The general rule that, in matters of boundaries, natural
monuments or objects will control courses and distances is not
absolute and inexorable.
When the plat of a government survey is the result of, and
founded upon, a gross fraud, and there is actually no lake near the
spot indicated thereon, and adopting the lake as it is actually
located as a natural monument would increase the patentee's land
fourfold, the false meander line can be regarded as a boundary,
instead of a true meander line, and the patentee confined to the
lots correctly described within the lines and distances of the plat
of survey and of the field notes which he actually bought and paid
for.
Where the patentee has in fact received and is in possession of
all the land actually described in the lines and distances and is
seeking for more on the theory that his plat of survey carries him
to a natural boundary, a denial of that right on the ground that
the plat was fraudulent, and that the natural boundary did not
actually exist anywhere near the spot indicated, is a legal defense
which can be set up by defendant in an action in ejectment, and it
is not necessary to seek the aid of a court in equity to obtain a
reformation of the patent.
This is an action of ejectment, commenced in the District Court
of St. Louis County, in the State of Minnesota, to recover certain
lands in that county described in the complaint. The trial was by
the court, and judgment was entered for the defendant,
Page 193 U. S. 168
which was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Minnesota, and the
plaintiff has sued out this writ of error to review that judgment.
87 Minn. 97.
The following facts (among others) were found by the trial
court:
"1. The plaintiff is a corporation duly organized and existing
under the laws of the State of Minnesota, and the defendants are
husband and wife."
"2. In 1876, township fifty-seven north of range seventeen west,
in St. Louis County, Minnesota, was ordered by the General Land
Office of the United States to be surveyed, and a contract for the
survey thereof was made by the United States Surveyor General of
the State of Minnesota with one H. S. Howe, who, by said contract,
was constituted a deputy United States surveyor for said purpose.
Under said contract, said Howe was required, and undertook and
agreed, to survey said township, to run out all section lines, and
to set posts marking all section and quarter section corners
throughout said township where the same could be marked upon the
ground, and accurately to meander and establish upon the ground
meander posts of all lakes and streams found to exist within said
township."
"3. Thereafter said Howe ran and marked the exterior lines of
said township, except the south township line, which had been
previously surveyed, and set posts at all section and quarter
section corners on said three exterior lines. He also set a meander
post upon the north line of said township as surveyed by him, where
said line running west from the northeast corner of said township
first encountered the shore of Ely Lake, or, as it is sometimes
called, Cedar Island Lake."
"4. No survey of the interior of said township was ever made,
and no section lines within said township were ever run by said
Howe, with the possible exception of the west line of section 36
thereof, and no section or quarter section corners were ever
located, established, or marked by him (with the possible exception
of the northwest corner of section 36 aforesaid), and
Page 193 U. S. 169
none of the streams or permanent lakes (of which there were
several) within said township were meandered by him, and no posts
of any description were ever set, nor any lines or bearing trees
ever blazed, within said township, with the possible exception of a
corner post at the northwest corner of said section 36."
"5. Said Howe made and filed with the United States Surveyor
General of the State of Minnesota what purported to be field notes
of a survey of said township made by him under said contract,
purporting to give the length and directions of all interior
section lines in said township, the location of all sections and
quarter section posts, and the bearing trees thereof, the character
of the soil and timber in said township, and all other data and
information required by the statutes of the United States and the
rules of the United States General Land Office to be ascertained
and reported by deputy surveyors in due course of making surveys of
public lands."
"6. With the exception of the description of the survey of the
three exterior boundary lines of said township actually run by him,
said field notes returned by said Howe were imaginary and
fictitious, and the purported facts and data contained therein were
not based upon any personal knowledge or inspection of the interior
of said township, and were, in fact false and erroneous."
