United States v. Illinois Cent. R. Co.

• Decision Date: 30 December 1949
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 1642.
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. ILLINOIS CENT. R. CO. et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Illinois

89 F. Supp. 17

UNITED STATES v. ILLINOIS CENT. R. CO. et al.

Civ. No. 1642.

United States District Court E. D. Illinois.

December 30, 1949.

William W. Hart, U. S. Dist. Atty., East St. Louis, Ill., Ray M. Foreman, Asst. U. S. Dist. Atty., Danville, Ill., Ernest R. McHale, Asst. U. S. Dist. Atty., East St. Louis, Ill., Marvin J. Sonosky, Washington, D.C., for the Department of Justice, for plaintiff.

Charles A. Helsell and Richard C. Beckett, Chicago Ill., Bruce A. Campbell, East St. Louis, Ill., and Charles E. Feirich, Carbondale, Ill., for defendant Illinois Cent. R. Co.

Tim Lowry, Chicago, Ill., and Hugh V. Murray, Jr., Centralia, Ill., for defendant James W. Menhall, d.b.a. J. W. Menhall Drilling Co.

WHAM, Chief Judge.

This is a suit by the United States to enjoin defendants, Illinois Central Railroad Company and James W. Menhall, doing business as J. W. Menhall Drilling Company, from extracting oil and gas from certain parts of the right of way of that railroad located in Coles County, Illinois, and for an accounting of the oil and gas extracted therefrom to July 1, 1947. In this opinion the words "the defendant" when used in the singular will refer to the Illinois Central Railroad Company and the word "lessee" will refer to defendant Menhall. Title of plaintiff, as well as that of defendant, is in issue, for to succeed, the United States must show not only that the right to extract the oil is not in the defendant, but that it has title to the minerals underlying the right of way. It has been stipulated that the extraction of the oil, as now being accomplished, in no way interferes with the operation of the railroad or the use of its right of way for railroad purposes. Pending determination of title lessee is operating under a lease from plaintiff as well as from defendant, which fact, counsel agree, is without significance here on the question of title as between plaintiff and defendant.

All the facts are stipulated and only a question of law remains for decision. The question is whether, as against the plaintiff, the defendant has the right to extract the oil from under its right of way acquired from the State of Illinois under and by virtue of the grant from plaintiff hereinafter described and set forth. Under stipulated facts defendant has complied with all the requirements and conditions of the grant. That being true, it has title to the largest estate in the land occupied by its right of way it was possible for it to acquire within the meaning of said grant as of the time it was made.

The Illinois Central Railroad received its title by a conveyance from the State of Illinois acting under and pursuant to the Act of Congress of September 20, 1850, 9 Stat. 466,¹ entitled "An Act granting the Right of Way, and making a Grant of Land to the States of Illinois, Mississippi, and Alabama, in Aid of the Construction of a Railroad from Chicago to Mobile." As may be observed by reading the full text of said Act for convenience set forth in the margin, Section 1, briefly stated, grants the right of way to the State of Illinois through public lands for the construction of a railroad, with the right to take necessary materials of earth, stone, and timber for the construction thereof. Section 2 grants to the State of Illinois for the purpose of aiding in making the railroad every alternate section of land designated by even numbers for six sections in width on each side of said road, and provides that the land so granted be disposed of only as the work on the railroad progresses and shall be applied to no other purpose. Section 3 provides that all remaining public lands within six miles on either side of the railroad and branches shall be sold for not less than double the minimum price of public lands. Section 4 provides that the lands granted to the State of Illinois shall be subject to disposal by the legislature thereof for the aforesaid purposes and no other. It also provides that the railroad shall be and remain a public highway free of toll charge to the United States. Section 5 provides, in event the railroad is not completed within ten years, the State of Illinois shall be bound to pay the United States the amount received by it upon the sale of any part of said lands, that title of the purchasers from the State shall remain valid, and that any of said lands not disposed of by the State shall reinvest in the United States. Section 6 provides that the United States mail shall at all times be transported on said railroad under the direction of the Post Office Department at such price as the Congress may by law direct. By Section 7, for the same purposes, similar grants are made to the States of Alabama and Mississippi.

