When the United States retires from the prosecution of a suit
instituted to vacate a patent of public land without causing the
appeal to be dismissed, and another party, claiming the same land
under another patent, is in court to prosecute the appeal, this
Court will not dismiss it on the motion of the appellee as of
right, but will look into the case, and if the circumstances
require it, will hear argument on the case and decide it.
Errors and irregularities in the process of entering and
procuring title to public lands should be corrected in the Land
Department, so long as there are means for revising the proceedings
and correcting the errors. Silence for more than eight years after
a party has abandoned a contract for a patent of mineral land, and
has submitted to a decision of the question by the Land Department,
however erroneous, is such laches as
Page 129 U. S. 580
amounts to acquiescence in the proceedings and precludes a court
of equity from interfering to annul them.
When the officers of the Land Department act within the general
scope of their powers in issuing a patent for public land, and
without fraud, the patent is a valid instrument, and the court will
not interfere unless there is gross mistake or violation of
law.
A bill in chancery brought by the United States to set aside and
vacate a patent issued under its authority is not to be treated as
a writ of error, or as a petition for a rehearing in chancery, or
as if it were a mere retrial of the case before the land
office.
The holder of a patent from the United States cannot be called
upon to prove that everything has been done that is usual in the
proceedings in the land office before its issue, nor can he be
called upon to explain every irregularity, or even impropriety, in
the process by which the patent was procured.
In equity. The bill was filed by the Attorney General of the
United States to vacate letters patent for a tract of mineral land
in Colorado. The case was reached on the calendar October 12, 1888,
when Mr. Assistant Attorney General Maury stated to the Court that
the United States had no interest in the suit, and did not
prosecute the appeal. Mr. Simon Sterne, on behalf of the appellees,
then moved in open court to dismiss the appeal. Mr. James K.
Reddington appeared for parties claiming a portion of the same
tract under other letters patent, and objected to the dismissal,
whereupon the case was passed.
On the following Monday, the 15th of October Mr. Assistant
Attorney General Maury, on behalf of the Attorney General,
presented the following statement, entitled in the cause.
"And now comes the Attorney General of the United States and
gives the Court to be informed that the United States has no
interest in the subject matter of this suit, and that the
controversy involved therein is one between private parties only,
but the Attorney General makes no objection to the prosecution of
this appeal in the name of the United States by the parties in
whose interest it was taken if, in the opinion of the Court, the
United States was under an obligation to such parties to bring this
suit or is under an obligation to them to prosecute this appeal.
"
Page 129 U. S. 581
"
LETTER OF COMMISSIONER OF THE LAND OFFICE"
"DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR"
"GENERAL LAND OFFICE"
"Washington, D.C. March 17, 1888"
"Hon. WILLIAM F. VILAS"
"
Secretary of the Interior"
"SIR: In the matter of the inquiry made in letter of the 15th
instant from the honorable Attorney General whether the United
States have any substantial interest in the matter involved in the
case of
The United States v. The Marshall Silver Mining Company
and the Colorado Central Consolidated Mining Company, I have
the honor to submit the following report in compliance with your
instructions endorsed on said Attorney General's letter, which was
received by your reference of the 16th instant."
"Patent for the Tunnel No. 5 lode claim, Central City, Colo.
mineral entry No. 358, was erroneously issued June 8, 187I, and
included the ground in conflict with the survey of the Cayuga lode
claim."
Patent for the Cayuga lode claim, Central City, Colo., mineral
entry No. 1778, was issued January 31, 188 and also included said
ground in conflict.
"The ground in conflict rightly belongs to the Cayuga claimants,
and is fully covered by their said patent."
"The government has no pecuniary interest in the ground in
controversy."
"It is believed, however (see report to your office in the case
dated February 3, 1883), that the Department is under obligation to
inquire into the matter and see that the Cayuga claimants have a
patent clear from interference and unclouded with controversy
arising through official acts."
"The Attorney General's letter of the 15th instant is herewith
returned. Letter from same referred to this office by you on the
8th instant, if received, has been mislaid."
"Very respectfully,"
"S. M. STOCKSLAGER"
"
Acting Commissioner"
Page 129 U. S. 582
Thereupon a motion to dismiss the appeal was presented and
filed, and argument heard thereon, Mr. R. S. Morrison for the
motion and Mr. James K. Reddington opposing. On the 22d day of
October, the court denied the motion and ordered the case set down
for hearing at the foot of the call on the 15th November.