"7. From said purported field notes, it appears that there
existed in the northerly part of said township, lying in sections
2, 3, 4, 9, 10, and 11 thereof, a lake known as Ely Lake, or Cedar
Island Lake, with surface area, as indicated in said field notes,
of 1,800 acres; in fact instead of having an area of about 1,800
acres, said lake then was and still is a body of water not
exceeding 800 acres in area. It is a permanent, deep, and navigable
lake, having high, steep, and heavily timbered banks except about
the outlet thereof. Said lake does not in fact touch section 11 at
all, and covers only an area of very small extent (less than
one-half of a forty-acre tract) in the southeast corner of
section
Page 193 U. S. 170
4. Between the actual water line of said lake and the meander
line thereof, as returned by the purported field notes of said
Howe, there were at the time of the survey and still are at least
one thousand acres of high, tillable land which has never been a
part of the lake and which was and is heavily timbered with trees
of more than a century's growth and growing down to the water's
edge."
"8. The field notes and report of survey made and filed by said
Howe were approved by the Surveyor General for the District of
Minnesota August 7, 1876, and a plat of said township was made in
accordance with said purported filed notes under the direction of
said Surveyor General, and was approved by him on said seventh day
of August, 1876, and a duly certified copy thereof was transmitted
by him to the proper local United States land office on the 24th
day of August, 1876, and another duly certified copy of the same
was by him forwarded to the General Land Office of the United
States, and filed therein August 23, 1876, and was by that office
accepted as representing a correct survey of said township, and as
the official plat thereof. Such survey and plat of said township
were the only ones ever made by or under the authority of the
United States government."
"[The plat, which is to be found at
189 U. S.
illustrates with sufficient accuracy the township in which the
lands in question lie, and it delineates the meandering of Cedar
Island Lake, the outer meander line representing that which was
marked on the official plat of the survey and as shown by the field
notes of Howe, and the inner meander line representing the lake as
it actually existed in 1876, when the field notes were made and
filed, and as it now exists. A portion of the land lying between
these lines is the land involved in this action, being land lying
between the lake and the lots 3, 5, 6, and 7, in section 4, of the
township mentioned."
"The dotted lines on the plat show the courses which would have
to be followed in order to permit each of the lots above named to
reach the lake as it actually exists.] "
Page 193 U. S. 171
"9. Since the spring of 1892, the defendants have been in actual
and continuous occupancy of a portion of the land lying between the
meander line described and returned by said Howe in his said
purported field notes, and as located upon the government plat of
said township, and the actual water line of said lake. Said
occupancy has been under the claim that the lands occupied by said
defendants were and are unsurveyed government lands, subject to
homestead entry, and that they have not been patented by the
government. The defendants have made valuable and lasting
improvements upon the lands occupied by them respectively."
"10. According to the plat of said township, the land in section
4 was divided into eight fractional government lots, lots 1, 2, and
8 comprising all of the land in the east half of said section,
containing an aggregate of 122.3 acres, and lots 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7
containing an aggregate of 182.08 acres, comprising all of the land
in the west half of said section."
"11. Between December, 1879, and March, 1887, all of said
government lots [and all the surveyed lands within said township]
were patented and conveyed by the United States, pursuant to the
laws relating to the disposal of public lands, and by patents
containing the usual clause, 'according to the official plat of the
survey of said lands returned to the General Land Office by the
Surveyor General.' By divers mesne conveyances from said patentees,
the title to said lots 3, 5, 6 and 7, containing, according to said
plat and to the patents of said lands, the following quantities of
land, respectively: lot 3, 50.37 acres; lot 5, 34.75 acres; lot 6,
30.5 acres, and lot 7, 25.25 acres, became vested in the plaintiff
in the year 1891 and prior to the commencement of the actions, and
the plaintiff is still the owner thereof, and, as such owner, has
within the boundary of said lots, as shown upon said plat, and
within the meander line of said lake described in said field notes,
the full quantity of land above described as contained
therein."
