Warner Valley Stock Company v. Smith

• Decision Date: 11 January 1897
• Docket Number: No. 550,550
• Citation: 17 S.Ct. 997,165 U.S. 28
• Parties: WARNER VALLEY STOCK COMPANY v. SMITH
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

165 U.S. 28

17 S.Ct. 997

WARNER VALLEY STOCK COMPANY

v SMITH.

No. 550

Argued December 17, 18, 1896.

Decided January 11, 1897.

The case is stated in the opinion.

Mr. Frederic D. McKenney for appellant. Mr. Samuel F. Phillips, Mr. Charles A. Cogswell and Mr. James B. McCrellis were with him on his brief.

Mr. Joseph K. McCammon, Mr. John Mullan and Mr. James H. Hayden filed a brief for appellees.

MR. JUSTICE GRAY delivered the opinion of the court.

This was a bill in equity, filed January 15, 1896, in the Supreme Court for the District of Columbia, by a corporation of the State of Oregon, against Hoke Smith, Secretary of the Interior, and Silas W. Lamoreux, Commissioner of the General Land Office, both alleged in the bill to be citizens and residents of the District of Columbia, and to be "sued for acts done and threatened by them in their official capacity respectively."

The prayer of the bill was "that the said Hoke Smith, Secretary of the Interior, and Silas W. Lamoreux, Commissioner of the General Land Office, their subordinates and agents, may be restricted and enjoined from assuming to exercise further jurisdiction with respect to the disposition of lands described in Oregon swamp land lists No. 30 and No. 31, and from further trespassing upon your orator's right of quiet possession thereof; and that said defendant Hoke Smith may be commanded and enjoined to prepare for issuance unto your orator, in accordance with law, patents for said lands, and to the end that your orator's title to said lands may be quieted and freed from cloud; and that such other and further relief may be administered unto your orator as the peculiar necessities and circumstances of the case may require and merit."

By the act of Congress of September 28, 1850, c. 84, entitled "An act to enable the State of Arkansas and other States to reclaim the 'swamp lands' within their limits," it was enacted that in each State the whole of the "swamp and overflowed lands, made unfit thereby for cultivation, which shall remain unsold at the passage of this act shall be, and the same are hereby, granted to said State"; and that it should be the duty of the Secretary of the Interior as soon as might be practicable, "to make out an accurate list and plats of the lands described as aforesaid, and transmit the same to the governor of the State," and at his request, "cause a patent to be issued to the State therefor; and, on that patent, the fee simple to said lands shall vest in said State, subject to the disposal of the legislature thereof." 9 Stat. 519. And by the act of March 12, 1860, c. 5, the provisions of the act of 1850 were extended to the State of Oregon, "provided that the grant hereby made shall not include any lands which the government of the United States may have reserved, sold or disposed of (in pursuance of any law heretofore enacted) prior to the confirmation of title to be made under the authority of said act." 12 Stat. 3.

The leading facts alleged in the bill were as follows: The lands in question were sold and conveyed by the State of Oregon in 1883 and 1884, and passed by mesne conveyances to the plaintiff on January 15, 1892, in consideration of the payment by it of the sum of $19,000. In 1888, these lands, having previously been selected by the State as swamp and overflowed lands under the act of 1860, were certified by the Surveyor General of the United States for Oregon to the Commissioner of the General Land Office. The Commissioner, in March and April, 1892, prepared lists, numbered 30 and 31, of these lands as swamp and overflowed lands, and submitted them to John W. Noble, then Secretary of the Interior, for his approval. He approved both lists on April 9 and December 3, 1892, respectively, "subject to any valid adverse rights that may exist to the tracts of land therein described"; and his approvals were noted upon the records of the General Land Office, and a certified copy of the first list was forwarded to the governor of Oregon, who by letter dated May 12, 1892, requested that a patent of the lands in that list be issued to the State. Upon a petition filed December 29, 1892, by settlers upon the lands, claiming that they were not swamp and overflowed lands at the date of the act of 1860, Secretary Noble, on March 2, 1893, notwithstanding the plaintiff's protest against his jurisdiction to do so, made an order revoking and cancelling his approvals of the lists, and directing the Commissioner to take proper steps to make the revocation and cancellation formally effective. On December 19, 1893, his successor, the defendant Hoke Smith, decided that these lands were not swamp and overflowed lands, and that the State had no claim to them as such, and therefore directed the Commissioner to "cause all decisions, recommending or holding for cancellation entries or declaratory statements, upon the ground that the lands in contest were granted to the State of Oregon as swamp and overflowed lands by the act of March 12, 1860, to be set aside and annulled, and the cases reinstated; and all contests based upon said ground alone to be dismissed." 17 Land Decisions, 571. On October 10, 1894, a motion of the plaintiff for a review of that decision was overruled by the Secretary; and on January 5, 1895, his decision was promulgated by a letter from the Commissioner to the local land offices in Oregon.

The principal contention in support of the bill was that by the acts of Congress of 1850 and 1860 the title to all the swamp and overflowed lands within the State of Oregon, not reserved, sold or disposed of prior to the confirmation of title under those acts, passed to and became vested in the State, subject only to the identification by the Secretary of the Interior of the specific lands as "swamp and overflowed lands, made unfit thereby for cultivation," within the meaning of those acts; that upon such identification, evidenced by the making out of accurate lists and plats of such lands, and the transmission thereof to the governor of Oregon, the title became absolute in the State by relation as of March 12, 1860, and could not be divested by any subsequent action of the Secretary; and that the duty imposed upon him to cause patents of lands so identified and listed to be issued to the State upon the request of the governor was but ministerial.

A general demurrer to the bill was sustained, and a decree rendered thereon for the defendants, by the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia; and that decree was affirmed by the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia on June 11, 1896, upon the ground that the whole subject remained under the control of the Secretary of the Interior until the execution of the patent. 24 Washington Law Reporter, 392.

The plaintiff took an appeal to this court; and pending this appeal the defendant Hoke Smith, on September 1, 1896, resigned the office of Secretary of the Interior.

That a petition for a writ of mandamus to a public officer of the United States abates by his resignation of his office has been determined by a series of uniform decisions of this court, and has for years been considered as so well settled that in some of the cases no opinion has been filed and no official report published. Secretary v. McGarrahan, 9 Wall. 298, 313; United States v. Boutwell, 17 Wall 604, 609; Commissioners v. Sellew, 99 U.S. 624, 626; United States v. Schurz, 102 U.S. 480, 484; United States v. Chandler, 122 U.S. 643; United States v. Lamont, 155 U.S. 303, 306; United States v. Long, 164 U.S. 701.

The reasons for this conclusion, as stated by Mr. Justice Strong, delivering the unanimous judgment of the court, in the leading case of United States v. Boutwell, which was a petition, by the owner of an order upon the Treasury of the United States, for a writ of mandamus to the Secretary of the Treasury to pay it, were as follows: "The office of a...