Yazoo & M.V.R. Co. v. Sunflower County

• Decision Date: 07 March 1921
• Docket Number: 21434
• Citation: 125 Miss. 92,87 So. 417
• Parties: YAZOO & M. V. R. CO. v. SUNFLOWER COUNTY
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

87 So. 417

125 Miss. 92

YAZOO & M. V. R. CO. v. SUNFLOWER COUNTY

No. 21434

Supreme Court of Mississippi

March 7, 1921

1 RAILROADS. Effect of consolidation on right of way over school section stated.

When the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad Company created by the Laws of 1882, chapter 541, page 838, consolidated with the Louisville, New Orleans & Texas Railroad Company, the effect was to create a new corporation subject to the existing laws of state; and under section 211 of the state Constitution of 1890 the fee in the sixteenth section lands which had not then passed could not thereafter become vested in a corporation or an individual; and a right of way laid out after such consolidation, which occurred in October 1892, over sixteenth section lands, did not vest any right or title to said sixteenth section lands under section 7 of the Charter of the original Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad Company.

2. PUBLIC LANDS. Railroad lessee of school section holding over after expiration of lease estopped to set up adverse claim.

Where a railroad company, after the Constitution of 1890 went into operation, leased from a board of supervisors a right of way for a term of years, and under such lease constructed its right of way and track across the sixteenth section lands held in trust by the state, and continued in possession after the expiration of its lease without giving notice of its intention to claim title and without surrendering possession of the said right of way, it cannot under such facts set up an adverse claim to the county's reversion and assert a hostile title.

HON. E N. THOMAS, Chancellor.

APPEAL from chancery court of sunflower county, HON. E. N. THOMAS Chancellor.

Suit by Sunflower County against the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad Company. Decree for Complainant, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Judgment affirmed.

H. D. Minor, Charles N. Burch and Moody & Williams, for appellants.

"Our position in this matter is that these lands are held in trust by the state for school purposes, and school purposes only, and that the legislature could not grant to the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad Company even if it had intended to do so by said charter." Brief for appellee, p. 4.

We wish briefly to answer this very clear statement of the appellee's contention. It will be borne in mind that we are not dealing with an attempted sale or grant of these school lands by some officer of the state, but with a grant made by the state itself through its sovereign legislature.

The legislature is subject to no limitation except such as may be found in the Constitution of the state in force in 1882 when the charter of appellant was granted. That the legislature had the power to make this grant is so clearly established by the case of Jones v. Madison County, 72 Miss. 777, that the only question is whether that case shall be overruled. The opinion in that case refers to prior cases and particularly Hector v. Crisler, 36 Miss. 681, and overrules those prior decisions declaring it to be the deliberate conclusion of the court that the legislature of the state did have the authority to convey these lands. The lease there before the court was for ninety-nine years and the conclusion was announced that the lease was valid. Not only has Jones v. Madison County not been subsequently overruled, but the case has been referred to more than once and its correctness never doubted.

The same conclusion is announced in the case of Cooper v. Roberts, 18 How. (U.S.) 173; the brief of learned counsel speaks of the futility of citing decisions of the United States supreme court in reference to this case because such decisions are not controlling. It may be conceded, for the purpose of argument that the decisions of the Federal supreme court are not controlling, but certainly they remain valuable as precedents, being decisions by the highest judicial tribunal in the world.

It is claimed that the case of Tynes v. Southern Pine Co. (Miss.), 54 So. 885, is conclusive. That case has never been officially reported and the opinion is quite meagre. It has no application to the case at bar because the court was there dealing with the effect of the Constitution of 1868, section 6, article 8, which embraces merely lands now belonging to the state heretofore granted by the United States and land known as swamp lands.

As learned counsel points out at page five of his brief, it was decided in Jones v. Madison County, 72 Miss. 798, that the state's right in these sixteenth section lands does not arise from an Act of Congress, but from the act of cession by the state of Georgia in 1802. Therefore, these lands granted by the state of Georgia were not embraced in the provision of the Constitution of 1868 which the court had under consideration in the Tynes case, 54 So. 885. That case, therefore, does not directly or impliedly overrule the case of Jones v. Madison County, where this court squarely upheld the power of the state, through its legislature, to make a conveyance of these lands.