"
* * * *"
"If the side lines of said lot three were produced and
extended
Page 193 U. S. 172
in straight lines southerly from its southern boundary, as shown
upon the government plat and as herein found and determined, and
the said lot was so extended to the southerly boundary of said
section 4, then in that event the said lot would not touch said Ely
Lake, nor would there be any lake frontage thereon, and said lot
would then contain one hundred and sixty acres of land; neither
would said lines nor said lot reach said lake, no matter how far
extended."
"If the side lines of said lot five were produced and extended
easterly from the eastern boundary of said lot, as shown upon the
government plat, and as herein found and determined, to the eastern
boundary of said section 4, the northern line of said lot following
the old meander line of said lake, and the southern line of said
lot being produced and extended in a straight line, and said lot
was so extended, then in that event the said lot would not touch
said Ely Lake, nor would there be any lake frontage thereon, and
said lot would contain about one hundred and twelve acres of
land."
"If the side lines of lot six were produced and extended in
straight lines easterly from the eastern boundary of said lot, as
shown upon the government plat and as herein found and determined,
to the eastern boundary of section 4, and said lot was so extended,
then in that event the said lot would not touch said Ely Lake, nor
would there be any lake frontage thereon, and said lot would then
contain one hundred sixty acres of land."
"If the side lines of said lot seven were produced and extended
in straight lines easterly from its eastern boundary, as shown upon
the government plat and as herein found and determined, to the
eastern boundary of said section 4, and the said lot was so
extended, in that event the south line of said lot would touch said
Ely Lake, and a few feet of lake frontage would then be contained
in said lot, and said lot would contain about one hundred and
thirty-nine acres of land."
"I further find that it would be impossible to extend said lots
within their respective side lines, as above specified, without
Page 193 U. S. 173
instant and irreconcilable interference with each other, and
that no one of said lots has any prior or superior right over any
of the others to be so extended. "
Page 193 U. S. 178
MR. JUSTICE PECKHAM, after making the foregoing statement of
facts, delivered the opinion of the Court.
The land in controversy in this case is described in the
foregoing statement of facts, and it lies between the meander line
as it appears on the plat of the survey referred to in the patents
and the actual borders of the lake.
See the sketch of the
plat at
189 U. S. United
States Reports. Regarding the question of the boundaries, counsel
for plaintiff in error assert in their brief that, if distance is
to prevail, then the land in controversy is an unsurveyed strip
lying between the lots of the plaintiff in error and the lake;
while if the natural monument is to prevail, then the strip of land
in controversy is part and parcel of the lots of the plaintiff in
error. The boundaries of the lots as shown upon the plat of survey
giving the so-called meander line of the lake, described in the
field notes, are unquestionably correct, so far as the three sides
of the fractional lots are concerned, and the only difference is as
to the side which purports to front on the lake. In regard to this
fourth side, the plaintiff in error, as a remote grantee from the
patentees, bases its claim to the land lying between the
Page 193 U. S. 179
meander line and the lake, upon the grounds that the patents
conveying the lots to the patentees contained the clause "according
to the official plat of the survey of the said lands returned to
the General Land Office by the Surveyor General;" that the plat of
the survey of the lands, by reason of such reference, became a part
of the grant described in the patents; that the plat showed, as the
fourth side of the land granted, a meander line around Cedar Island
Lake; that the lake thereby became a natural monument or boundary,
and that, although the plat of the survey turns out to have been a
mistake as to the position of the lake, and the line was therefore
not in truth anything like an accurate meander line, yet, by reason
of that plat and of that line, which assumed to show the borders of
a lake, the patentees had the right to claim that they bought in
reliance upon, and that they were entitled to, a boundary upon a
lake.
In support of these contentions, the plaintiff in error cited
Cragin v. Powell, 128 U. S. 691, and
Jefferis v. East Omaha Land Co., 134 U.
S. 178,
134 U. S. 194,
as to the effect of a grant according to an official plat of a
survey referred to in the grant, and to the cases of
McIver's Lessee v.
Walker (1815), 9 Cranch 173;
Newsom v.
