When, while disputed matters of fact concerning a tract of
public land, or the priority of right of claimants thereto, are
pending unsettled in the Land Department, a patent wrongfully
issues for the tract through inadvertence or mistake, by which the
jurisdiction conferred by law upon the Land Department over these
disputed questions of fact is lost, a court of equity may
rightfully interfere, and restore such lost jurisdiction by
cancelling the patent.
On November 20, 1889, a patent was issued by the United States
to Thomas Reed for the southwest quarter of the northeast quarter
and lots 1 and 2 of section 30, township 63 north of range 11 west,
containing 112 acres, in the Duluth Land District of the State of
Minnesota. On October 13, 1891, the United States filed in the
Circuit Court of the District of Minnesota a bill in equity to set
aside such patent, making Thomas Reed, the patentee, and the
appellants in this case, parties defendant. These appellants
claimed title by conveyances from Reed. Reed made default in the
suit, but the appellants appeared and answered, and to their
answer
Page 165 U. S. 380
a replication was filed, whereupon, some testimony having been
taken, the case was submitted to the court with certain
stipulations of fact, and upon the pleadings and these stipulations
a decree was entered sustaining the bill and cancelling the patent.
On appeal to the circuit court of appeals, this decree was
affirmed, 58 F. 334, and thereafter an appeal was taken to this
Court.
The facts as shown by the pleadings and stipulations are these:
on July 21, 1885, Orilie Stram, formerly Moreau, attempted to make
a location of the land in controversy with Sioux half-breed scrip.
The validity of these locations was contested by other parties, and
on February 18, 1889, the Secretary of the Interior, who had
jurisdiction over the matter and the parties, cancelled such scrip
locations, and ordered that the land be held for disposal under the
public land laws of the United States. On February 23, 1889, Thomas
Reed applied to make soldier's additional homestead entry of the
lands, which application was sustained by the local land officers,
and a final certificate issued to him on that day.
"At the same time that Reed made his entry, Charles P. Wheeler
applied to locate the southwest quarter of the northeast quarter of
said section 30 with Valentine scrip,"
and
"Warren Wing had applied to enter lot 2 of said section 30 under
section 2306, Rev.Stat. . . . On the morning of the day when the
Reed entry was allowed, William M. Stokes was, among other
applicants to make various kinds of entries before and at the time
of the opening of the doors of the local land office at Duluth,
present at said doors, and attempting to enter . . . said southwest
quarter of the northeast quarter of said section 30 as a soldier's
additional homestead."
The applications of Wheeler, Wing, and Stokes were severally
denied, and appeals were taken from such denials to the
Commissioner of the General Land Office.
On February 18, 1889, the time of the decision by the Secretary
of the Interior in respect to the attempted location by Orilie
Stram, and ever since, there has been in existence in the
Department of the Interior a rule that motions for review of
decisions of the Secretary of the Interior should be filed in
the
Page 165 U. S. 381
office of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, and that
the commissioner should thereupon suspend action under the decision
sought to be reviewed. Motions for review of the decision of date
February 18th were duly made, and filed on March 13 and 15, 1889,
respectively, by the parties affected adversely by said decision.
Thereupon an order was made suspending all action under the
decision sought to be reviewed, and such order was of force, and
such motions were pending unheard and undetermined at the time and
after the issuing of the patent sought to be cancelled, and the
patent was issued in direct violation or in ignorance of such
order. At the time of the issue of such patent, the appeals of
Wheeler, Wing, and Stokes were also pending, unheard and
undetermined, and have not been since heard or determined.
"While said appeals and motions were pending and undisposed of,
a clerk of the General Land Office at Washington, whose duty it was
to examine entries of the character, described, in ignorance of the
pendency of said conflicting claims, said motions, and said
appeals, approved the lands described in the said patent for
patenting to Thomas Reed, one of the defendants hereto, and a
patent was, upon such approval, issued to him on the 20th day of
November, 1889; that said patent was signed by the secretary to the
president, and countersigned by the recorder of the General Land
Office, each of whom at the time they signed and countersigned said
patent as aforesaid, were in ignorance of the pendency of the
aforesaid conflicting claims, and acted wholly upon the said
approval of said clerk. The approval of the entry for patent and
the signatures to the patent were made notwithstanding the fact
that a caveat pointing out the conflicts was on file with the rest
of the entry papers relating to the lands involved, and such
approval and signatures were made in ignorance of the contents of
said caveat."
The appellants made no claim as
bona fide purchasers,
and the case stood as though it were a proceeding against the
patentee alone. So far as it bore on the question of good faith, it
was admitted that the land was worth $75,000, as alleged in the
bill.
Page 165 U. S. 382
MR. JUSTICE BREWER, after stating the facts in the foregoing
language, delivered the opinion of the Court.
Appellants contend that this bill cannot be sustained, because,
first, no fraud is proved, or even charged, against the patentee;
second, there is no showing that the other applicants for these
lands had or have any rights superior to the patentee; third, that
it is neither proved nor alleged that the patentee was not
equitably as well as legally entitled to the lands; fourth, that
the utmost that appears is the premature issue of a patent through
mistake and inadvertence, and in disregard of one of the rules of
the department, and that such matters lay no foundation for the
interposition of a court of equity unless accompanied by a trespass
on some substantial right. They insist that a vendor cannot ask the
aid of a court of equity to avoid his deed on the mere ground of
irregularity on the part of his agents unless he also shows that
the grantee in such deed was not equitably entitled to the
conveyance; that courts never attempt to do a useless thing, and
that it would be idle to enter a decree cancelling a patent when,
for aught that appears, it would be the duty of the government,
after some formal proceedings and compliance with certain
regulations, to reissue to the patentee a patent for the same
lands. In other words, their contention is that this whole
litigation is merely a dispute about form and order of proceeding,
and not about substantial rights. Many authorities from this Court
and others are cited showing the conditions under which courts of
equity will interfere to cancel patents and deeds on the ground of
fraud, or by reason of other facts showing that the patentee or
grantee is not of right entitled to the land. We have no
disposition to weaken the force of these authorities or to question
their control in cases to which they are applicable. A patent from
the United States is a solemn muniment of title, not lightly to be
challenged or set aside, and all that has been heretofore said in
support of the sanctity of such an instrument we reaffirm.
