1. The Act of August 31, 1852, relating to appeals from the
Board of Land Commissioners to ascertain and settle private land
claims in California, created under the Act of March 3d, 1851,
provides that the filing of a transcript of the decision and
proceedings of the board with the clerk of the district court shall
operate
ipso facto as an appeal on behalf of the party
against whom the decision was rendered, and that the
attorney-general shall, within six months after receiving a
certified transcript of such decree and proceedings, when the
decision is against the United States, cause notice to be filed
with the clerk that the appeal will be prosecuted, and on failure
to give such notice that "the appeal shall be regarded as
dismissed." Under this act,
Held that when the attorney-general gave notice that he
would not prosecute the appeal, such appeal was for all legal
purposes in fact dismissed, and the decree of the board took effect
precisely as if no appeal had ever been taken; and an order or
decree of the district court giving leave to the claimant to
proceed upon the decree of the board as upon a final decree was a
proper disposition of the case.
2. To give jurisdiction to the Board of Land Commissioners to
investigate and determine a claim to land alleged to have been
derived from the
Page 70 U. S. 479
Spanish or Mexican governments, it is not necessary that the
petition of the claimant should aver that such claim was supported
by any grant or concession in writing; it is sufficient if the
petition allege that the claim asserted was by virtue of a right or
title derived from either of those governments. The right or title
may rest in the general law of the land.
3. All Mexican grants in colonization, under the decree of 1824
and the regulations of 1828, were made subject to the approval of
the Departmental Assembly. Until such approval they were not
definitively valid. If not thus approved before the change of
jurisdiction, it devolved upon the United States, succeeding under
the stipulations of the treaty of cession to the obligations of the
former government, to complete what thus remained imperfect. By the
Act of March 3, 1851, the United States have declared the
conditions under which they will discharge their political
obligations to Mexican grantees.
4. The legislation of Congress requiring all claims to lands in
California, by virtue of any right or title derived from the
Spanish or Mexican governments, to be presented to the Board of
Commissioners created under that act for investigation and
settlement, and providing that all claims which are not thus
presented within a specified period shall be considered and treated
as abandoned, is not subject to any constitutional objection, so
far as it applies to grants of an imperfect character which require
further action of the political department of government to render
them perfect.
5. A patent of the United States issued upon a confirmation of a
claim to land by virtue of a right or title derived from Spain or
Mexico is to be regarded in two aspects -- as a deed of the United
States, and as a record of the action of the government upon the
title of the claimant as it existed upon the acquisition of
California. As a deed its operation is that of a quitclaim, or
rather of a conveyance of such interest as the United States
possessed in the land, and it takes effect by relation at the time
when proceedings were instituted by the filing of the petition
before the Board of Land Commissioners. As a record of the
government, it is evidence that the claim asserted was valid under
the laws of Mexico, that it was entitled to recognition and
protection by the stipulations of the treaty; and might have been
located under the former government, and is correctly located now
so as to embrace the premises as they are surveyed and described.
As against the government and parties claiming under the
government, this record, so long as it remains unvacated, is
conclusive.
6. The term "third persons," mentioned in the fifteenth section
of the Act of March 3, 1851, against whom the decree and patent of
the United States are not conclusive, does not embrace all persons
other than the United States and the claimants, but only those who
hold superior titles, such as will enable them to resist
successfully any action of the government in disposing of the
property.
7. In the federal courts for the California circuit (which have
herein
Page 70 U. S. 480
adopted the practice prevailing in the state courts under the
state act regulating proceedings in civil cases), not only may
distinct parcels of land, if covered by one title, be included in
one complaint or declaration, but, with a demand for these, may be
united a claim for their rents and profits, or for damages for
withholding them.
8. Under this act, the provision as to the description by metes
and bounds of the lands sued for, is directory, only.
9. When the pleadings in an action of ejectment do not state the
value of the property in controversy, the value may be shown at the
trial.
After our conquest of California, in 1846, Congress, by Act of 3
March, 1851, "to ascertain and settle the private land claims" in
that state [
Footnote 1]
constituted a board of commissioners, in the nature of a judicial
body, before which, claims to land there were to be investigated.
