The United States has the same remedy in a court of equity to
set aside or annul a patent for land on the ground of fraud in
procuring its issue which an individual would have in regard to his
own deed procured under similar circumstances.
Page 114 U. S. 234
The doctrine of the conclusiveness of judgments and decrees of
courts, as between those who are parties to the litigation is not
applicable to the United States in regard to the proceedings before
the land officers in granting patents for the public land.
Though it has been said very truly in some cases that the
officers of the Land Department exercise functions in their nature
judicial, this has reference to cases in which individuals have, as
between each other, contested the right to a patent before those
officers, whose decision as to the facts before them is held to be
conclusive between those parties.
But fraud or imposition on those officers, or a radical mistake
by them of the law governing the disposition of the public lands,
has always been held to be subject to remedy in a court of equity,
and where there has been no contest, and the claimant produces
without opposition his
ex parte proofs of performance of
the necessary conditions, it is especially needful that equity
should give the government a remedy if those proofs are founded in
fraud and perjury.
This is an appeal from a decree of the Circuit Court for the
District of California dismissing the bill of the United States on
demurrer. The object of the bill was to set aside and annul a
patent issued by the United States to Minor on January 5, 1876, for
the N.W. 1/4 of Section 18, township 6 North, Range 2 East of the
Humboldt Meridian. The bill as originally filed made, in substance,
the following allegations:
That said Minor, on the 23d day of October, 1874, filed the
declaratory statement in the land office necessary to give him a
right of preemption to the land, alleging that he had made a
settlement on it March 20 of that year, and on June 20, 1875, he
made the usual affidavit that he had so settled on the land in
March of the previous year; that he had improved it, built a house
on it, and continued to reside on it from the time of said
settlement, and had cultivated about one acre of it. He also made
affidavit, as the law required, that he had not so settled upon and
improved the land with any agreement or contract with any person by
which the title he might acquire would inure to the benefit of the
latter. He also made oath that he was not the owner of 320 acres of
land in any state or territory in the United States. These
affidavits being received by the register and receiver as true, he
paid the money necessary to perfect his right, received of them the
usual certificate,
Page 114 U. S. 235
called a patent certificate, on which there was issued to him at
the General Land Office in due time the patent which is now
assailed.
The bill then charges that all these statements, made under oath
before the land officers, were false and fraudulent; that defendant
had never made the settlement nor cultivation nor improvements
mentioned; that he had never resided on the land, but during all
the time had lived and had his home in a village about twelve miles
distant, and that he had not made these proofs of settlement to
appropriate the land to his own use, but with intent to sell the
same to some person unknown to the plaintiff.
It was also charged that defendant produced, in corroboration of
his own statement, the affidavit of a witness, one Joseph Ohuitt,
who testified to the settlement, improvement, and residence of
defendant, all of which was false and fraudulent. It was then
alleged that by these false affidavits the land officers, supposing
them to be true, were deceived and misled into allowing said
preemption claim and issuing said patent, to the great injury of
the United States.
A demurrer to this bill having been sustained, plaintiff was
allowed to file an amendment, by which it is set out that one
Richard Spence entered upon the west half of the quarter-section in
question on the first day of April, 1872, with the intention of
preempting the same as soon as the lands were surveyed and open to
preemption, and that on the 22d day of October, 1874, the approved
plat of said surveys was duly filed in the land office at Humboldt,
and on the third day of December thereafter Spence made his
declaratory statement for the west half of that quarter-section and
the west half of the southwest half of the same section. It is
further alleged that Spence, having complied with the terms
authorizing his preemption by actual residence, improvement, and
cultivation, and having commuted his preemption right for a
homestead right, and perfected his cultivation and improvement by a
five years' residence, and paid the fees of the officers, made
application on the 5th day of April, 1880, for his patent, to which
he was legally entitled, but it was found that Minor's patent
covered
Page 114 U. S. 236
half his claim, to-wit, the west half of the northwest quarter
of the section.
The title having passed from the United States to Minor for the
entire quarter-section, no patent could be issued to Spence, who
was, and still is, equitably entitled to a part of it.
To this bill, as amended, the circuit court again sustained a
demurrer and dismissed it, and from that decree this appeal is
taken.
The circuit and district judges have certified a division of
opinion on eight propositions of law, which they believe to arise
out of this demurrer, as follows:
I. Whether the frauds and perjury alleged in the bill as the
equitable grounds for vacating the patent in question are frauds
extrinsic and collateral to the matter tried and determined in the
land office upon which the patent issued, and constitute such
frauds as entitle the complainant to relief in a court of
equity.
