If, in the making of a survey of public lands, an area is,
through fraud or mistake, meandered as a body of water or lake
where no such body of water exists, riparian rights do not accrue
to the surrounding lands, and the Land Department, upon discovering
the error, has
Page 245 U. S. 25
power to deal with the meandered area, to cause it to be
surveyed, and lawfully to dispose of it.
The fact that its administrative officers, before discovery of
the error, have treated such a meandered tract as subjected to the
riparian rights of abutting owners under the state laws, and
consequently as not subject to disposal under the laws of the
United States cannot estop the United States from asserting its
title in a controversy with an abutting owner, and even as against
such an owner, who acquired his property before the mistake was
discovered and in reliance upon actions and representations of
federal officers carrying assurance that such riparian rights
existed, the United States may equitably correct the mistake and
protect its title to the meandered land. The equities of the
abutting owner, if any, in such circumstances are not cognizable
judicially, but should be addressed to the legislative department
of the government.
The Swamp Land Act of September 28, 1850, c. 84, 9 Stat. 519,
did not convey land of its own force, without survey, selection, or
patent.
A suit by the United States to quiet its title to land which was
excluded from survey through an erroneous meander against a
defendant owning abutting land under federal patent and erroneously
claiming, in virtue of his patent, riparian rights in the meandered
area, is not a suit to vacate or annul the defendant's patent, and
the statute of limitations of March 3, 1891, c. 561, 26 Stat. 1095,
is not applicable in defense.
In the survey of a township in Arkansas, part of the land was
erroneously meandered and described on the plat as a "lake," and
the lands abutting on the meander line were subdivided into lots.
The state selected the township under the Swamp Land Act of 1850,
describing it by number and stating an acreage equal to the entire
area within the township lines minus the area meandered. After the
Act of March 3, 1857, c. 117, 11 Stat. 251, by which Congress
confirmed
"the selection of swamp and overflowed lands granted to the
several states . . . heretofore made and reported to the
Commissioner of the General Land Office,"
and provided that such selection should be approved and
patented, a patent was issued to Arkansas purporting to convey "the
whole of the township" (giving its number) except § 16, and stating
the acreage conveyed at a figure substantially the same as the
total acreage within the township lines minus that section and the
meandered area.
Held that the effect of the meander was to
exclude the meandered area from the township, and that neither the
selection, the confirmatory act, nor the patent could be construed
as embracing it.
Page 245 U. S. 26
Chapman & Dewey Lumber Co. v. St. Francis Levee
District, 232 U. S. 186.
Held further that the state could have derived no title
to the meandered area through the Compromise Act of April 29, 1898,
c. 229, 30 Stat. 367, as a result of such election and
confirmation.
227 F. 827 affirmed.
The case is stated in the opinion.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.
The United States, asserting that designated parcels of land
were part of its public domain, sought a decree quieting its title.
Sustaining the title thus asserted and rejecting a claim to the
contrary on the part of the defendant, the trial court awarded the
relief prayed (214 F. 630), and the appellant, who was defendant,
seeks on this appeal to reverse the decree of the court below
sustaining the trial court (227 F. 827). A reference to the origin
and subject matter of the controversy and a statement of some
undisputed and indisputable facts will clarify and limit the issues
to be passed upon.
The public survey of the United States concerning the area in
which the land was situated (Township 12 North, Range 9 East of the
Fifth Principal Meridian, County of Mississippi, State of Arkansas)
was filed in 1841. By that survey and the plat and field notes
thereof, it appeared that, in sections 22, 26 and 27, there was
stated to be a body of water, styled a lake, which was excluded
from
Page 245 U. S. 27
the survey by means of a meander line diminishing to the extent
of the excluded area the acreage surveyed in the sections in
question and thereby causing them to become fractional. As a
matter, of course, also the meander line to the extent that it
excluded the body of water from the survey diminished the area of
surveyed land lying within the exterior boundaries of the township.