Every person claiming lands there "by virtue of any
right
or
title derived from the Spanish or Mexican governments"
was to present his claim to this board with the documentary and
other evidences of it: notice of depositions, when taken, were to
be given to the law officers of the United States. In case of
confirmation of the claim, an appeal was given the United States to
the district court, in which case, says the act (§ 10), that
court
shall proceed to render judgment upon the pleadings
and evidence in the case, and upon such further evidence as may be
taken by order of the said court. If the decree in that court was
adverse to the government, an appeal was given to this Court. The
act declares that "for all claims
finally confirmed by the
said commissioners or by the district court, or the Supreme Court,
a PATENT shall issue to the claimant" -- but that such patent shall
be
"conclusive between the United States and the said claimants
only, and shall not affect the interests of third persons." It
declares moreover
"that all lands, the claims to which shall not have been
presented to the said commissioners within two years after the date
of the act, shall be deemed, held, and considered as part of the
public domain of the United States."
One section of the act -- the 16th -- enacts that it shall be
"the duty of the commissioners to
ascertain and report to
the
Page 70 U. S. 481
Secretary of the Interior the tenure by which the
Mission
Lands [
Footnote 2] are
held."
A subsequent statute, [
Footnote
3] that of August 31, 1852, and amendatory of the former act,
provides that when a final decision is rendered by the
commissioners,
"It shall be their duty to have two certified transcripts
prepared of their proceedings and decision, and of the papers and
evidence on which the same are founded, one of which transcripts
shall be filed with the clerk of the proper district court, and the
other shall be transmitted to the Attorney General of the United
States, and the filing of such transcript with the clerk aforesaid
shall
ipso facto operate as an appeal for the party
against whom the decision shall be rendered; and if such decision
shall be against such private claimant, it shall be his duty to
file a notice with the clerk aforesaid, within six months
thereafter, of his intention to prosecute the appeal; and if the
decision shall be against the United States, it shall be the duty
of the attorney-general, within six months after receiving said
transcript, to cause a notice to be filed with the clerk aforesaid,
that the appeal will be prosecuted by the United States; and on a
failure of either party to file such notice with the clerk
aforesaid, the appeal shall be regarded as dismissed."
Under the first act, Alemany, Bishop of Monterey, presented his
petition to the commissioners for confirmation of a claim which he
made to certain lands described by him, including church lands at
the Mission of San Jose, consisting of the church, churchyard,
burial ground, orchard, and vineyard, with the necessary
appurtenances; the whole embracing a little over nineteen acres of
land. His petition averred, in substance, that by the laws of
Spain, from time immemorial, and by the laws of the republic of
Mexico at the time of the cession of California to the United
States, the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church had the force of
law in all things relating to the acquisition, transmission, use,
and disposal of property, real or personal, belonging
Page 70 U. S. 482
to the Catholic Church, or devoted to religious purposes, or to
the service of God; and that by the same laws it was not necessary
that any grant of land for ecclesiastical or church purposes should
be proved by any deed or writing, public or private; but the right
of the church to the property devoted to religious purposes
&c., was always recognized as regulated by the canon law. That
the premises of which he sought confirmation had been for a long
term of time devoted to religious purposes and uses, the public
worship of God, the administration of the sacraments, and sacrifice
of the church; according to the rites, ritual, and ceremonial, of
the said Catholic Church. That by the canon law, and the laws of
Spain and Mexico, the title, control, and administration of this
and all other church property of the same description, absolutely
essential to the religious uses and purposes above mentioned, was
vested in the bishop and clergy of the diocese, who, for such
purposes, were regarded as a body corporate; that the Catholic
Church, at the date of the conquest and cession of California to
the United States, had been in the actual and undisturbed
possession of the premises in question since the year 1797, and
that for the purpose of enabling him to hold the property, and
rightly administering it for the use of the church, he, the
petitioner, had been made a corporation sole by the state of
California, under the title of "Bishop of Monterey."
The board confirmed the claim of the bishop. The
United
States appealed to the district court. Subsequently, however,
the attorney-general gave notice that
"an appeal would not be prosecuted in the case, and the district
court, on the 16th March, 1857, at a stated term, ordered,
adjudged, and decreed that the claimant have leave to proceed under
the decree of the United States Land Commission, heretofore
rendered, in his favor,
as a final decree."