The quotation in appellee's brief, from 76 Miss. 495, that: "There never was in this state any legislative authority to sell in fee there lands, refers to authority from the legislature not in the legislature. For the court was dealing with a sale by school trustees under claimed authority from the legislature.

We entirely agree that the state of Mississippi holds these sixteenth section lands under a sacred trust for the education of children of that community. But who is to determine whether this trust is properly administered or not. Has not that trust and its administration been vested entirely in the legislature of the state. Is argument necessary from us that the legislature may be trusted to administer this trust fairly and rightly? There is no court which has ever held that the judicial department may supervise and control the legislative department in matters of purely legislative administration. The fundamental basis of our Federal and all our state Constitutions is that there shall be three distinct departments of government, each independent of the other and each sovereign within its own field.

It is our view that it was not only the right, but the duty of the legislature in the administration of this trust, to do anything that would advance it. The legislature has the right in order to render a sixteenth section useful for any purpose, to dedicate public highways, across such as are reasonably necessary. Equally, the legislature has the right, in order to render the land more accessible, and therefore more useful and valuable, to grant an easement for a railroad over it. Such a grant is not an abuse of the trust, but an advancement of it. And even if we should concede the right of the court to supervise the action of the legislature, its action in thus developing this land should be approved.

H. C. Mounger, for appellee.

Our position in this matter is that these lands are held in trust by the state for school purposes, and school purposes only, and that the legislature could not grant to the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad Company, even if it had intended to do so by said charter.

This question has been authoritatively settled by the courts of this state by decisions too numerous to mention or to admit of controversy. Lumber Company v. Harrison County, 89 Miss. 571; Jones v. Madison County, 72 Miss. 798; Gaines v. Nicholson, 9 How. 365; Sexton v. County, 86 Miss. 385; Jones v. Madison Co., 72 Miss. 792 (2 Par.), 18 So. 88.

We claim that the grant in the charter of the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad Company, if it was intended to grant any part of this sixteenth section, was absolutely void and beyond the power of the Mississippi legislature to make. All that could be done was to grant a seven years lease under the Acts of 1898, chapter 40, which has been brought forward into the Code of 1906, section 4700, except that the act as originally passed provided that lands in the sixteenth section should be leased for not longer than seven years, and it was under this provision that the board of supervisors granted the lease to the railroad company under which they entered. Wright v. Lauerdale County, 71 Miss. 804; Robertson v. Monroe County, 79 So. 185; Weiler & Haas v. Monroe County, 76 Miss. 492; Morton v. Grenada Academy, 8 Sm. & Marshall, 785.

In 32 Cyc., 868-869, it is stated that the Act of Congress intended the sixteenth section to be employed for the benefit of those who were to be educated in the townships. And in the case of the State v. Cunningham, 88 Wis. 81, it is held that the state could not set apart sixteenth section lands for a town park. 26 A. & E. Eng. L. (3 Ed.), 370.

We have argued this case so far as if there was an attempt on the part of the legislature to grant this land to the railroad and that the legislature did not have that power, even if it attempted to do so. But we further claim that there was no such intention on the part of the legislature and that it did not convey the sixteenth section lands. The charter itself grants a right of way for railroad purposes through state lands, Sec. 7, chapter 38. This did not embrace, et seq., and could not embrace, and was not intended to embrace, sixteenth section lands. The legislature had no such idea in view and the terms of this charter does not include sixteenth section lands and cannot be stretched to include sixteenth section lands.

In answer to the bill the defendant sets up the statute of limitations. The statute of limitations does not run against the state as is held in Weiler & Haas v. Monroe County, 76 Miss. 495. Having entered under a lease, they have no right to set up adverse possession or an outstanding title against their landlord,...