A statute limiting the time within which actions may be brought
to annul state patents for land and which, applied to a given
case,
Page 258 U. S. 191
prevents a senior grantee or contractee from asserting his
rights, accrued before the passage of the statute, against junior
patentee of the same land, does not deprive him of property without
due process or impair the obligation of his contract if it allows a
reasonable time after its enactment within which his suit may be
begun. P.
258 U. S.
197.
146 La. 1047 affirmed.
Error to a judgment of the Supreme Court of Louisiana reversing
a judgment in favor of the present plaintiffs in error in a suit to
have the Land Company's title adjudged superior and the Cypress
Company's patents annulled.
Page 258 U. S. 192
MR. JUSTICE McKENNA delivered the opinion of the Court.
Suit by the Atchafalaya Land Company to have declared null and
void certain patents issued by the Register of the State Land
Office of Louisiana to a partnership composed of John N. Pharr and
Frank B. Williams, of which the F. B. Williams Cypress Company
became grantee May 23, 1903, and that the lands of the patents be
adjudged to have been included in the grant of the state to the
Board of Commissioners of the Atchafalaya
Page 258 U. S. 193
Basin Levee District anterior to the patent to Pharr and
Williams, and by the Board of Commissioners transferred to Edward
Wisner and J. M. Dresser, under a contract dated July, 1900,
confirmed April 11, 1904, and by them to the Land Company.
It was prayed that the Board of Commissioners be cited to join
in the vindication of the Land Company's rights. The Board
responded to the citation by intervening, answering and joining in
the prayer of the bill. The other plaintiff in error also
intervened.
The answer of the Cypress Company brought into the case a
statute of limitations of the state approved July 5, 1912, Act.
La.1912, No. 62, that prescribes the time of bringing suits which
attack patents from the state, or any transfer of property by any
subdivision of the state.{1}
This suit was not brought within the time prescribed.{2}
The following are the other facts, stated narratively:
The state of Louisiana is the grantee under the acts of Congress
of 1849 and 1850 of the swamp and overflowed lands in the
state.
The state, in 1890 [Act No. 97] created the Board of
Commissioners of the Atchafalaya Basin Levee District
Page 258 U. S. 194
and constituted it a corporate body. The Act created the Levee
District and declared that all lands in the district then belonging
to the state or that might thereafter be acquired were thereby
granted to the Board of Commissioners of the District. And it was
further provided, to accommodate the time for redemption of the
lands sold for taxes, even those forfeited for nonpayment, after
the expiration of six months from the passage of the Act, that it
should be the duty of the State Auditor and the Register of the
State Land Office to convey the lands to the Board of Commissioners
whenever requested to do so by the Board or its president, and
that, after the recording of the instruments of conveyance the
title and possession of the lands should vest absolutely in the
Board, its successors or grantees.
This request was not made, but the Board nevertheless sold to
Edward Wisner and John M. Dresser the lands in controversy, and
bound itself in the instrument of conveyance
"to lend itself, with all its rights, powers and privileges and
prerogatives to perfect its title, or the title acquired under this
agreement to all lands to which it could have, and Wisner and
Dresser can now justly lay claim to, and to do so whenever so
requested. . . ."
The Land Company has become the assignee and representatives of
Wisner and Dresser with their rights. The Lumber Company has
acquired rights to the timber on the land and to that extent claims
to be entitled to call for a conveyance.
The Board of Commissioners, in view of having bound itself to
make deed to Wisner and Dresser, unites with the Land Company and
the Lumber Company, as we have said, to seek the relief desired by
them, which includes the cancellation of patents issued to the
partnership composed of John N. Pharr and F. B. Williams (of which
the Williams Cypress Company is grantee) and the recognition of
title in the land and the Lumber Companies.
Page 258 U. S. 195
To the cause of action thus stated, the Cypress Company pleaded
the statute of the state heretofore referred to limiting the time
of suit.
In reply to the plea of the statute, the Land Company and
interveners averred that its application would violate the
Constitution of the United States in that it would deprive them of
their property without due process of law, and would impair the
obligation of the contract entered into between the state and the
Board of Commissioners of the Levee District and Wisner and Dresser
and their assignees.