In 1853, the State of Arkansas, it may be assumed, complying with
legal requisites and conforming to the administrative regulations
of the Land Department, filed a list of selections under the grant
made to it of swamp and overflowed lands by the Act of Congress of
1850. 9 Stat. 519. The selections included Township 12, and stated
the acreage which it embraced conformably to the reduction of such
acreage made by the meander line. In 1857, Congress confirmed
"the selection of swamp and overflowed lands granted to the
several states . . . heretofore made and reported to the
Commissioner of the General Land Office,"
and provided that such selection "shall be approved and patented
to the said several states. . . ." C. 117, 11 Stat. 251. In 1858, a
patent was issued by the United States to the State of Arkansas,
the land patented being described as follows:
"Township Twelve(12) North, Range Nine (9) East. The whole of
the township except section sixteen (16) containing fourteen
thousand five hundred and sixty-five acres and three hundredths of
an acre, according to the official plat of survey of the said lands
returned to the General Land Office, by the Surveyor General."
The acreage thus stated substantially conformed to the reduction
brought about by the omission of section 16 which had already been
given to the state and of the area of the lake which had been
meandered and excluded from the survey.
Undoubtedly following the patent for a considerable period of
time, the officers of the Land Department treated the meandered and
excluded surface of the lake as not
Page 245 U. S. 28
being part of the public domain subject to survey and to
disposal by the United States, upon the theory that the same, by
the operation of the meander, had been excluded from the survey and
made subject to the riparian rights of the several abutting owners
under the state law. And it may be admitted that the State of
Arkansas acted upon the assumption that all the land, whether
surveyed or unsurveyed, within the exterior limits of the township
had passed to it. In 1907 or thereabouts, growing out of some
asserted right to have the meandered and unsurveyed area surveyed
and disposed of as part of the public domain on the ground that,
through fraud, error, or mistake, the area in question had been
stated in the survey to be a lake when in fact it was not, and was,
on the contrary, land which should have been surveyed, the Land
Department, after due notice, undertook an investigation of the
subject. Without stating the proceedings which ensued, it suffices
to say that, in 1909, it was definitely found that the alleged
fraud, error, or mistake of the survey was established, because
there was no lake to meander at the time the survey was made, it
being found that all the evidence conclusively so established.
Giving effect to this, the unsurveyed area was ordered ordered
surveyed and homestead entries were initiated thereon. This
controversy arose between the rights of the United States and such
entrymen and those asserted by the defendant below who held the
rights of the State of Arkansas, if any, to the area in question as
evidenced by the patent or as embraced by the grant of swamp and
overflowed lands and the action of the United States authorities
taken on the subject.
It thus becomes apparent that the subject of the controversy
relates solely to the unsurveyed area resulting from the erroneous
assumption as to the existence of a lake, and embraces only 853.60
acres. It also is certain that, as the result of the concurrent
findings of fact by the two courts and the admission made by the
parties,
Page 245 U. S. 29
there is no controversy as to the facts concerning the error
committed as to the supposed lake, leaving therefore to be decided
only the legal questions which arise from the admitted facts. As a
means of putting out of view questions which are not debatable, we
at once state two legal propositions which are indisputable because
conclusively settled by previous decisions.
First. Where, in a survey of the public domain, a body
of water or lake is found to exist and is meandered, the result of
such meander is to exclude the area from the survey and to cause
it, as thus separated, to become subject to the riparian rights of
the respective owners abutting on the meander line in accordance
with the laws of the several states.
Hardin v. Jordan,
140 U. S. 371;
Kean v. Calumet Canal Co., 190 U.
S. 452,
190 U. S. 459;
Hardin v. Shedd, 190 U. S. 508,
190 U. S.
519.
Second. But where, upon the assumption of the existence
of a body of water or lake, a meander line is, through fraud or
error, mistakenly run because there is no such body of water,
riparian rights do not attach, because, in the nature of things,
the condition upon which they depend does not exist, and, upon the
discovery of the mistake, it is within the power of the Land
Department of the United States to deal with the area which was
excluded from the survey, to cause it to be surveyed, and to
lawfully dispose of it.
Niles v. Cedar Point Club,
175 U. S. 300;
French-Glenn Live Stock Co. v. Springer, 185 U. S.
47;
Security Land & Exploration Co. v.