II. Whether perjury and false testimony in a proceeding before
the land office, such as alleged in the said amended bill, by means
of which a patent to a portion of the public land is fraudulently
and wrongfully secured, is such a fraud as will require a court of
equity to vacate the patent on that ground alone.
III. Whether the decision and determination of the questions
involved on false and perjured testimony, as set forth in the said
amended bill, and the issue of a patent thereon, are not conclusive
as against the United States on a bill filed to vacate the patent
so issued.
IV. When the United States files a bill to vacate a patent on
the ground that it was fraudulently obtained upon false testimony,
as alleged in said amended bill, whether it is necessary to offer
in the bill to return the purchase money paid for the land by the
patentee.
V. Whether a court of equity will enforce the penalties and
forfeitures imposed by § 2262 of the Revised Statutes of the United
States for obtaining a patent to land upon false affidavits.
VI. Whether the remedy at law provided by said section
Page 114 U. S. 237
and an indictment for perjury, are not the only remedies for the
wrong alleged in the amended bill.
VII. The bill of complaint, having been originally filed in this
case on June 19, 1883, more than seven years and five months after
the issue of the patent, whether the claim to vacate the patent on
the ground of fraud is stale, and whether the bill ought to be
dismissed on that ground.
VIII. Whether he demurrer to the said amended bill should be
sustained.
Page 114 U. S. 238
MR. JUSTICE MILLER delivered the opinion of the Court. After
stating the facts in the foregoing language, he continued:
As regards the last of these questions, it does not present any
such well defined point of law as can be certified to this Court
for an answer. It merely presents the whole case without showing a
distinct point in regard to which the judges were opposed in
opinion.
United States v. Waddell, 112 U. S.
76. But, as it must be answered by the action of the
court in affirming or reversing the decree, this is immaterial.
With regard to the fourth, fifth, and sixth questions, we have
no difficulty in holding that neither the provisions of § 2262 of
the Revised Statutes nor the liability to indictment nor the actual
indictment and conviction of the defrauding party for perjury in
such case as this in any manner supersedes or debars the United
States of the remedy by bill in chancery to vacate the patent
obtained by such fraudulent practices. On the contrary, the
provision of the section above mentioned, that the person who makes
the false oath in the premises shall forfeit any money he may have
paid for the land, answers in the negative the fourth question --
namely is the United States bound to offer in the bill, in a case
like this, to return the purchase money? The statute declares it is
forfeited, and though the party may lose the land, he also loses
his money as a penalty of his perjury.
The seventh question, with regard to laches in bringing the
suit, we answer by saying that in the present case, there is no
such laches shown as will justify the court in dismissing the bill.
Waiving for the present the general proposition that time does not
run against the government, from the effect of which we see no
escape in the short period of seven years and a half, it is pretty
clear on the face of the bill that the first discovery of the fraud
was made when Spence, on applying for his patent under the
homestead law, made it known that he had been residing on,
improving, and cultivating a part of the land included in Minor's
patent during the time Minor swore he was doing the same thing. Of
course lapse of time as a defense to a suit for relief for these
frauds did not begin to run until the fraud was discovered.
Page 114 U. S. 239
The first three questions may be considered together. If an
individual or a corporation had been induced to part with the title
to land or any other property by such a fraud as that set out in
this bill, there would seem to be no difficulty in recovering it
back by appropriate judicial proceedings. If it was a sale and
conveyance of land induced by fraudulent misrepresentation of facts
which had no existence, on which the grantor relied and had a right
to rely and which were essential elements of the consideration,
there would be no hesitation in a court of equity's giving relief,
and where the title remained in the possession of the fraudulent
grantee, the court would surely annul the whole transaction and
require a reconveyance of the land to the grantor. The case
presented to us by the bill is one of unmitigated fraud and
imposition consummated by means of representations on which alone
the sale was made, every one of which was false. The law and the
rules governing these preemption sales required in every instance
the settlement and residence for a given time on the land, the
actual cultivation of a part of it, and building a house on it. It
required that the claimant should do this with a purpose of
acquiring real ownership for himself and not for another, nor with
a purpose to sell to another.