It is observed that while the grant is made in aid of the construction of a railroad a number of considerations of value to the grantor are expressed and implied which the defendant by its acceptance of the grant became bound to satisfy. Those considerations, among others, relate to transportation without toll charges to the Government, transportation of the mails at prices fixed by the Congress and the construction and perpetual maintenance and operation of a railroad over the right of way thereby granted through the public domain thus bringing enhanced value to the lands remaining in the government.

The Illinois Central Railroad received a deed in fee simple from the State of Illinois to the right of way and lands which had been granted to the State, as above set forth, subject, however, to said Act of Congress which was set forth in the deed. The character and the incidents of defendant's title are determined by the character and incidents of the title received by the State of Illinois by the aforesaid grant from the United States as affected by the compliance by defendant with all requirements imposed by the Act.

Counsel for the Government, relying on the principle enunciated in numerous cases, that any ambiguity in a grant is to be resolved favorably to a sovereign grantor and that nothing passes but what is conveyed in clear and explicit language, Great Northern Railway Company v. United States, 315 U.S. 262, at page 272, 62 S.Ct. 529, 86 L.Ed. 836; Barden v. Northern Pacific Railroad, 154 U.S. 288, 325-326, 14 S.Ct. 1030, 38 L.Ed. 992, argue that title to the subsurface minerals did not pass to the State of Illinois or to the railroad under said Act of Congress, but that title thereto remains in the United States. This argument is made only as to that portion of said grant described in Section 1 of the Act as "right of way through the public lands". No contention has been made that plaintiff retained or has any interest in the lands or the minerals under the lands granted by Section 2 of the Act. Counsel for the Government, in deference to expressions by the Supreme Court in decisions hereinafter referred to, concede that more than an easement in the right of way was received by the Illinois Central Railroad and that it is vested with some type of fee but argue that its rights under such fee will not permit the transfer of any part of the land occupied by the right of way such as would be effected by the extraction and sale of the oil but defendant's rights under its fee should be held to be limited to the use of the right of way for railroad purposes.

Counsel for defendant contend earnestly that it has a fee-simple title to the land occupied by its said right of way but says, if not, that under the strictest construction of the grant in plaintiff's favor it has a base or qualified fee subject only to an implied condition of reverter to plaintiff in event the land ceases to be used for railroad purposes. It further contends that a fee title of the latter character carries with it the right to use the land constituting the right of way as if it owned the fee-simple title as long as it retains the title and continues to operate its railroad over it; that such right of use includes the right to extract and sell the oil as long as the land is being used for a railroad right of way pursuant to the grant and such extraction does not interfere with such use. Numerous cases have been cited by counsel for both parties. Though a number are helpful, none are controlling as none considers or passes upon the right of the railroad to extract the oil from its right of way received by a grant from the United States of the character here under consideration made during the period this grant was made.

The nature and extent of the title to its right of way owned by defendant by virtue of said grant must be held to be that intended by Congress at the time of the grant, if such intention can be discerned. In Winona & St. P. R. Co. v. Barney, 113 U.S. 618, 625, 5 S.Ct. 606, 609, 28 L.Ed. 1109, speaking of the construction of legislative grants, the court said: "They are to receive such a construction as will carry out the intent of congress, however difficult it might be to give full effect to the language used if the grants were by instruments of private conveyance. To ascertain that intent we must look to the condition of the country when the acts were passed, as well as to the purpose declared on their face, and read all parts of them together."

In discussing means available to the court for arriving at the intent of Congress the court, in Great Northern Railway Company v. United States, supra, 315 U.S. at page 275, 62 S.Ct. at page 533, discussing a grant under the general right of way Act of March 3, 1875, 43 U.S.C.A. § 934 et seq., said: "But we are not limited to the lifeless words of the statute and formalistic canons of construction in our search for the intent of Congress. The Act was the product of a period, and, `courts, in construing a statute, may with propriety recur to the history of the times when it was passed'."

In the same opinion the court distinguishes between the periods in the legislative and economic history of the United States from 1850 to 1871 and the period...