Burns, 193 U. S. 167;
Chapman & Dewey v. St. Francis Levee District,
232 U. S. 186.
Coming to test the questions for decision in the light of these
propositions, there can be no doubt that the case is taken out of
the reach of the first, and is brought under the control of the
second, as the result of the conclusive finding as to the mistake
committed concerning the existence of the lake and the consequent
error in the survey,
Page 245 U. S. 30
unless it be that for some reason the unquestioned rule which
the second proposition embodies is inapplicable. Indeed, putting
aside a contention made as to the face of the patent, which we are
of opinion is sufficiently disposed of by what we have already
said, all the other contentions proceed not upon a challenge of the
doctrine embodied in the second proposition, but upon the erroneous
theory that it is inapplicable to the case in hand -- an error
which we shall briefly demonstrate by separately considering the
contentions.
a. In the first place, it is in many forms of statement
insisted that, although the patent expressly referred to the plat
and survey and purported only to grant the acreage surveyed as
reduced by the exclusion from the survey of the body of the lake,
that becomes negligible, since the right of the state depended upon
the grant made by the Swamp Land Act, the selection made under that
act, and the approval of that selection by the act of Congress of
1857, all of which must be considered in determining the grant made
to the state and give rise, when considered, to the irresistible
implication that all the land embraced in Township 12 passed to the
state. Concretely stated, the proposition is this: that, as the
selection made by the state was of Township 12, the exterior bounds
of that township became the measure of the state's title
irrespective of what was surveyed or unsurveyed within those
exterior lines. But it is at once obvious that this proposition
rests upon a contradictory assumption, since it treats the
designation of Township 12 as the measure of the rights conferred,
and immediately proceeds to exclude from view the criteria by which
alone the existence and significance of the insisted-upon
designation (Township 12) is to be determined. Aside from this,
however, it is further apparent that the contention disregards the
very basis upon which the decided cases upholding the doctrine
stated in the second proposition
Page 245 U. S. 31
rest, which is that the effect of a meander line is to exclude
absolutely from the township the area meandered, and to cause,
therefore, its nature and character to depend not upon the exterior
lines of the township, but upon the condition existing within those
lines made manifest and fixed by the necessary legal consequences
resulting from the meander line. This conclusive view is clearly
pointed out in
Chapman & Dewey v. St. Francis Levee
District, 232 U. S. 196,
232 U. S. 197.
And that case also (p.
232 U. S. 198)
completely answers the argument that, although the land was not
embraced in the selection, was not included in the township because
unsurveyed, and did not pass by the patent or the selection
independently considered, it yet must be treated as having passed
to the state under the Swamp Land Act of 1850 because it was
eligible to be selected under that act.
b. The proposition that title to the land must be
considered as being in the state because of the Compromise Act of
1898 (c. 229, 30 Stat. 367) is, on the face of that act, we think,
in view of what we have said, devoid of merit. We say this because
the contention rests upon the assumption which we have already
disposed of -- that the land excluded by the meander line was
embraced by the selection approved by the Act of Congress of
1857.
c. The assertion that an estoppel against the United
States arose from the fact that the administrative officers of the
government, before the discovery of the fraud or error as to the
existence of the lake, had treated the area meandered as subjected
to the riparian rights of the abutting owners under the state law,
and consequently not subject to be disposed of by the United
States, in substance but disregards the right to correct such error
conclusively recognized as existing in the administrative officers
of the Land Department by the decisions which we have previously
cited.
d. The contention that power did not exist on the
discovery
Page 245 U. S. 32
of a mistake to survey and dispose of public land which had been
excluded from a survey by the drawing of a meander line on the
mistaken assumption of the existence of a body of water, because of
the five years' limitation on the right of the United States to
vacate or annul a patent (Act of March 3, 1891, 26 Stat. 1095),
again but disputes the settled doctrine as to the existence of such
power, and besides rests upon the unsound assumption that the
correction of such a mistake is an attempt to vacate or annul the
patent. When rightly considered we think, as pointed out by the
United States in argument, the ruling in
United States v.
Chandler-Dunbar Co., 209 U. S. 447,
instead of sustaining, is in conflict with, the proposition.
Finally, the suggestion that, as the defendant holding under the
state acquired its rights before the mistake was discovered in
reliance upon the actions and representations of the officers of
the United States as to the existence of riparian rights in
accordance with the state law as the result of the meander line,
the United States should not be permitted to correct the mistake
committed as to the meander line, and thus protect its title, but
in a different form restates the argument which we have already
disposed of. Besides, if, for the sake of the argument, we assume
the existence of the equitable considerations insisted upon, it is
manifest that the prayer for their enforcement is, in the nature of
things, beyond the sphere of judicial authority however much relief
on the subject may be appropriately sought from the legislative
department of the government.
There being then no error, it follows that the decree below must
be, and it is,
Affirmed.