Thereupon
a patent issued to the bishop, from the United
States. It recited the bishop's petition, the decree of
confirmation by the board in his favor, the appeal by the United
States, and the notice that it would not be prosecuted, and in
usual form gave and granted the lands to the bishop and his
successors,
Page 70 U. S. 483
in trust &c., having about it every circumstance of
formality.
Of the same lands, thus the subject of confirmation and patent
to the Bishop of Monterey, one of the governors of California, Pio
Pico, on the 20th of June, 1846 -- Mexico being then invaded by the
United States, but the authority and jurisdiction of the Mexican
officers not having yet terminated [
Footnote 4] -- made a grant to a certain Castenada and
others. The grant recited on its face that the governor had been
authorized previously, by the Departmental Assembly,
"to alienate the Missions, with the end of preventing their
total ruin, and providing the government with the resources which
it then immediately for its exigencies required. [
Footnote 5]"
Neither the said grant, however, nor any claim founded thereon
had ever been submitted for confirmation to the Board of Land
Commissioners, and neither the grant nor any copy or counterpart or
record of it, or any paper relating to it, existed or was to be
found among the archives of the Mexican government, though the
parties who held under it asserted and declared themselves able to
prove that it was executed on the day it bore date, and that the
consideration money named in it, $3,000, had been on that day
paid.
Upon this state of titles as they appeared from deeds produced
or offered, one Federy, claiming title through the patent to the
Bishop of Monterey, brought ejectment, in the Circuit Court for the
Northern District of California, against Beard, who relied on the
title derived under the deed of Governor Pico.
In the state courts of California -- their practice in common
law cases being adopted essentially in the federal tribunals there
-- a statute allows a plaintiff to unite in the same complaint
claims
"to recover specific real property, with or without damages for
the withholding thereof, or for
Page 70 U. S. 484
waste committed thereon, and the rents and profits of the
same,"
though the same statute provides that such property "shall be
described with its
metes and bounds." In this case the
declaration (or complaint, as it is called in California) demanded
three parcels of land, describing one by metes and bounds; one as
"having two springs of water thereon, and lying outside of the
adobe wall which enclosed a garden and orchard" previously
described, and the third as having "a mill dam and a pond or
reservoir of water thereon, lying to the north or northeast, or
thereabouts, of the said adobe wall."
The plaintiff,
in the same action, demanded judgment
for possession of the premises, for mesne profits, stated to be
$5,000 a year, and for costs and damages, the last alleged at
$1,000.
On the trial, the claim for mesne profits was
stricken out, but it was
then mutually admitted that the
value of the first item of the three parcels claimed, and the only
one recovered, was $2,500.
After judgment for the plaintiff for one of the parcels, the
case came here on error taken by the defendants.
Page 70 U. S. 486
MR. JUSTICE FIELD delivered the opinion of the Court.
The plaintiff in the court below deraigned his title by various
mesne conveyances from Joseph S. Alemany, Catholic Bishop of
Monterey, to whom a patent, embracing the premises in controversy,
was issued by the United States. The patent is in the usual form,
and purports on its face to be
Page 70 U. S. 487
issued under the Act of March 3, 1851, to ascertain and settle
private land claims in the State of California. It recites that the
bishop presented his claim to the board of commissioners created
under that act for confirmation; that the board, by its decree,
rendered on the 18th of December, 1855, confirmed the claim; that
an appeal was taken on behalf of the United States to the district
court; and that the attorney-general, having given notice that the
appeal would not be prosecuted, the district court, by its decree,
gave leave to the claimant to proceed upon the decree of the board
as upon a final decree. Upon this form of the decree of the
district court, thus recited, the defendants below objected to the
introduction of the patent, and the objection is pressed in this
Court. Their position is that under the tenth section of the act of
1851, it was the duty of the district court to proceed and render
judgment upon the pleadings and evidence in the case; that upon the
refusal of the attorney-general to prosecute the appeal, the court
should have dismissed the appeal or affirmed the decree of the
board; that, having done neither, the case is still pending
undetermined, and consequently there has been no decree on which a
patent could issue.