The case was reached and argued on the 20th November.
MR. JUSTICE MILLER delivered the opinion of the Court.
The case before us originated in a bill in equity brought in the
Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Colorado in
the name of the United States of America by its Attorney General
and the district attorney of the United States for that district
against the Marshall Silver Mining Company and the Colorado Central
Consolidated Mining Company, defendants. The purpose of the bill
was to set aside and vacate a patent issued by the government to
the Marshall Silver Mining Company for a vein or lode of mineral
deposit lying in the Griffith mining district, in the County of
Clear Creek, Colorado, known as the "Tunnel Lodge No. 5," dated on
the 8th day of June, 1874. Afterwards another patent, including a
part of the same land covered by the one just referred to, was
issued to McClellan, Rist and Webster upon what was called the
"Cayuga Lode," on the 31st day of January, 1882.
The grounds which are set up in the bill for vacating the
first-mentioned patent are mainly such as go to show that its issue
fraudulently deprived the holders of the second instrument of the
right to the title of so much of the land as is covered by the
conflicting boundaries described therein, so that the result of a
decree annulling the first patent would be to give to the claimants
under the second the paramount title.
Page 129 U. S. 583
The circuit court, after hearing the case on the bill, two
different demurrers, answers, replication, and a large amount of
testimony, dismissed the suit. From that decree the present appeal
was taken by the United States.
At the beginning of this term, the attorney for the government
filed in this Court a statement that the United States had no
pecuniary interest in the suit, and the officers charged with the
conduct of such matters on the part of the government declined to
take any further part in the argument of the case. They did not,
however, dismiss the appeal, and made no objection to its
prosecution by the private parties interested in the matter, who
had conducted the case from its inception. Thereupon a motion was
made by the appellees and argued before the Court to dismiss the
appeal, which was resisted by the counsel interested in the second
patent. Under all the circumstances, the Court determined to hear
it, refused the motion, and, after thorough argument, the case is
now before us for decision.
The charges which are made the basis for the relief sought here
may be comprehended under two heads, although they are so mingled
together in the bill that it seems doubtful whether they were
intended to be considered and treated as separate propositions. The
main ground is an allegation of fraud, practiced upon the parties
claiming the Cayuga lode, by collusion between those having the
management of the claim to Tunnel lode No. 5, and certain officers
of the Land Department, and particularly the register and receiver
of the land office located at Central City.
The material facts are that the claimants to both of these lodes
seem to have been prospecting in that vicinity and discovered
mineral in their different claims about the same time. They each
had their claims staked out and surveyed by deputy surveyors of the
United States, and about the same time they each made application
to the land office for their entry, with a view of obtaining
patents therefor. Upon the application's being made for a patent
upon the Cayuga lode, the Marshall Silver Mining Company,
discovering that it interfered with a portion of their claim,
brought a suit in the local court of the
Page 129 U. S. 584
state under the act of Congress on that subject, Rev.Stat. ยง
2326, against McClellan, Rist and Webster, asserting the
superiority of their claim to a patent for the land in controversy.
The statute provides that the judgment in such a suit shall govern
the rights of the parties in the land office. This suit was on the
docket of the court for some time, perhaps a year or more. In the
meantime Rist, one of the parties in interest under the claim to
the Cayuga lode, made a disclaimer in the local land office of the
proceedings taken by his partners, in the name of McClellan, Rist
and Webster, and, so far as he was interested in that claim,
directed the proceedings to be dismissed. Accordingly, the register
and receiver of that office made an entry dismissing the claim to
the Cayuga lode and the application for a patent thereon, under the
belief, as they expressed it, that such was the necessary result of
the action of Rist. One of the questions of fact which is disputed
in this case is whether McClellan and Webster had notice of these
proceedings, which resulted in the dismissal of the application for
a patent upon the Cayuga claim. This will be considered
presently.