In the case as presented by this bill none of these things were
done, though the land officers were made to believe they were done
by the false representation of the defendant. It was a case where
all the requirements of the law were set at naught, evaded, and
defied by one stupendous falsehood, which included all the
requirements on which the right to secure the land rested. There
can be no question of the fraud, and its misleading effect on the
officers of the government, and, in a transaction between
individuals, it makes a clear case for relief.
Is there anything in the circumstance that these
misrepresentations were supported by perjury, that the defendant
made oath to his falsehoods, and procured a false affidavit of a
witness to corroborate himself, which should deprive the injured
party of relief? It would seem rather to add to the force of the
reasons for such relief that fraud and falsehood were reinforced by
perjury.
Page 114 U. S. 240
Is there any reason to be found in the relation of the
government to such a case as this, which will deprive it of the
same right to relief as an individual would have? On the contrary,
there are reasons why the government in this class of cases should
not be held to the same diligence in guarding against fraud as a
private owner of real estate. The government owns millions and
millions of acres of land, which are by law open to preemption,
homestead, and public and private sale. The right and the title to
these lands are to be obtained from the government only in
accordance with fixed rules of law. For the more convenient
management of the sale of these lands, and the establishment by
individuals of the inchoate rights of preemption and homestead, and
their final perfection in the issuing of a title called a patent,
there is established in each land district an office in which are
two officers, and no more, called register and receiver. These
districts often include 20,000 square miles or more, in all parts
of which the lands of the government subject to sale, preemption,
and homestead are found. These officers do not -- they cannot --
visit these lands. They have maps showing the location of the
government lands, and their subdivision into townships, sections,
and parts of sections, and when a person desires to initiate a
claim to any of them, he goes before them and makes the necessary
statements, affidavits, and claims, of all which they make
memoranda and copies, which are forwarded to the General Land
Office at Washington. For the truth of these statements they are
compelled to rely on the oaths of the parties asserting claims and
such
ex parte affidavits as they may produce.
In nine cases out of ten, perhaps in a much larger percentage,
the proceedings are wholly
ex parte. In the absence of any
contesting claimant for a right to purchase or secure the land, the
party applying has it all his own way. He makes his own statement,
sworn to before those officers, and he produces affidavits. If
these affidavits meet the requirements of the law, the claimant
succeeds, and what is required is so well known that it is reduced
to a formula. It is not possible for the officers of the
government, except in a few rare instances,
Page 114 U. S. 241
to know anything of the truth or falsehood of these statements.
In the cases where there is no contesting claimant, there is no
adversary proceeding whatever. The United States is passive; it
opposes no resistance to the establishment of the claim, and makes
no issue on the statement of the claimant. When, therefore, he
succeeds by misrepresentation, by fraudulent practices, aided by
perjury, there would seem to be more reason why the United States,
as the owner of land of which it has been defrauded by these means,
should have remedy against that fraud -- all the remedy which the
courts can give -- than in the case of a private owner of a few
acres of land on whom a like fraud has been practiced.
In a suit brought by Moffat against the United States to set
aside a patent for land on the ground of fraud in procuring its
issue, this Court said:
"It may be admitted, as stated by counsel, that if, upon any
state of facts, the patent might have been lawfully issued, the
court will presume, as against collateral attack, that the facts
existed; but that presumption has no place in a suit by the United
States directly assailing the patent and seeking its cancellation
for fraud in the conduct of those officers."
Moffat v. United States, 112 U. S.
24.
The principle is equally applicable when those officers, though
wholly innocent, were imposed upon and deceived by the fraud and
false swearing of the party to whom the patent was issued.
The learned judge whose opinion prevailed in the circuit court
and is found in the record has been misled by confounding the
present case with that of
United States v. Throckmorton,
98 U. S. 61, and
Vance v. Burbank, 101 U. S. 514, and
thus applying principles to this which do not belong to it.
