United States v. Colorado Anthracite Company

• Decision Date: 27 May 1912
• Docket Number: No. 227,227
• Citation: 32 S.Ct. 617,225 U.S. 219,56 L.Ed. 1063
• Parties: UNITED STATES, Appt., v. COLORADO ANTHRACITE COMPANY
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

225 U.S. 219

32 S.Ct. 617

56 L.Ed. 1063

UNITED STATES, Appt.,

v COLORADO ANTHRACITE COMPANY.

No. 227.

Argued April 25, 1912.

Decided May 27, 1912.

Assistant Attorney General Thompson for appellant.

Messrs. Charles A. Keigwin and E. W. Spalding for appellee.

Mr. Justice Van Devanter delivered the opinion of the court:

This was an action, under the act of June 16, 1880 (21 Stat. at L. 287, chap. 244, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 1416), § 2, for the repayment of the purchase price paid to the government for 160 acres of public coal lands, the entry of which was subsequently canceled. The plaintiff prevailed in the court of claims (45 Ct. Cl. 614) and the government has appealed, claiming that, on the findings, the judgment should have been in its favor.

Briefly stated, the material facts shown by the findings are as follows: One Stoiber, who claimed a preference right of entry under Rev. Stat. § 2348, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 1440, filed in the proper local land office the requisite declaratory statement, and thereafter made application to enter the land. Accompanying the application was an affidavit, made by his agent, stating that Stoiber was making the entry for his own use and benefit, and not directly or indirectly before the local land office, and after the same land resulted in a contest proceeding before the local land ovvice, and after the hearing therein the register and receiver sustained Stoiber's application, accepted the purchase price of the land, which was $3,200, and issued to him the usual duplicate receipt. This, in the nomenclature of the public land laws, was the allowance of an entry. The other parties to the contest appealed to the Commissioner of the General Land Office, who, upon the same evidence that was submitted to the local office, ruled that Stoiber's application ought not to have been sustained; that his entry had been erroneously allowed and could not be confirmed, and therefore that it must be canceled. That decision was affirmed by the Secretary of the Interior, and the entry was canceled accordingly. In filing the declaratory statement and making the entry Stoiber was not seeking to acquire the land for himself, but for the Colorado Anthracite Company, the plaintiff here, to which he already had given a quitclaim deed. This was not denied or concealed at the hearing in the contest, but, on the contrary, was admitted and was affirmatively shown by the testimony of the witnesses for Stoiber, including the agent who made the affidavit before mentioned. The purchase price paid at the time of the entry, which was after the hearing, was furnished by the company because the entry was being made for its benefit. No conveyance of the land was made by Stoiber other than the quitclaim deed just mentioned, and the purchase money so paid was covered into the Treasury and is still held by the government. After the cancelation of the entry the company applied to the Secretary of the Interior for repayment to it of the purchase price, and Stoiber and the company executed a relinquishment of all claims to the land and surrendered the duplicate receipt; but the application was denied on the theory that the company was not an assign of the entryman within the meaning of the act. Stoiber then applied to the Secretary for repayment, and, the application being refused, brought suit in the court of claims, which gave judgment for the government on the ground that the purchase price had been paid by the company, and not by Stoiber. 41 Ct. Cl. 269, 275. Thereupon the company brought the present suit, with the result before stated.

As reasons for asking a reversal of the judgment the government contends that the facts as found disclose, first, that the company is not an assign within the meaning of the act, and, second, that the entry was procured fraudulently, in contravention of the coal-land laws, and therefore that repayment cannot be allowed.

The act of 1880, in § 2, provides that where, from any cause, an entry of public land 'has been erroneously allowed and cannot be confirmed,' and is duly canceled by the Commissioner of the General Land Office, 'the Secretary of the Interior shall cause to be repaid to the person who made such entry, or to his heirs or assigns, the fees and commissions, amount of purchase money, and excesses paid upon the same, upon the surrender of the duplicate receipt and the excution of a proper relinquishment of all claims to said land.'

As we think Stoiber is the person who made the entry in the sense of this act, even although he made it for the benefit of the company, and paid the purchase price with money furnished by it, we come at once to the question whether, on the findings, the company is his assign within the meaning of the act. It is said that the answer must be in the negative, because there was no conveyance of the land from him to the company while the entry was in force, that is, after its allowance and before its cancelation. By the decisions of this court in Hoffeld v. United States, 186 U. S. 273, 46 L. ed. 1160, 22 Sup. Ct. Rep. 927, and United States v. Commonwealth Title Ins. & T. Co. 193 U. S. 651, 48 L. ed. 830, 24 Sup. Ct. Rep. 546, it is settled that an assign, within the meaning of the act, is one who becomes invested with the entryman's right in the land through some voluntary act of his; and it must be conceded that, generally speaking, a mere quitclaim deed passes only such interest as the grantor possesses at the time, and does not reach an after-acquired title. But here there was something more than a mere quitclaim deed, executed in advance of the acquisition of any interest by the entryman. The entry was made at the instance of...