Not long after this order was made in the local land office, the
owners of the Tunnel lode, who had assumed the name, either by
incorporation or as partners, of the Marshall Silver Mining
Company, dismissed the suit which they had brought in the state
court contesting the right of the Cayuga claimants to a patent for
the property in controversy. They obtained from the clerk of the
court a certificate of such dismissal, and thereupon proceeded in
the prosecution of their claim in the land office
ex
parte. They procured from the surveyor of the United States,
by his deputy, an amended survey of their claim, and it was then
allowed by the local officials. It was forwarded by them to the
Commissioner of the General Land Office, who, after a full
consideration of the subject occupying nearly a year, issued to the
Marshall Silver Mining Company the patent which is now assailed by
the bill of complaint in this case. They had before taken
possession of the property, and they worked the lode now in dispute
for about eight years
Page 129 U. S. 585
and a half, without any complaint's being made by the claimants
of the Cayuga lode. At the end of that time, these parties appeared
before the Land Department, denied the validity of the order
dismissing their claim, and, proceeding themselves
ex
parte, without notice to the Marshall Silver Mining Company,
procured the patent already referred to, dated January 31, 1882.
The main controversy arising out of this condition of affairs is
upon the allegation that Rist was corruptly induced to apply to the
register and receiver of the local land office for the dismissal of
the claim in which he was an interested party, and that these
officers were in collusion with him and the claimants of the Tunnel
lode in making the order which they did.
It must be conceded that there is a total failure to establish
any such corrupt motive or action on the part of either the
officers or Rist. What the motives were which induced Rist to make
his application to the officers of the land office is not very
plain, but he acted through Mr. Butler, a lawyer of character and
reputation, and no evidence is introduced showing that he was
imposed upon, misled, or bought up. Still less is there any
evidence that the register or receiver were bribed or influenced by
any improper motives in the action which they took.
It is alleged in the answer that the legal view which these
officer took of the matter, that a withdrawal on the part of one of
the claimants who had a real interest in the claim required the
dismissal of the whole claim, may have been the law of the case. We
do not consider it necessary now to inquire whether such was the
law.
It is also alleged in the answer that such had been the course
of proceeding in similar cases before that time in the Land
Department. We do no know that there is any evidence that such had
been the ruling, or that a contrary decision had ever been made. At
all events, as the case presents itself to us, there is no corrupt
or fraudulent motive on the part of these officers shown as a
foundation for setting aside this patent. Whether or not there was
a mistake made by them in regard to the law of the subject we do
not think it
Page 129 U. S. 586
necessary to decide now; nor are we satisfied that if it was a
clear mistake of law by these officers, it was so far an essential
element in the final determination of the commissioner of the
General Land Office of the rights of the parties as to invalidate
the patent issued as the result of those proceedings.
This point, in our opinion, is relieved of any difficulty by the
subsequent conduct of McClellan, Rist and Webster in regard to the
matter, which amounted to an acceptance of the decision of the
register and receiver and an acquiescence in it, that forbids an
assertion by them now of a claim which they might have asserted at
a previous stage of the transaction. McClellan, and perhaps another
of the claimants, lived at Georgetown, Colorado, about twenty miles
from the land office at Central City where all these proceedings
were conducted, and some twenty-two miles from the locality where
the lodes in question were situated. Although there is some dispute
as to whether they received notice of the order dismissing their
claim, we are of opinion that the evidence clearly preponderates in
favor of the conclusion that they did receive such notice
immediately after the order was made.
It appears from the testimony of Arnold, the receiver of the
land office at Central City, which is supported by a press copy of
a letter, that he notified McClellan and Webster, on April 30,
1873, of the dismissal of the Cayuga claim, and that this notice
was given by mail, in conformity with the usual practice of the
office at that time. Arnold also testifies that he knows that
McClellan received the letter.
The suit in the state court was dismissed by the Marshall Silver
Mining Company shortly after the order was made by the local land
office dismissing the Cayuga claim. That was a suit in which
McClellan and Webster were defendants. It had been progressing for
some time, and it is impossible to believe they did not have notice
of its dismissal, for ordinary attention to their own interests
would have required them to know what was going on in regard to
it.
The Marshall Silver Mining Company and the Colorado Central
Consolidated Mining Company, to which the former conveyed their
interest, continued working the mine upon
Page 129 U. S. 587
their lode from 1873 until 1882, without any interference on the
part of McClellan or Webster, and the former admits that he knew
those companies were so working, yet, during all this time, a
period of some eight years and a half, they made no objection to
such working, although they must have known all that was going on
in regard to it. They acquiesced in the proceedings, and made no
effort to set aside the patent or to correct any injustice which
had been done them in the proceedings upon which the patent had
been issued, while the other parties had full and undisputed
possession of the land.
It may be said that they could not help themselves, and that
this silence and inaction on their part did not imply acquiescence.
