United States v. Luis Maria Ortiz

• Decision Date: 26 February 1900
• Docket Number: No. 20,20
• Citation: 20 S.Ct. 466,176 U.S. 422,44 L.Ed. 529
• Parties: UNITED STATES, Appt. , v. LUIS MARIA ORTIZ and Tomaz Ortiz
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

176 U.S. 422

20 S.Ct. 466

44 L.Ed. 529

UNITED STATES, Appt.,

v LUIS MARIA ORTIZ and Tomaz Ortiz.

No. 20.

Argued October 11, 1899.

Decided February 26, 1900.

Messrs. William H. Pope, Solicitor General Richards, and matthew G. Reynolds for appellant.

Mr. T. B. Catron for appellees.

Mr. Justice White delivered the opinion of the court:

Did the court below err in confirming an alleged Mexican land grant? is the inquiry which arises on this record.

The asserted grant is designated as the 'Sierra Mosca,' and embraces many thousand acres of land situated in the county of Santa F e, New Mexico. The official proceedings had in relation to the grant prior to the commencement of this suit were as follows: In 1872 a petition was filed before the surveyor general of New Mexico, asking the confirmation of the grant in the name of 'the heirs and those holding under them of Juan Luis Ortiz, deceased.' No other or fuller description of the persons asserting the right appeared in the proceedings. The surveyor general, after hearing, forwarded his recommendation that the grant be confirmed, to the Commissioner of the General Land Office in October, 1873, and the papers were in the same year submitted by the Secretary of the Interior to Congress. The proceedings before the surveyor general and the resulting official action, as above stated, were by virtue of the act of Congress of July 22, 1854. 10 Stat. at L. 308, chap. 103. No action having been taken by Congress, in December, 1876, certain persons alleging themselves to be part owners of a claimed Spanish grant of land, which it was averred conflicted with the one in question, petitioned the then surveyor general of New Mexico to hear additional testimony as to the reality of the grant which had been recommended for confirmation, on the ground that the testimony when heard would establish that the grant had been erroneously recommended for confirmation, because, among other reasons stated, it was a forgery. Whilst intimating a doubt as to his power to review the action of his predecessor in office, the surveyor general yet ordered the inquiry to be made, and, after some lapse of time on due notice, testimony was taken. In consequence of the notice given, the attorney for the petitioners, on the original application to confirm, appeared and cross-examined the witnesses. Subsequently acting upon such evidence, the then incumbent of the surveyor general's office transmitted the proceedings to the Commissioner of the General Land Office with the recommendation that the grant be rejected on the ground that it was affirmatively shown by the proof to be a forgery. This supplementary report and papers were also, in December, 1887, submitted by the Secretary of the Interior to Congress for its consideration.

No action having been taken by Congress upon either the original or supplementary report, the present suit was commenced, in the court of private land claims, to obtain the confirmation of the grant. The petition by which the cause was initiated was filed in the name of Luis Maria Ortiz and Tomaz Ortiz, and averred that the alleged Sierra Mosca grant had been made on June 4, 1846, by Manuel Armijo, the then governor of the territory of New Mexico, to Juan Luis Ortiz, and that the grantee had on June 8, 1846, been placed in legal possession of the granted land by Jose Dolores Trujillo, a justice of the peace, according to the laws and customs then in force in the Republic of Mexico. It was averred that 'the original papers relating to this said grant of land are now on file in the office of the surveyor general of the territory of New Mexico, known in that office as private land claim No. 75, for the Sierra Mosca tract, and are not in the control of the plaintiffs, so that they can file them therewith.' A copy, however, with a translation of the papers thus referred to, was annexed to the petition. The petitioners asserted their right under the grant as follows: 'The plaintiffs are the owners in fee in and to the said land grant by inheritance from their father, Gaspar Ortiz, who acquired his title thereto, as they are informed and believe, by inheritance from his father and their grandfather, Juan Luis Ortiz, the original grantee, and by purchase from the other heirs of the same.' No enumeration of the other heirs and no more precise specification of the date and character of the alleged purchase was contained in the petition.

The petition was generally traversed, and subsequently an answer was filed, specifically averring that the alleged granting papers were forgeries, and denying that delivery of possession had ever been made by a justice of the peace, as stated in the petition. After trial upon these issues, the grant was confirmed, Murray, J., dissenting.