The objection is a very narrow one, and does not merit the
attention which it has received from counsel. Its answer is found
in the Amendatory Act of August 31, 1852. That act provides that
when a final decision is rendered by the commissioners, they shall
prepare two certified transcripts of their proceedings and decision
and of the papers and evidence upon which the same were founded,
one of which shall be filed with the clerk of the proper district
court and the other shall be transmitted to the attorney-general;
that the filing of the transcript with the clerk shall operate
ipso facto as an appeal on behalf of the party against
whom the decision is rendered; and, if the decision be against the
United States, that it shall be the duty of the attorney-general,
within six months after receiving the transcript, to cause a notice
to be filed with the clerk that the appeal will be prosecuted; and,
on failure to give such notice, "the appeal,"
Page 70 U. S. 488
says the statute, "shall be regarded as dismissed." If it can be
regarded as dismissed, it is for all legal purposes in fact
dismissed. Here the attorney-general did not allow his intention to
be drawn from his silence; he announced it at once. The decree of
the court authenticates by its record the refusal of the
attorney-general, not leaving this fact open to contestation by
oral proof. The form of the decree is the usual one adopted in such
cases, and probably a large number of patents issued to parties in
California contain a similar clause. By the action of the
attorney-general, the decree of the board took effect precisely as
though no appeal had ever been taken, and it certainly cannot
constitute any valid objection to the decree of the court that it
declares in terms the effect which the law gave to such action.
After the patent was admitted in evidence, the defendants
produced the petition of the claimant to the Board of Land
Commissioners, and insisted that it showed a want of jurisdiction
in the board in this that it did not set forth any right or title
derived from the Spanish or Mexican government. The position of the
defendant appears to have been that the claim of the bishop was
invalid because it did not rest upon, or was not sustained by, any
direct grant or concession in writing.
The petition sets forth two sources of title, one founded on the
laws of Spain and Mexico and the other on continued possession of
the property for a period exceeding half a century. It avers that
at the time of the conquest and cession of California to the United
States, the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church was in force as
the law of Mexico, as it had been previously of Spain when Mexico
was a dependency thereof, in all things relating to the
acquisition, transmission, use, and disposition of property, real
and personal, belonging to the church or devoted to religious uses;
that by the laws of Spain and Mexico, it was not necessary that a
grant of land for ecclesiastical or church purposes should appear
by deed or writing, public or private, but that the right of the
church to such property was always recognized as regulated by the
canon law; that the premises in question,
Page 70 U. S. 489
being church lands at the mission of San Jose, consisting of the
church, churchyard, burial ground, orchard, and vineyard, with the
necessary buildings and appurtenances, the whole embracing a little
over nineteen acres of land, had for a long period been devoted to
religious purposes and uses; that by the canon law and the laws of
Spain and Mexico, the title, control, and administration of all
ecclesiastical and church property was vested in the bishop and
clergy of the diocese, who, for such purposes, were regarded as a
body corporate; and that the Catholic Church, at the date of the
conquest and cession of California to the United States, had been
in the actual and undisturbed possession of the premises in
question since the year 1797.
These averments clearly present a case within the jurisdiction
of the Board of Commissioners. They show "a claim by virtue of a
right or title derived from the Spanish or Mexican government,"
which is all that is required by the act of 1851. That act does not
define the character of the right or title, or prescribe the kind
of evidence by which it shall be established. It is sufficient that
the right or title is derived from the Spanish or Mexican
government, and it may in some instances rest in the general law of
the land, as is the case usually with the title of municipal
bodies, under the Spanish and Mexican systems, to their common
lands.
The board having acquired jurisdiction, the validity of the
claim presented, and whether it was entitled to confirmation, were
matters for it to determine, and its decision, however erroneous,
cannot be collaterally assailed on the ground that it was rendered
upon insufficient evidence. The rule which applies to the judgments
of other inferior tribunals applies here -- that when it has once
acquired jurisdiction, its subsequent proceedings cannot be
collaterally questioned for mere error or irregularity.
The grant of Pio Pico, bearing date on the 20th of June, 1846,
under which the defendants below claimed title to the greater part
of the premises in controversy, was rightly excluded. With the
offer of the grant, the defendants admitted
Page 70 U. S. 490
that it had never been presented to the Board of Land
Commissioners for confirmation and had never been confirmed. The
court treated the grant as one in colonization. All such grants, it
is a matter of common knowledge with the profession in California,
were made subject to the approval of the departmental assembly.