Pryor (1822), 7 Wheat. 7;
St. Clair
County v. Lovingston (1874), 23 Wall. 46;
Land
Co. v. Saunders (1880),
103 U. S. 316, and
other cases, affirming the general rule that, in matters of
boundaries, natural monuments of objects will control courses and
distances.
These general rules may be admitted. The rule as to natural
monuments is not, however, absolute and inexorable. It is founded
upon the presumed intention of the parties, to be gathered from the
language contained in the grant and upon the assumption that the
description by monuments approaches accuracy within some reasonable
distance, and places the monument somewhere near where it really
exists.
White v. Luning, 93 U. S. 514;
Ainsa v. United States, 161 U. S. 208,
161 U. S. 229;
Baldwin v. Brown, 16 N.Y. 359;
Buffalo &c.
Railroad Company v. Stigeler, 61 N.Y. 348;
Higginbotham v.
Stoddard, 72 N.Y. 94;
Page 193 U. S. 180
Hall v. Eaton, 139 Mass. 217. These cases illustrate
somewhat the principle upon which the general rule is founded, and
show how far it has upon occasion been regarded as inapplicable.
The patents mention the number of acres contained in each lot, and
that number is stated in the eleventh finding of the trial judge,
which is set forth in the foregoing statement of facts. The
difference between the number of acres stated in the patents to be
in each lot and the number now claimed by the plaintiff in error is
very large, and is subsequently referred to herein. It seems plain
that the intention was to convey no more than the number of acres
actually surveyed and mentioned in the patents. In
Ainsa v.
United States, supra, this is deemed to be a very important,
and sometimes a decisive, fact. It is true that many cases cited by
the plaintiff in error have enforced the superiority of natural
monuments over courses and distances where the difference in the
amount of the land conveyed as between the two classes of
description was also very great. In the case at bar, while there is
a great difference in the amount of land so described, there are at
the same time other facts which are material and which, in our
opinion, when considered in connection with this difference,
justify and demand a refusal to be controlled by the borders of the
lake as a boundary.
It is well to see what the facts in this case were upon which
the state court founded its decision. They are set forth in detail
in the foregoing statement of facts, but a few of the more
important may be here referred to.
There was, in truth, no such survey as was called for by the
contract between the government and the surveyor. The exterior
lines, with the exception of the south line of the township, were
run, but no survey of the interior of the township was ever made,
and no section lines thereof were ever run, with one possible
exception, and in truth the survey as a whole was a fraud. No such
body of water at the place indicated on the plat of survey then
existed or now exists. On the contrary, the lake is from half a
mile to a mile away from what is called
Page 193 U. S. 181
its meander line on the plat of the survey filed by the
surveyor. It covers only about twenty acres in the southeast corner
section 4. The surveyor never was on the ground, and never saw the
lake he pretended to measure, and the lake never existed where he
laid it down in his fraudulent survey. If the side lines of the
various lots were protracted in their course, those of lot 3 would
never reach the lake, and those of lots 5 and 6 would not reach the
lake within the limits of section 4, while the south line of lot 7
would touch the lake, and a few feet of frontage would then be
secured, and that lot would then have 139 instead of 25.25 acres.
The side lines of lots 5, 6, and 7, if protracted, would instantly
cross the protracted side lines of lot 3. There are at least 1,000
acres of high, tillable land between the actual water line of the
lake and the meander line as returned by the field notes and the
plat of survey, and the land is covered by trees of more than a
century's growth and growing down to the water's edge. In order to
bound on the lake, the lots would exhibit a totally different form
from that which they take on the plat of survey, and such boundary
would violate every rule of statutory survey by conveying lands not
conforming to the system adopted by the government, and carried out
ever since its adoption.
The patentees, it must also be borne in mind, get all the land
they really purchased and paid for, as laid down by the lines and
distances set forth in the survey and as stated in the patents.