Page 165 U. S. 383
But the theory of this bill is outside the scope of all such
cases. It does not rest upon doubtful and uncertain testimony. The
facts are conceded, and there is therefore certainty as to what
they are. The only question presented is as to the right which
flows from these undisputed and admitted facts. It is, in effect, a
suit by the government to restore to a tribunal to which it has
committed exclusive jurisdiction over certain matters that
jurisdiction which, through inadvertence and mistake, it has been
deprived of.
"Relief, when deeds or other instruments are executed by mistake
or inadvertence of agents, as well as upon false suggestions, is a
common head of equity jurisprudence."
Hughes v. United
States, 4 Wall. 232,
71 U. S. 236.
Congress has entrusted to the Land Department the disposal of the
public lands, and has invested the officers of that department with
exclusive jurisdiction over many things in connection with such
disposition. Their determination in respect to questions of fact in
all matters of contest is exclusive and final. The issue of a
patent is, in effect, the final determination of that department in
favor of the patentee and against the contestants of all disputed
questions of fact -- a determination which it is not the function
of courts to review except upon conditions of fraud, etc., which
permit courts of equity to investigate and pass judgment upon all
determinations of all tribunals. By inadvertence and mistake, a
patent in this case has been issued, and the effect of such issue
is to transfer the legal title, and remove from the jurisdiction of
the Land Department the inquiry into and consideration of such
disputed questions of fact.
The contention of the appellants is substantially that the
courts must consider and determine those disputed questions of
fact, and exercise a jurisdiction not committed to them, before
they restore to the Land Department the jurisdiction of which it
has been wrongfully deprived. But why should the courts be called
upon to consider and determine questions of fact, and, after a
determination adversely to the patentee, relegate the matter for
reexamination and determination in the Land Department? Is not the
duty of the court fully performed when it ascertains that, through
such inadvertence
Page 165 U. S. 384
and mistake, the department which has jurisdiction over such
matters has been deprived thereof? It restores to such department
its lost jurisdiction, and leaves to the tribunal designated by
Congress the full power to discharge the duties conferred upon it.
It is true that it does not affirmatively appear in this case that
the patentee was not entitled equitably to the land, or that the
contestants had any superior right thereto, but his rights and
their rights depend upon questions of fact, such as priority of
application, etc., the determination of which, by act of Congress,
has been committed to the Land Department. It, and not a court of
equity, is the tribunal entrusted by the law with jurisdiction over
such matters, and the latter may not inquire what ought to have
been the determination of the former, but whether it has been
wrongfully deprived of the power to make such determination.
The question is not one simply between the government and the
patentee -- a vendor and vendee -- such as was presented in
United States v. Railway Company, 26 F. 479. In that case,
there were no adverse or contesting rights. Equitably, the patentee
was entitled to the land, and the only real objection was that the
patent had been prematurely issued. A court might properly decline
to set aside a patent when it affirmatively appeared that,
immediately after such action it, would be the duty of the
department to issue a new one. Here, there are adverse claimants;
there are contestants of the patentee's right, and the mere
existence of a question of contested fact, the mere fact of a
dispute between several parties, is sufficient ground for a court
of equity returning the matter for examination to the tribunal
which Congress has created for such purposes. This is not a mere
matter of procedure between the government and the patentee, but a
question of the forum for the adjudication of controversies between
individual litigants.
The case of
Badeau v. United States, 130 U.
S. 439, is not in point, for there, the only question
was one between the United States and the claimant, and involved
simply the amount of money due to the latter. The case of
Williams v. United States, 138 U.
S. 514, is more in point, for in that case
Page 165 U. S. 385
this Court sustained a decree cancelling a patent, although no
fraud was shown and its issue was simply owing to inadvertence and
mistake. We are of the opinion that the ruling of the circuit court
and the court of appeals was correct; that the matters of fact
involved in these contests should be settled by the Land
Department; that when, through inadvertence and mistake, a patent
has been wrongfully issued by which the jurisdiction of the Land
Department over these disputed questions of fact is lost, a court
of equity may rightfully interfere and restore such lost
jurisdiction, to do which it becomes necessary to cancel the
patent.
To deny relief in this case would open the door to many
possibilities of wrong. It appears that although an order had been
made to suspend all action in respect to the application for this
patent, somehow or other the clerk having charge of the proceedings
in respect to it was ignorant of such order, and that, although in
the paper handed to him was the formal entry of an appearance for a
contestee, he failed to examine such instrument, and assumed that
it was a mere entry of an appearance in behalf of the applicant.
Upon the showing made in this case, he was innocent of wrong
intent, but if such omission can be operative to deprive the Land
Department of its appropriate jurisdiction, it affords too strong
an inducement for an intentional omission, proof of which may well
be beyond the power of the government. The decree of the court of
appeals is
Affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE GRAY was not present at the argument, and took no
part in the decision of this case.