Until such approval, they were not definitively valid, and no such
approval was obtained of the grant in question previous to the 7th
of July following, when the jurisdiction of the Mexican authorities
was displaced and the country passed under the government of the
United States. It remained for the new government succeeding to the
obligations of the former government to complete what thus remained
imperfect. By the Act of March 3, 1851, the government has declared
the conditions under which it will discharge its political
obligations to Mexican grantees. It has there required all claims
to lands to be presented within two years from its date, and
declared in effect that if, upon such presentation, they are found
by the tribunal created for their consideration and by the courts
on appeal to be valid, it will recognize and confirm them and take
such action as will result in rendering them perfect titles. But it
has also declared in effect by the same act that if the claims be
not thus presented within the period designated, it will not
recognize nor confirm them, nor take any action for their
protection, but that the claims will be considered and treated as
abandoned. It is not necessary to express any opinion of the
validity of this legislation in respect to perfect titles acquired
under the former government. Such legislation is not subject to any
constitutional objection so far as it applies to grants of an
imperfect character, which require further action of the political
department to render them perfect.
The circuit court, as already stated, treated the grant as one
in colonization. This was the most favorable view for the
defendants, for if the recitals that it was made upon a sale of
mission lands, and upon authority conferred by the Departmental
Assembly, are to determine its character, it is without any
efficacy in passing the title. It is simply a void
Page 70 U. S. 491
instrument, and falls directly within the decision of this Court
in the
United States v. Workman. [
Footnote 6] In that case, the powers of the
departmental assembly in the alienation of lands were very fully
and elaborately considered, and particularly its asserted power to
authorize the governor to sell the mission lands, and it was held
that this body could not confer any power upon the governor, and
that its own power was restricted to what was conferred by the laws
of colonization, which was simply to approve or disapprove of
grants regularly made by the governor under those laws.
This grant being laid out of the case, the only question for
determination is whether the defendants constitute third persons
within the meaning of the fifteenth section of the Act of March 3,
1851. That section provides that the decree of confirmation and
patent shall be conclusive between the United States and the
claimants only, and shall not affect the interests of third
persons. The position of the defendants is that as against them,
the patent is not evidence for any purpose; that as between them
and the plaintiff, the whole subject of title is open precisely as
though no proceedings for the confirmation had been had, and no
patent for the land had been issued. Their position rests upon a
misapprehension of the character and effect of a patent issued upon
a confirmation of a claim to land under the laws of Spain or
Mexico.
In the first place, the patent is a deed of the United States.
As a deed, its operation is that of a quitclaim, or rather of a
conveyance of such interest as the United States possessed in the
land, and it takes effect by relation at the time when proceedings
were instituted by the filing of the petition before the Board of
Land Commissioners. [
Footnote
7]
In the second place, the patent is a record of the action of the
government upon the title of the claimant as it existed upon the
acquisition of the country. Such acquisition did not affect the
rights of the inhabitants to their property. They retained all such
rights, and were entitled by the law
Page 70 U. S. 492
of nations to protection in them to the same extent as under the
former government. The treaty of cession also stipulated for such
protection. The obligation to which the United States thus
succeeded was of course political in its character, and to be
discharged in such manner and on such terms as they might judge
expedient. By the Act of March 3, 1851, they have declared the
manner and the terms on which they will discharge this obligation.
They have there established a special tribunal before which all
claims to land are to be investigated, required evidence to be
presented respecting the claims, appointed law officers to appear
and contest them on behalf of the government, authorized appeals
from the decisions of the tribunal, first to the district and then
to the Supreme Court, and designated officers to survey and measure
off the land when the validity of the claims is finally determined.