But they had the right to appeal to the Commissioner of the General
Land Office from the order of the register and receiver dismissing
their application. This was not done, and it never has been done.
When parties are engaged in a contest, both before the courts and
in the land office with regard to their rights in a deposit of
mineral or a lode, in both of which tribunals action has been
taken, putting one party entirely out of court in the pending suit
and dismissing the same party's application for a patent, and there
is a right of appeal, it would be a most inequitable rule to hold
that after he has acquiesced and remained silent for more than
eight years while the successful party is in possession of the lode
in controversy, working out its mineral right in the face of the
unsuccessful party, the latter can resume the contest after this
long interval and after the legal title has passed from the United
States. Under the decisions made by this Court, there is no doubt
that the legal title to this mineral land did pass from the United
States by the first patent.
United States v. Schurz,
102 U. S. 378.
All the errors and irregularities which occur in the process of
entering and procuring title to the public lands of the United
States ought to be corrected within the Land Department, which
includes the authority vested in the Secretary of the Interior, so
long as there are means of revising the proceedings and correcting
these errors. A party cannot be permitted to remain silent for more
than eight years after he has
Page 129 U. S. 588
abandoned a contest and submitted to the decision of the matter
at issue, although it may have been erroneous, and then come
forward in a court of equity, after the title has passed from the
United States, and seek to correct the errors which may have
occurred during the progress of the proceedings in the land office.
If the officers of that department of the government have acted
within the general scope of their power and without fraud, the
patent which has issued after such proceedings must remain a valid
instrument, and the court will not interfere, unless there is such
a gross mistake or violation of the law which confers their
authority as to demand a cancellation of the instrument.
We see no such gross mistake in the present case, but do think
there is such laches as amounts to acquiescence in regard to the
proceedings before the Land Department, as to which error is
charged, and precludes the interference of a court of equity to
annul or set aside the patent issued in 1874.
We have recently had before us a number of this class of cases,
in which the attempt has been made to invalidate by a decree of the
court patents which have been issued by the government of the
United States to private parties. There has been such frequent
occasion to consider the subject that it would be only a repetition
to go over the ground again. This whole question was very fully
reviewed during the present term of the Court in the case of
United States v. Iron Silver Mining Company, 128 U.
S. 673, in the opinion delivered by MR. JUSTICE FIELD,
in which the various decisions were reexamined with care.
The more important of these cases are
Maxwell Land Grant
Case, 121 U. S. 325, and
Colorado Coal & Iron Co. v. United States,
123 U. S. 307. To
these may be added
United States v. San Jacinto Tin Co.,
125 U. S. 273, and
United States v. Beebe, 127 U. S. 338.
Some point is made in the bill and in the argument concerning
the amended survey of the Tunnel lode claim, and the manner of its
presentation to the Commissioner of the General Land Office, with
other irregularities which are suggested and pointed out; but we
think it must be taken to be
Page 129 U. S. 589
the settled doctrine of this Court that a bill in chancery,
brought by the United States to set aside and vacate a patent
issued under its authority, is not to be treated as a writ of error
or as a petition for a rehearing in chancery or as if it were a
mere retrial of the case as it was before the land office with such
additional proof as the parties may be able to produce.
The dignity and character of a patent from the United States is
such that the holder of it cannot be called upon to prove that
everything has been done that is usual in the proceedings had in
the Land Department before its issue, nor can he be called upon to
explain every irregularity, or even impropriety, in the process by
which the patent is procured. Especially is it true that where the
United States has not received any damage or injury, and can obtain
no advantage from the suit instituted by it, the conduct of the
parties themselves, for whose benefit such action may be brought,
must itself be so free from fault or neglect as to authorize them
to come with clean hands to ask the use of the name of the
government to redress any wrong which may have been done to
them.
One matter which has been much discussed before us is whether
the Colorado Central Consolidated Mining Company, one of the
defendants in this suit and the present owner of such title as
passed to the Marshall Silver Mining Company by the patent sought
to be vacated, is an innocent purchaser of the property in
ignorance of any of the matters set up by the complainants. While
it is not necessary to pass upon this subject in the view we have
taken of the case, it is not improper to say that, as presented to
us, the claim of that company to be an innocent purchaser presents
a very formidable objection to the granting of the relief asked for
in a court of equity.
The decree of the Circuit Court for the District of Colorado
is
Affirmed.