In
Throckmorton's Case, it is true, a part of the
relief sought was to set aside a patent for land issued by the
United States. But the patent was issued on the confirmation of a
Mexican grant after proceedings prescribed by the act of Congress
on that subject. These proceedings were judicial. They commenced
before a board of commissioners. There were pleadings and parties,
and the claimant was plaintiff, and the United States was the
defendant. Both parties were represented by counsel, the United
States having in all such cases her regular
Page 114 U. S. 242
district attorney to represent her. Witnesses were examined in
the usual way, by depositions, subject to cross-examinations, and
not by
ex parte affidavits. From this tribunal there was a
right of appeal to the district court, and from that court to the
Supreme Court of the United States, by either party. There was
nothing wanting to make such a proceeding, in the highest sense, a
judicial one, and to give to its final judgment or decree all the
respect, the verity, the conclusiveness, which belong to such a
final decree between the parties. The patent could only issue on
this final decree of confirmation of the Spanish or Mexican grant,
and was, in effect, but the execution of that decree. It was to
such a case as this that the ruling in
Throckmorton's Case
was applied. The Court said in that case, which was a bill to set
aside the decree of confirmation:
"The genuineness and validity of the concession from
Michelterona, produced by complainant, was the single question
pending before the board of commissioners and the district court
for four years. It was the thing, and the only thing, that was
controverted, and it was essential to the decree. To overrule the
demurrer to this bill would be to retry, twenty years after the
decision of those tribunals, the very matter which they tried, on
the ground of fraud in the document on which the decree was made.
If we can do this now, some other court may be called on twenty
years hence to retry the same matter on another allegation of
fraudulent combination in this suit to defeat the ends of justice,
and so the number of suits would be without limit and litigation
endless about the single question of the validity of this
document."
It needs no other remarks than those we have already made, as to
the nature of the proceeding before the land officers, to show how
inappropriate this language is to such a proceeding. Here no one
question was in issue. No issue at all was taken. No adversary
proceeding was had. No contest was made. The officers, acting on
such evidence as the claimant presented, were bound by it and by
the law to issue a patent. They had no means of controverting its
truth, and the government had no attorney to inquire into it.
Surely the doctrine applicable to
Page 114 U. S. 243
the conclusive character of the solemn judgments of courts, with
full jurisdiction over the parties and the subject matter, made
after appearance, pleadings, and contest by parties on both sides,
cannot be properly applied to the proceedings in the land office in
such cases.
So, also, as regards the case of
Vance v. Burbank,
101 U. S. 514, the
language of the Court in regard to the conclusiveness of the
decision of the land office must be considered with reference to
the case before it. That was not a case by the grantor, the United
States, to set aside the patent, but by a party, or the heirs of a
party, who had contested the right of the grantee before all the
officers of the Land Department up to the Secretary of the
Interior, and been defeated, and where the whole question depended
on disputed facts, the evidence of which was submitted by the
contestants to those officers. In such a case, where there was full
hearing, rehearing, and issues made and tried, the observation of
the Court, "that the decision of the proper officers of the
department is in the nature of a judicial determination of the
matter in dispute," is well founded.
It has been often said by this Court that the land officers are
a special tribunal of a
quasi-judicial character, and
their decision on the facts before them is conclusive. And we are
not now controverting the principle that where a contest between
individuals, for the right to a patent for public lands, has been
brought before these officers, and both parties have been
represented and had a fair hearing, that those parties are
concluded as to all the facts thus in issue by the decision of the
officers.
But in proceedings like the present, wholly
ex parte,
no contest, no adversary proceedings, no reason to suspect fraud,
but where the patent is the result of nothing but fraud and
perjury, it is enough to hold that it conveys the legal title, and
it would be going quite too far to say that it cannot be assailed
by a proceeding in equity and set aside as void, if the fraud is
proved and there are no innocent holders for value. We have
steadily held that, though in the absence of fraud the facts were
concluded by the action of the Land Department, a misconstruction
of the law, by which alone the successful party obtained a
Page 114 U. S. 244
patent, might be corrected in equity, much more when there was
fraud and imposition.
If, by the case as made by the bill, Spence's claim had covered
all the land patented to Minor, it would present the question
whether the United States could bring this suit for Spence's
benefit. The government in that case would certainly have no
interest in the land when recovered, as it must go to Spence
without any further compensation. And it may become a grave
question, in some future case of this character, how far the
officers of the government can be permitted, when it has no
interest in the property or in the subject of the litigation, to
use its name to set aside its own patent, for which it has received
full compensation, for the benefit of a rival claimant. The
question, however, does not arise here, for half the land covered
by the patent would revert to the United States if it was vacated,
and as between the United States and Minor, it was one transaction
evidenced by one muniment of title, the question does not arise,
certainly not on demurrer to this bill.
The result of these considerations is that the first and second
questions are answered in the affirmative; the third, fourth,
sixth, and seventh in the negative, and the fifth is
immaterial.
The decree of the circuit court is reversed, and the case
remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this
opinion.