When informed by the action of its tribunals and officers that a
claim asserted is valid and entitled to recognition, the government
acts and issues its patent to the claimant. This instrument is
therefore record evidence of the action of the government upon the
title of the claimant. By it the government declares that the claim
asserted was valid under the laws of Mexico; that it was entitled
to recognition and protection by the stipulations of the treaty,
and might have been located under the former government, and is
correctly located now, so as to embrace the premises as they are
surveyed and described. As against the government, this record, so
long as it remains unvacated, is conclusive. And it is equally
conclusive against parties claiming under the government by title
subsequent. It is in this effect of the patent as a record of the
government that its security and protection chiefly lie. If parties
asserting interests in lands acquired since the acquisition of the
country could deny and controvert this record, and compel the
patentee, in every suit for his land, to establish the validity of
his claim, his right to its confirmation, and the correctness of
the action of the tribunals and officers of the United States in
the location of the same, the patent would fail to be, as it was
intended it should be, an
Page 70 U. S. 493
instrument of quiet and security to its possessor. The patentee
would find his title recognized in one suit and rejected in
another, and if his title were maintained, he would find his land
located in as many different places as the varying prejudices,
interests, or notions of justice of witnesses and jurymen might
suggest. Every fact upon which the decree and patent rest would be
open to contestation. The intruder, resting solely upon his
possession, might insist that the original claim was invalid, or
was not properly located, and therefore he could not be disturbed
by the patentee. No construction which will lead to such results
can be given to the fifteenth section. The term "third persons," as
there used, does not embrace all persons other than the United
States and the claimants, but only those who hold superior titles,
such as will enable them to resist successfully any action of the
government in disposing of the property.
It only remains to notice the objections taken to the complaint
in this case. They are advanced in misapprehension of the system of
pleading and practice which prevails in the state of California.
The system is there regulated by statute, and differs in many
important particulars from the system which existed at the common
law. There the ancient forms of action are abolished. In every
case, the plaintiff must state in ordinary and concise language his
cause of action, with a prayer for the relief to which he may deem
himself entitled. The fictions of the action of ejectment at common
law have no existence. The names of the real contestants must
appear in the pleadings. The complaint, which is the first pleading
in the action, must allege the possession or seizin of the
premises, or of some estate therein, by the plaintiff, on some day
to be designated, the subsequent entry of the defendant, and his
withholding the premises from the plaintiff. No other allegations
are required where possession of the property alone is demanded.
But in the same action there may be united a claim for the rents
and profits, or for damages for withholding the property,
Page 70 U. S. 494
or for waste committed thereon. [
Footnote 8] Distinct parcels of land may also be included
in the same complaint where they are covered by the same title, and
the action equally affects all parties. The property should be
described, if practicable, by metes and bounds, but this is not
essential. The provision of the statute on the subject is only
directory, its object being to insure such particularity of
description, as to enable the officer, who may be charged with the
execution of a judgment for the possession, to ascertain the
locality and extent of the property. A description by name, where
the property is well known, will often answer equally with the most
minute description by metes and bounds. [
Footnote 9]
This brief statement of the system of pleading and practice
existing in California will furnish the answer to the several
objections urged. That system, with some slight modifications, has
been adopted by rule of the circuit court of the United States in
common law cases.
When by the consent of parties on the trial the claim for the
rents and profits was stricken from the complaint, the court did
not lose jurisdiction of the case, because the value of the
property did not appear by any allegations of the pleadings. It was
admitted that the first parcel, the only one recovered in the
action, was of the value of twenty-five hundred dollars. This was
sufficient, for it has long been the settled practice of the courts
of the United States in actions where the demand is not money, and
the nature of the action does not require the value of the property
in controversy to be stated, to allow the value to be proved at the
trial. [
Footnote 10]
Judgment affirmed.
[
Footnote 1]
9 Stat. at Large 631.
[
Footnote 2]
Lands occupied by the Roman Catholic Church missions.
[
Footnote 3]
10 Stat. at Large 99.
[
Footnote 4]
They terminated 7 July, 1846.
See
United States v.
Yorba, 1 Wall. 423.
[
Footnote 5]
For an interesting exhibition of the various documents issued by
the Governor of California, in the exigent moment here spoken of,
See United States v.
Workman, 1 Wall. 753-754.
[
Footnote 6]
68 U. S. 1 Wall.
745.
[
Footnote 7]
Landes v.
Brant, 10 How. 373.
[
Footnote 8]
Act regulating proceedings in civil cases, § 64.
[
Footnote 9]
Castro v. Gill, 5 Cal. 40;
Doll v. Feller, 16
id. 432;
Payne & Dewey v. Treadwell, 16
id. 243.
[
Footnote 10]
Ex Parte
Bradstreet, 7 Pet. 647.
