Sweet v. United States

• Decision Date: 27 September 1915
• Docket Number: 4298.
• Citation: 228 F. 421
• Parties: SWEET v. UNITED STATES.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

228 F. 421

SWEET v. UNITED STATES.

No. 4298.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

September 27, 1915

Syllabus by the Court.

The Enabling Act of Utah grants the lands valuable for minerals as well as all other lands in sections 2, 16, 32, and 36 in each township, not expressly excepted from the grant in section 6 thereof. Act July 16, 1894, c. 138, 28 Stat. 107 109.

Where the terms of a statute are clear and their meaning certain construction has no place or office. The legal presumption is that the legislative body meant what it said, and it is the duty of the courts not to amend or revoke, but to give effect to, the enactment.

Where a legislative body makes a plain grant or provision, and makes no exception to it, the legal presumption is that it intended to make none, and it is not the province of the courts to do so. A fortiori, where a legislative body has made a clear grant or provision, and has itself carefully considered and expressly stated in its act the exceptions, the courts may not strike down the exceptions it has made, or add others which the enacting body excluded.

When the law-making power speaks in no uncertain terms upon a particular subject over which it has constitutional power to legislate, public policy in that particular case is what the statute enacts, and the statute may not be repealed or amended by the courts, on the ground that it is contrary to public policy, because the same legislative body has treated other particular subjects or cases in a different manner.

The grant of lands to Utah for school purposes was not a sale and neither section 2318, Revised Statutes (Comp. St. 1913, Sec. 4613), nor Act May 10, 1872, c. 152, 17 Stat. 91, reserving mineral lands from sale is applicable thereto. Neither of them disqualified the Congress subsequently to grant public lands valuable for minerals for school or other public purposes, or modified or restricted the effect of such an absolute grant.

Where general laws treating of many subjects and a law treating of one of those subjects, or one particular case, are inconsistent, they must, if possible, stand and be given effect together, the former as the general law, and the latter as the law of the particular case or subject.

The equities of the United States appeal to the conscience of a chancellor with no greater or less force than would the equities of a private individual in like circumstances.

A. C. Ellis, Jr., and Russell G. Schulder, both of Salt Lake City, Utah (W. H. Dickson, of Salt Lake City, Utah, and A. R. Barnes, Atty. Gen., of Utah, on the brief), for appellant.

William W. Ray, U.S. Atty., of Salt Lake City, Utah (David S. Cook, Asst. U.S. Atty., of Salt Lake City, Utah, on the brief), for the United States.

Before SANBORN and CARLAND, Circuit Judges, and LEWIS, District Judge.

SANBORN Circuit Judge.

By the terms of the Enabling Act of the state of Utah the United States granted sections 2, 16, 32, and 36 in every township in that state to the state for the support of common schools. The act contained no exception or reservation of mineral lands from this grant. 28 Stat. 107, approved July 16, 1894. In the year 1904 the state of Utah contracted to sell section 32 in township 15 south, range 8 east of Salt Lake meridian, to George T. Badger, who assigned his contract to Arthur A. Sweet in 1906. Sweet paid the state for the land and was demanding his deed when in 1907 the United States brought this suit against him to quiet the title in itself, on the ground that the section was well-known coal land when the state was admitted into the Union, and for that reason never passed to the state. The court below sustained the claim of the government and the administrator of the estate of Arthur A. Sweet, who had died meanwhile, appealed. He complains that the evidence established the fact that the land in question was not well-known coal lands, and that, if it was, it was granted to the state by the Enabling Act. Sections 6, 10, and 20 of that act contain the grant, and all the exceptions to and reservations from the grant, and they read in this way:

'Sec. 6. That upon the admission of said state into the Union, sections numbered two, sixteen, thirty-two, and thirty-six in every township of said proposed state, and where such sections or any parts thereof have been sold or otherwise disposed of by or under the authority of any act of Congress other lands equivalent thereto, in legal subdivisions of not less than one quarter section and as contiguous as may be to the section in lieu of which the same is taken, are hereby granted to said state for the support of common schools, such indemnity lands to be selected within said state in such manner as the Legislature may provide, with the approval of the Secretary of the Interior: Provided, that the second, sixteenth, thirty-second, and thirty-sixth sections embraced in permanent reservations for national purposes shall not, at any time, be subject to the grants nor to the indemnity provisions of this act, nor shall any lands embraced in Indian, military, or other reservations of any character be subject to the grants or to the indemnity provisions of this act until the reservation shall have been extinguished and such lands be restored to and become a part of the public domain.'

