United States v. McLaughlin

• Decision Date: 13 December 1886
• Citation: 30 F. 147
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of California
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. McLAUGHLIN and others. (Seven Cases.)

30 F. 147

UNITED STATES v. McLAUGHLIN and others. (Seven Cases.)

United States Circuit Court, N.D. California.

December 13, 1886

Syllabus by the Court

The map of the route of the Western division of the Central Pacific Railroad, filed with the secretary of the interior, December 8, 1864, is the map of the general route, and not of the line as 'definitely fixed,' within the meaning of the land-grant act of 1862.

The map of the route of said road, as finally located and constructed, filed with the secretary of the interior February 1, 1870, and accepted as such by that officer, is the map of definite location.

The Moquelamos grant was finally rejected, February 13, 1865 after which the lands within the exterior boundaries of the grant ceased to be sub judice, and became public lands, to the odd sections of which, within 20 miles of the line of the road, the right of the railroad company attached, and became indefeasible, immediately upon the filing of the map of definite location of the road, and the acceptance thereof as such by the secretary of the interior.

Matters of estoppel as to lands lying east of range line, between ranges 7 and 8 E. Mt. Diablo meridian, discussed.

The withdrawal of the lands upon filing the map of the general route of the road, for 25 miles on each side of the line indicated, protected the lands against the attaching of any other right as against the railroad company, until the filing of the map of definite location.

S. G Hilborn, U.S. Atty., for the United States.

Mich. Mullany and D. M. Delmas, for complainants.

A. L. Rhodes, for McLaughlin.

F. H. Smith and L. W. Elliott, for certain defendants.

Before SAWYER, circuit judge, and SABIN, district judge.

SAWYER J.,

(SABIN, J., concurring.) This, and the six other suits, are brought by the United States against the Central Pacific Railroad Company, as patentee, and its various grantees, now holding the title, to vacate seven different patents, embracing, in the aggregate, many thousand acres of land, as having been, improperly, issued by mistake. They are the same patents sought to be vacated in U.S. v. Central Pacific R. Co., 8 Sawy. 81, 11 F. 449, in which the bill was dismissed, without deciding the case upon the merits, for want of indispensable parties; as no one having, at the time, any interest in the lands, was made a party to the suit. In the present case, the Central Pacific Railroad Company, not having any interest, is a mere nominal party, and the case must depend upon the rights of the other defendants, who derive title through the patentee.

The patents purport to have been issued in pursuance of the act of July 1, 1862, to aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line across the continent, (12 St. 489, and amendatory acts,) under which the Central and Western Pacific roads were constructed. A portion of the lands in question, are admitted to be within the exterior boundaries of the lands claimed under the fraudulent Moquelamos grant, which was finally rejected by the supreme court of the United States, on February 13, 1865. Until the final rejection of said grant on February 13, 1865, the lands, so admitted to be within the boundaries of the alleged grant, were held by the supreme court, in Newhall v. Sanger, 92 U.S., 761, to be sub judice, and therefore not public lands, and not to be within the terms of any grant, that attached prior to the final rejection of that grant, and that decision is controlling, provided the facts are, as they were supposed to be, in that case. Newhall v. Sanger was not a suit between the parties to the railroad grant, and it was decided upon demurrer. The facts seem to have been imperfectly known to the parties, and the allegations of the bill upon which the case turned, were extremely loose. The grant is to the alternate sections on 'each side of said road, not sold, reserved or otherwise disposed of by the United States, and, to which a pre-emption, or homestead claim may not have attached, at the time the line of said road is definitely fixed. ' If the line of said road was 'definitely fixed,' before February 13, 1865, then, unless there were other controlling equities, under the decision in Newhall v. Sanger, the lands which were, then, sub judice within the bounds of the Moquelamos grant did not pass to the railroad company, and ought not to have been patented. But, on the contrary, if the line of said road was not 'definitely fixed,' within the meaning of the act, till after February 13, 1865, then, it is conceded, that they had ceased to be sub judice, and they did pass to the railroad company, and were properly patented. The bill alleges that the line was 'definitely fixed' on December 8, 1864. The sworn answer responsive to the bill, denies this allegation, and alleges that the line was not definitely fixed till February 1, 1870, or, at least, till 1868, and the burden of showing affirmatively a definite location at an earlier date is on complainants. The complainants contend, and claim to have introduced evidence establishing this position--that the line of the road was 'definitely fixed' on December 8, 1864-- the time alleged in the bill, by the filing of a certain map in the office of the secretary of the interior, at Washington, a copy of which is in evidence as Exhibit A. While the defendants, on the contrary, contend that this is not a map definitely fixing the line of the road, but is only the map required by section 7 of the act, to be filed in the department of the interior to 'designate the general route of said road, as near as may be;' and that the line of said road was not 'definitely fixed,' till the filing of the map of the road as actually located and constructed on February 1, 1870, a copy of which is in evidence as Exhibit 17; or, at least, until the road was actually located in 1868, where it is, in fact, built, both of which periods are long since the final rejection of the Moquelamos grant. And this is the only disputed issue between the parties on this branch of the case. Upon the determination of this issue, therefore, depends the decision of this case, unless there are other equities disclosed, upon which defendants can rest, as to all, or some of the lands.