These lines and distances (of lots 3, 5 , 6, and 7) gave the
patentees 140.87 acres of land, and that was the amount they paid
for, while if the fourth line of the boundary of the lots were
taken out and others substituted in the way shown by the dotted
lines in the plat in 189 U.S.
189 U. S. 43,
supra, and so as to reach the borders of the lake as it
then actually existed and now exists, they would get 571 acres, or
fourfold more land than was actually mentioned and described in the
patents conveying these four lots, or than they supposed they were
purchasing, or than they actually paid for.
Upon these facts, the question recurs whether the patentees,
Page 193 U. S. 182
by reason of the general rules above mentioned, took these lands
which they now claim, although they never in reality bought or paid
for them. We think they did not; that the rules have no application
to a case like this, and that plaintiff in error must be confined
to the lots which are correctly described within the lines and
distances of the plat of survey and of the field notes and which
the patentees actually bought and paid for.
The fraudulent character of the survey, the nonexistence of the
lake within at least half a mile of the point indicated on the
plat, the excessive amount of land claimed as compared with that
which was described and stated in the patents and actually
purchased and paid for, the difficulty in reaching the lake at all,
and the necessity, in order to do it, of going outside of section 4
(with the exception as to a small part of lot 7), the section in
which the description and plat placed all the land, all go to show
that the lake ought not to be regarded as a natural monument within
the cases, or within the principle upon which the rule is founded,
and therefore the courses and distances by which the amount of land
actually purchased and paid for was determined ought to
prevail.
The nonexistence of a lake anywhere near the spot indicated on
the plat is a strong reason for regarding the so-called meander
line as one of boundary, instead of a true meander line, and when
the plat itself is the result of a gross fraud, and indeed is
entirely founded upon it, the reason for refusing to recognize the
lake as a boundary becomes apparent.
The land actually purchased and paid for was conveyed and
covered by the description by courses and distances set forth in
the field notes and referred to in the patents, and the government
is concluded as to such land; but the implication of a boundary by
the lake as delineated on the plat of survey, which might otherwise
be made, will not be permitted when it is based upon such facts as
have been already adverted to in this case. Giving the patentees
all the land in acres, stated in the patents and described and
contained in lines and distances
Page 193 U. S. 183
in such patents, and which is all they paid for, protects them,
and the government ought not to be further concluded by the
fraudulent acts of a public officer.
As is said in the trial court in this case, there must be some
limit to the length courts will go in search of the water
delineated on a plat of survey with a meander line shown thereon.
If the water were ten miles away, it is certain that a claim to be
bounded thereon would not for one moment be admitted. A distance of
half a mile, enough to plainly show the gross error of the survey,
together with the other facts adverted to herein, are sufficient to
justify a refusal to apply the general rule that meander line is
not usually one of boundary.
Nor in such case is it necessary to go into equity to reform the
patent. Where the patentee has in fact received, and is in
possession of, all the land actually described in the lines and
distances, and is seeking for more on the theory that his plat of
survey carries him to the water, a denial of that claim upon such
facts as appear here is well founded, and requires no reformation
of the patent. It is simply a question of boundary, and it is a
legal defense; it is but a denial that the land claimed is in fact
included in the patent as it exists, and no aid of a court of
equity is necessary to sustain such a defense.
We think the
French-Glenn Live Stock Company v.
