard v. Pope, 12 Wheat. 586, 588 (6 L. Ed. 737), this court defined the term entry as meaning:
'That act by which an individual acquires an inceptive right to a portion of the unappropriated soil of the country, by filing his claim in the office of an officer known in the legislation of several states by the epithet of an entrytaker, and corresponding very much in his functions with the registers of land offices, under the acts of the United States.'
It was in this sense that the term 'final entry' was used in this statute. Having submitted to...
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