The letter of Leland Stanford, president of the Central Pacific Railroad Company, to the secretary of the interior, dated February 20, 1864, referring to a prior 'general map,' filed on June 1, 1863, and saying that since that time the first fifty miles of the road had been finally located, of which location he sends a map, showing the definite location, manifestly relates to the Central Pacific Railroad proper, extending east from Sacramento over the mountains. At that time the company had been vigorously at work on that line, but had done nothing on the Western division. This relation to that part of the road appears in the letter itself, from the subsequent passage asking surveys to be made, and saying: 'The company will have thirty-one miles of their road, from Sacramento to Newcastle Gap, completed and running about the first of April next. ' Besides, no map of the kind is put in evidence. This letter, evidently, has no bearing on the question at issue.

The first evidence relating to a location of the Western division is a map put in evidence by complainants, and upon which they rely, as showing the time when the line of the road became 'definitely fixed.' It is attested October 5, 1865, by the president, secretary and acting chief engineer of the company, and was filed in the general land-office at Washington, having been deposited with the secretary of the interior, and transmitted to the commissioner of the land-office by the secretary, December 8, 1864. It has on its face the following: 'Map of the Line of the Western Division of the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California, from Sacramento to San Francisco. ' It has also upon it the following: 'United States of America, State of California.

'OFFICE OF THE CENTRAL PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY OF CALIFORNIA.

'We, the undersigned, the president, secretary, and acting chief engineer of said company, do hereby certify that this is a true and complete map of the line of said company's road and telegraph line, from the city of Sacramento to the city of said San Francisco, and the western terminus thereof, as adopted, located, designated, and fixed by the board of directors of said company, a copy of which is on file in the office of said company in the city of Sacramento.

'Witness our hands, and the corporate seal of said company hereto affixed by order of said board of directors, this fifth (5th) day of October, A.D. 1867.

Central Pacific Railroad Co.,

SEAL, of California.

'LELAND STANFORD, President. 'E. H. MILLER, JR., Secretary. 'SAM'L S. MONTAGUE, Acting Chief Engineer.'

But this map, thus indorsed, was accompanied by a copy of the resolution of the board of directors, referred to, in pursuance of which the map was sent, and explanatory of its purpose. Both were sent together as one act, and filed in the office of the secretary of the interior, and must be considered together, the one as explanatory of the other. In this resolution, after a long preamble and recital, 'it is hereby ordered and resolved, by the board of directors of the said 'Central Pacific Railroad Company of California,' that the general route of the Western division from Sacramento to San Francisco of the railroad and telegraph line of said company, is hereby extended, located fixed and designated, as laid down and surveyed from the city of Sacramento through said county and the counties of San Joaquin, Alameda, Santa Clara, San Mateo, and the city and county of San Francisco, to a point sixty-six feet west of the west line of Third...