Springer, 185 U. S. 47, is
authority which calls for the affirmance of this judgment. In that
case, the plaintiff claimed under patents from the United States,
which referred to the official plats of the survey, and by which it
appeared the township was rendered fractional by abutting upon the
meander line along the south side of Malheur Lake, which plat
appeared to have been approved by the Land Department of the
government, and the plat showed the lots as bounded "north by the
meander line of Malheur Lake." The field notes of the survey of the
exterior boundaries of the township and its subdivisions and the
meander line of Malheur Lake itself, under the title heading
"Meanderings of the south shore of Malheur Lake through fractional
township 26," etc., indicated that it was run "with
Page 193 U. S. 184
the meander of the lake." The plaintiff in that case claimed
title to land which was just north of this meander line on the
ground that such land was a portion of the lake when the survey was
made and the meander line run around it; that the water had since
receded because of certain facts stated, and that plaintiff was
entitled to the land thus uncovered, as an accretion by way of
reliction to his adjoining land. The defendant disputed this claim,
and asserted that, when the survey was made and the plat thereof,
with its meander line, was referred to in the patent, there was in
fact no such lake anywhere near that spot, and the so-called
meander line was in truth a line bounding plaintiff's land and
limiting him thereby so that he could not go beyond it in order to
find the lake which plaintiff claimed as a boundary. This Court
held that the line, which appeared on the plat as a meander line of
the lake, was in truth a line of boundary beyond which the
plaintiff could not go in search for the lake. The question of fact
as to which of the two contentions was right, the receding of the
water or the nonexistence of the lake at the time of the survey,
was submitted to the jury, and that body found in favor of the
defendant's theory. The result of the decision was to refuse to
consider the lake as a natural monument because it did not exist at
any point near where it was placed on the plat. What purported on
the plat to be a meander line was held not to be one, but, on the
contrary, it was held to be a boundary of the land of the
plaintiff, beyond which he could not go. After speaking of the
question of fact and its decision by the jury in favor of the
defendant, Mr. Justice Shiras, in giving the opinion of the Court,
said:
"The land in dispute, in the possession of the defendant in
error, was not included within the lines of the original survey,
nor in the description of the lots contained in the patents and in
the deeds of conveyance under which the plaintiff in error holds,
and to add the land in controversy to the lots so described would
more than double the area of the land claimed by the plaintiff in
error; but the contention of the plaintiff in
Page 193 U. S. 185
error was in the courts below and now is in this Court that, as
the plaintiff in error bought in reliance upon the plats and
patents which showed the meander line of the lake, such plats and
patents must be deemed to conclusively establish that the lake was
the northern boundary of the land, so far as the rights or riparian
grantees are concerned. . . ."
"While it may be conceded that the description of the lots
contained in the survey, plats, and patents is conclusive as
against the government and holders of homesteads so far as the
lands actually described and granted are concerned, such conclusive
presumption cannot be held to extend to lands not included within
the lines of the survey, and which are only claimed because of the
alleged existence of a lake or body of water bounding said lots,
whose recession has left bare land accruing to the owners of the
abutting lots. We agree with the Supreme Court of Oregon in
thinking that the question whether the northern boundary of the
lots of the plaintiff in error was an existing lake, the recession
of whose waters would leave the bed of the lake, thus laid bare, to
accrue to the owner of the lots, was a question of fact which was
not concluded by a mere call for a meander line. If, indeed, there
had been a lake in front of these lots at the time of the survey,
which lake had subsequently receded from the platted meander line,
the claim of the owner of the lots to the increment thus occasioned
might be conceded to be good, if such were the law of the state in
which the lands were situated. But if there never was such a lake
-- no water forming an actual and visible boundary -- on the north
end of the lots, it would seem unreasonable either to prolong the
side lines of the survey indefinitely until a lake should be found
or to change the situs of the lots laterally in order to adapt it
to a neighboring lake. The jury having found that the facts under
this issue were as claimed by the defendant in error, the
conclusion must be that the rights of the plaintiff in error must
be regarded as existing within the actual lines and distances laid
down in the survey and to the extent of the acreage called for in
the patents, and
Page 193 U. S. 186
that the meander line was intended to be the boundary line of
the fractional section."
In the above cited case, the important point to be considered is
that the Court refused to be bound by the appearance on the plat of
survey showing a meander line of the lake when the fact was found
by the jury (and exists in this case) that, at the time of the
survey, there was no such lake existing at any point near where it
appeared to be on the plat, and that, under those circumstances, a
meander line appearing on the plat would be and was regarded as a
line of boundary to the exclusion of what was claimed to be a
natural object -- namely, the lake itself.