Inverting the order in which they have been discussed at bar, and stating them in a condensed form, the questions presented for decision are: First. Does the proof establish that the grant in question was made, and that delivery of juridical possession thereunder was operated by a Mexican official charged with such duty? Second. If it be found that the grant was made, was there legal power in the then governor of New Mexico to make it, and, if so, was the power so executed as to authorize the court to enter a decree of confirmation? The first of these questions opens for consideration, not only the issue of forgery, but also involves deciding whether the proof is of such a character as to engender the affirmative conviction of the genuineness of the granting papers. The second raises several questions of law—that is, as to the power of the governor, at the date when the alleged grant is averred to have been made, the necessity of approval of his action by the departmental assembly, and other legal issues. Necessarily, all the questions coming under the second head arise only in the event the objections to the confirmation of the grant embodied in the first proposition are found to be untenable.

Before analyzing the evidence in order to develop and weigh the proof tending to show the existence of the grant, it will subserve clearness of statement, at the outset, to determine upon whom is cast the burden of showing the existence of the grant, and in a general way to consider briefly the quantum of proof required for that purpose. By the first subdivision of § 13 of the act of March 3, 1891, constituting the court of private land claims, that court and this court are commanded not to allow a claim 'that shall not appear to be upon a title lawfully and regularly derived from the government of Spain or Mexico,' etc. The statute authorizes no presumption in favor of the genuineness of a title from the mere fact that the claimant for confirmation presents a paper which is asserted to be a grant from a Mexican official. The command of the statute is not that the United States, when an alleged Mexican title is presented for confirmation, shall be put to the burden of showing that the title in question is not genuine, but that the evidence presented in favor of the asserted title shall be of such persuasive and preponderating force as to convince the court that the title is real, and, besides, possesses the legal attributes which the statute requires as essential to confirmation. It is clear, then, that the law casts, primarily, upon the applicant for confirmation, the duty of tendering such proof as to the existence, regularity, and archive record of the grant, as well as his connection with it, such as possession, ownership, and other related incidents, of sufficient probative force to create a just inference as to the reality and validity of the grant before the burden of proof, if at all, can be shifted from the claimant to the United States. This construction which arises from the text of the act of 1891 is sustained by considering that previous to that enactment there had been many decisions of this court rendered under the California act of 1851, construing that act as imposing upon the claimants for confirmation the primary burden of proof, although the provisions of the California act were not as explicitly mandatory as are those of the act of 1891. Thus from the date of the decision in United States v. Cambuston, 20 How. 64, 15 L. ed. 830, announced in 1857, to the ruling in Berreyesa v. United States, 154 U. S. 623, and 23 L. ed. 913, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1179, rendered in 1876, it was often decided that the burden of proof to sustain a Spanish grant rested upon the claimants, and that the failure to show that the official archives contained evidence that the grant had been made, and the fact of the production of the original title papers solely from the custody and possession of the grantee, were circumstances so suspicious as to create a presumption against the genuineness of the grant, calling for the production by the grantee of more than slight evidence to overthrow the presumption. Luco v. United States, 23 How. 515, 528, 16 L. ed. 545, 547; Peralta v. United States, 3 Wall. 434, 440, 18 L. ed. 221, 223. Indeed, this burden of proof resting upon the grantee had been frequently declared by this court, prior to the enactment of the law of 1891, to be essentially necessitated by the situation and as the sole means of avoiding the danger of imposing upon the United States by means of forged or fabricated grants. United States v. Teschmaker, 22 How. 392, 405, 16 L. ed. 353, 357; United States v. Pico, 22 How. 406, 16 L. ed. 357; Fuentes v. United States, 22 How. 443, 16 L. ed. 376; Luco v. United States, 23 How. 515, 528, 16 L. ed. 545, 547; United States v. Bolton, 23 How 341, 347, 16 L. ed. 569, 571; Palmer v. United States, 24 How. 125, 16 L. ed. 609; United States v. Knight, 1 Black, 227, sub nom. United States v. Moorehead, 17 L. ed. 76; United States v. Neleigh, 1 Black, 298, 17 L. ed. 144; United States v. Vallejo, 1 Black, 541, 17 L. ed. 232; White v. United States, 1 Wall. 660, 17 L. ed. 698; Romero v...