1. This Court has jurisdiction to reexamine the judgment of the
supreme court of a state, rendered adversely to the right and title
which a party to the suit specially sets up to land under a patent
issued by the United States to another under whom he claims.
2. Where the Land Department rejected the claim of a party to
preempt a tract of public land, it appearing from the evidence
submitted that he had previously exercised the "preemptive right,"
held that the finding of that
fact by the department is conclusive.
3. A person is not entitled, under existing statutes, to more
than one such "preemptive right," nor, after filing a declaratory
statement for one tract, can he file such a statement for another
tract.
The case is stated in the opinion of the Court.
Page 107 U. S. 464
MR. JUSTICE MILLER delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a writ of error to the Supreme Court of the State of
Nebraska, and the jurisdiction of this Court is questioned.
The substance of the original bill in the state court is that,
in a contest for the right to enter a tract of land between Starks
and Van Pelt, before the Land Department, the Secretary of the
Interior erroneously decided in favor of Van Pelt, to whom a patent
was issued, and the prayer of the bill is that Baldwin, who holds
under Van Pelt, shall be decreed to hold the title in trust for
Starks, and convey it to him, and be enjoined from prosecuting
further an action of ejectment against plaintiff, which he has
commenced for the land in controversy. That the decree which
granted this relief denied to plaintiffs in error the right which
they asserted under the patent from the United States, and was a
decision against the title so asserted, and is therefore within
sec. 709 of the Revised Statutes, is too well settled by numerous
similar cases decided in this Court to admit of further question.
Johnson v.
Towsley, 13 Wall. 72;
Morrison v.
Stalnaker, 104 U. S. 213;
Marquez v. Frisbie, 101 U. S. 473.
The case was tried in the state court upon the record of the
proceedings before the land office, including the evidence on which
the patent was issued to Van Pelt in the contest between him and
Starks, with a stipulation involving a few other unimportant
matters.
That record shows that upon all the questions involved the
department decided in favor of Starks, except one, which was that
he was disqualified to make the preemption claim he was then
prosecuting by reason of having previously exercised that right in
regard to other lands.
Whether he had thus made a filing of a former declaratory
statement was a question of fact much contested before the
department, in regard to which Starks himself was sworn, as were
also several other witnesses, and the record of the alleged filing
was also produced. On all this evidence the Commissioner
Page 107 U. S. 465
of the General Land Office decided that he
had filed
the previous declaration, and was therefore disqualified as a
preemptor of the land now in controversy. On appeal to the
Secretary of the Interior, this decision was affirmed, and Stark's
claim was rejected, and Van Pelt's allowed, and the patent issued
to him.
The Supreme Court of Nebraska holds that the Land Department
decided this question of fact erroneously, and that Starks never
filed or made the former declaratory statement that he was a
qualified preemptor for the land patented to Van Pelt, and decrees
a conveyance to him by Baldwin of the legal title vested by the
patent.
Stark v. Baldwin, 7 Neb. 114.
It has been so repeatedly decided in this Court, in cases of
this character, that the Land Department is a tribunal appointed by
Congress to decide questions like this, and when finally decided by
the officers of that department the decision is conclusive
everywhere else as regards all questions of fact, that it is
useless to consider the point further. Where fraud or imposition
has been practiced on the party interested, or on the officers of
the law, or where these latter have clearly mistaken the law of the
case as applicable to the facts, courts of equity may give relief;
but they are not authorized to reexamine into a mere question of
fact dependent on conflicting evidence, and to review the weight
which those officers attached to such evidence.
Johnson v.
Towsley, 13 Wall. 72;
Gibson v.
Chouteau, 13 Wall. 92;
Marquez v. Frisbie,
101 U. S. 473;
Shepley v. Cowan, 91 U. S. 330.
The case before us is a simple reexamination by the Supreme
Court of Nebraska of the evidence on which the Commissioner of the
Land Office and the Secretary of the Interior decided that Starks
had made a prior declaratory statement for the preemption of other
land, and a reversal of that decision.
It is urged upon us that a written stipulation in the case
describing what evidence shall be introduced, and the right to file
written arguments, and that neither party shall be prejudiced by
any defect in the pleadings, but that the case shall be decided on
its merits, is a waiver of this point.
But Van Pelt, the real party in interest, became a party to the
suit, in a court below, six months after this stipulation was
Page 107 U. S. 466
made between the counsel of Baldwin and of Starks, and is not
bound by it. It would be strange also if, in a case like this, the
right of the party to question the equitable jurisdiction of the
court on the facts found, did not belong to the merits of the
case.
Some attempt is made to show that, under the decision of this
Court in
Johnson v. Towsley, the objection to a double
preemption does not apply except where the land is subject to entry
by purchase. But the court was there speaking of the effect of such
former filing of a declaration of intention under the act of 1841
on the rights afterwards asserted under the act of 1843. It is
sufficient to say that both these acts, with all others on that
subject, were considered in the Revised Statutes, and sec. 2261,
which is a reproduction of the law in force when the rights of the
parties here accrued, is positive that, when a party has filed his
declaration of intention to claim the benefits of such provision
(the right of preemption) for one tract of land, he shall not at
any future time, file a second declaration for another tract.
The decree of the Supreme Court of Nebraska is reversed, and the
case remanded to that court, with directions to affirm the decree
of the District Court for the County of Lancaster dismissing the
bill,
So ordered.