'Sec. 10. That the proceeds of lands herein granted for educational purposes, except as hereinafter otherwise provided, shall constitute a permanent school fund, the interest of which only shall be expended for the support of said schools, and such land shall not be subject to pre-emption, homestead entry, or any other entry under the land laws of the United States, whether surveyed or unsurveyed, but shall be surveyed for school purposes only.'

'Sec. 20. That all acts or parts of acts in conflict with the provisions of this act, whether passed by the Legislature of said territory or by Congress, are hereby repealed.'

The United States now asks the courts to amend section 6 by adding thereto the words 'nor shall any mineral lands be subject to the grant or the indemnity provisions of this section,' and thereby to revoke the grant of the mineral lands in sections 2, 16, 32, and 36 clearly made by the terms of the section. But such an amendment and revocation would be violative of settled canons of construction and established principles of law. The Enabling Act is clear, free from even the shadow of an ambiguity. And when a statute is plain and its meaning is certain, construction has no place or office. The conclusive legal presumption is that the legislative body meant what it said, and the duty of the courts is to give effect to its acts, not to amend or repeal them. Brun v. Mann, 151 F. 145, 157, 80 C.C.A. 513, 525, 12 L.R.A. (N.S.) 154; United States v. Ninety-nine Diamonds, 139 F. 961, 964, 72 C.C.A. 9, 12, 2 L.R.A. (N.S.) 185; Johnson v. Southern Pac. Co., 117 F. 462, 465, 54 C.C.A. 508, 511; Swarts v. Siegel, 117 F. 13, 18, 19, 54 C.C.A. 399, 404, 405; St. Paul, M. & M. Ry. Co. v. Sage, 71 F. 40, 47, 17 C.C.A. 558, 565; Webber v. St. Paul City Ry. Co., 97 F. 140, 144, 38 C.C.A. 79, 83; Grainger & Co. v. Riley, 201 F. 901, 904, 120 C.C.A. 415, 418; United States v. Alamorgordo Lumber Co., 202 F. 700, 706, 121 C.C.A. 162, 168; First Nat. Bank v. United States, 206 F. 374, 377, 378, 124 C.C.A. 256, 259, 260, 46 L.R.A. (N.S.) 1139; Soliss v. General Electric Co., 213 F. 204, 207, 129 C.C.A. 548, 551.

Congress had the power to make or to withhold this grant in whole or in part. It had absolute power to reserve or except from the grant a part of or all the mineral lands in the state. Its attention was unavoidably called to the exceptions to the grant it would make, for it expressly provided in section 6 that lands in permanent reservations for national purposes should be forever excepted from the grant, and that lands in Indian, military, or other reservations should be excepted until the reservation was extinguished. Nevertheless it did not except or reserve mineral lands from the grant. And where a legislative body makes a plain grant or provision, and makes no exception to it, the legal presumption is that it intended to make none, and it is not the province of the courts to do so. A fortiori, is it true that, where a legislative body has made a grant or provision, and has itself carefully considered and specified the exceptions to it, the courts may not lawfully strike out the exceptions made, or add others which the enacting body excluded. Such a proceeding would pass the bounds of construction and would constitute reprehensible judicial legislation. Hobbs v. McLean, 117 U.S. 567, 579, 6 Sup.Ct. 870, 29 L.Ed. 940; Maxwell v.

Moore, 22 How. 185, 191, 16 L.Ed. 251; Sutherland on Statutory Construction, Sec. 328; Cella Commission Co. v. Bohlinger, 147 F. 419, 425, 78 C.C.A. 467, 473, 8 L.R.A. (N.S.) 537; Omaha Water Co. v. City of Omaha, 147 F. 1, 13, 77 C.C.A. 267, 279, 12 L.R.A. (N.S.) 736, 8 Ann.Cas. 614; Chicago, M. & St. Paul Ry. Co. v. Westby, 178 F. 619, 631, 102 C.C.A. 65, 77, 47 L.R.A. (N.S.) 97; American Grain Separator Co. v. Twin City Separator Co., 202 F. 202, 205, 120 C.C.A. 644, 647; United States v. Alamogordo Lumber Co., 202 F. 700, 706, 121 C.C.A. 162, 168; United States v. Mo. Pac. Ry. Co., 213 F. 169, 173, 130 C.C.A. 5, 9.

Counsel for the United States seek to escape from the conclusion which the rules and principles to which reference has been made seem to compel, on the grounds that it is the settled public policy of the government to reserve mineral lands from sales and grants; that section 2318 of the Revised Statutes (Comp. St. 1913, Sec. 4613) provided that 'in all cases lands valuable for minerals shall be reserved from sale except as otherwise expressly...