It is not important that the plaintiff's claim was founded upon
the allegation that the land there in question was the result of a
subsidence of the water of the lake, and that he was therefore
entitled to such land by reason of accretion. The point lies in the
fact that what appeared as a meander line on the plat was treated
as a boundary line, and the lake was held not to be such boundary,
for the reasons stated in the opinion. Those reasons exist in full
force in this case, only here the disparity between the amount of
land conveyed and paid for and the amount now claimed is double
that stated in the case cited. Mr. Justice Shiras, in the course of
his opinion, refers to other cases in this Court as authority for
the proposition that a meander line may be in some cases a line of
boundary limiting the land conveyed or described by the line
itself, and not by any body of water.
See Niles v. Cedar Point
Club, 175 U. S. 300,
175 U. S. 308;
Horne v. Smith, 159 U. S. 40. Upon
this subject it was well said by the state supreme court in this
case as follows:
"The official plat was only intended to be a picture of the
actual conditions on the ground, but the fraudulent mistake in the
plat in this case was so gross that no man actually viewing the
premises could possibly be misled or believe that the shore line of
the lake was intended as the boundary line of the lots. He would
understand at once that the meander line
Page 193 U. S. 187
as traced on the plat was the actual boundary line of the lots.
This case, then, is one where the call for the natural monument,
the lake, must be disregarded, for the admitted facts show that it
is an impossible call, and that, if it is rejected, the courses and
distances and the meander line will exactly close and give to the
plaintiff the precise quantity of land bought from the government
and paid for. It falls within the rule that a meander line is not,
as a general proposition, a boundary line, yet the boundaries of
fractional lots will not be indefinitely extended where they appear
by the government plat to abut on a body of water which in fact has
never existed at substantially the place indicated on the plat. In
such exceptional cases, the supposed meander line will, if
consistent with the other calls and distances indicated on the
plat, mark the limits of the survey and be held to be the boundary
line of the land it delimits."
That this was a fraudulent survey cannot be denied. Still, the
government is concluded by such survey, so far as the lands
actually described, granted, and paid for are concerned, but it
will not be concluded in regard to other lands, which were not
within the lines of the survey, and which are only claimed because
of the alleged existence of a lake or body of water bounding said
lots, when such lake or body of water is in fact and always has
been more than half a mile away from such lots, and where the
patentee has received all the land that he actually paid for.
It appears from the various reports of the case of
Kirwan v.
Murphy, cited by plaintiff in error, that the government was
intending to make a survey of that portion of this township lying
between the alleged meander line and the actual lake, as unsurveyed
land, when certain grantees of patentees of lots, which by the plat
of survey bounded on the lake, commenced proceedings to obtain an
injunction to prevent what was alleged would be a resurvey. The
case is first reported in 83 F. 275, where the opinion of the
circuit court of appeals
Page 193 U. S. 188
is given upon affirming the order granting the injunction. The
case was then tried, and the decision of the United States Circuit
Court in Minnesota, upon such trial, directing judgment for the
plaintiffs, is reported in 103 F. 104, and upon appeal the decision
of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth
Circuit, affirming the judgment, is reported in 109 F. 354. Those
courts were of opinion that the Land Department had no right to
make the proposed survey, and that the fractional lots went to the
lake, and the government could not revoke its grant and correct the
survey so far as regarded the patentees, or their grantees, in good
faith. Upon writ of error from this Court, the judgment was
reversed for the reason that the remedy by injunction was not
proper, and also because the Land Department was vested with the
administration of the public lands, and could not be divested by
the fraudulent action of a subordinate officer, outside of his
authority and in violation of the statute. The exact point involved
here was not presented in that case, and this Court held that it
could not be passed upon in that proceeding.
189 U. S. 189 U.S.
35..
For the reasons we have stated, we cannot concur in the
conclusions of the lower federal courts that the patentees had the
right to bound their lots by the lake as it actually existed. The
judgment is
Affirmed.