The specification of this effect is that the grant from the
state to the Board of Land Commissioners took from the state the
right to otherwise dispose of the lands, and further, that the
right to acquire by transfer from the state was perpetual, and that
this right constituted a contract, and the right to demand
perfection of the title was in the Board of Commissioners or its
assignees, and that these rights were the obligation of the
contract, and would be violated by the prescription act.
The trial court (Nineteenth Judicial District Court in and for
the Parish of Iberia) accepted this view and adjudged to the Land
Company and interveners the relief and judgment prayed for.
Upon appeal of the Cypress Company, the supreme court reversed
the decree and adjudged that the plea of prescription should have
been sustained, and that the demands of the Land Company and
interveners should have been denied and rejected.
The court recited the facts as we have stated them, and that,
within six months after the statute was passed (July 8, 1890)
granting the lands to the Board of Commissioners, Pharr and
Williams made cash purchases of the lands now in controversy and
obtained the patents in contest, which were promptly recorded. The
court stated further that Pharr sold his interest in the lands to
Williams in 1892,
Page 258 U. S. 196
and Williams sold the lands to the Cypress Company in 1903, and
the deed was duly recorded, and that company immediately went into
possession of the lands and exercised ownership upon them, and has
ever since exercised ownership in various ways to the date of
filing its answer, and it and its grantors have since 1890 paid the
taxes on the lands. The court pointed out that no instrument of
conveyance was ever made to the Board of Commissioners, nor was
there any request made for the same as provided for in the Act of
1890.
The court decided these were indispensable conditions and, they
not having been performed, no indefeasible title passed or could
pass to the board or its assignees. Or, to quote the court, it
quoting a state decision,
"the Board of Commissioners of the Levee District could not
convey a perfect title, or a title indefeasible at the instant of
the state for any land in the district before the board had
obtained and recorded an instrument of conveyance of the land, in
the manner required by the statute creating the levee
district,"
and that, until such time, "the lands remained under legislative
control by the state, as well after as before the Board of
Commissioners contracted with Wisner and Dresser." The conclusion
of the court was that
"the legislature therefore had power at any time to limit the
time within which the Board of Commissioners of the Levee District
could lay claim to the lands that had been disposed of by the state
directly in favor of individuals or private corporations,"
and that this power was exercised by the act of prescription. It
was the decision of the court, therefore, that plaintiffs in
error's predecessors, Wisner and Dresser, did not acquire a vested
interest in the lands as plaintiffs in error contend.
Plaintiffs in error vigorously contest the conclusions of the
court, and contend that they are contrary to prior decisions. The
exigencies of the case do not call for an arbitration of the
contest. We are concerned alone with the
Page 258 U. S. 197
power of the state to pass the statute of limitations of 1912,
and we agree with the supreme court that such statutes are valid if
they allow a reasonable time after their enactment for the
assertion of an existing right or the enforcement of an existing
obligation, and certainly the condition was satisfied by the
statute of 1912. Besides, having over six years after its enactment
to assert their rights, plaintiffs in error, adding their time and
that of their predecessors, had nearly a quarter of a century to
confirm and fix whatever rights they had to the lands in
controversy.
Passing, however, all considerations of details and local
aspects of the case, we are of the opinion that none of the invoked
provisions of the Constitution of the United States are offended,
even under the construction plaintiffs in error give to the
asserted grant to the Board of Commissioners and its conveyance to
Wisner and Dresser. The act of prescription was a proper exercise
of sovereignty. The state could recognize, as it did recognize,
that there might be claims derived from it, asserted or to be
asserted, rightfully or wrongfully, involving conflicts which
should be decided and quieted in the public interest, and
therefore, enacted the statute. And such is the rationale of
statutes of limitations. They do not necessarily lessen rights of
property or impair the obligation of contracts. Their requirement
is that the rights and obligations be asserted within a prescribed
time. If that be adequate, the requirement is legal, and its
justice and wisdom have the testimony of the practices of the
world.
Decree affirmed.
"Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of
Louisiana, . . . that all suits or proceedings of the State of
Louisiana, private corporations, partnership, or persons, to vacate
and annul any patent issued by the State of Louisiana, duly signed
by the Governor of the state and the Register of the State Land
Office, and of record in the State Land Office, or any transfer of
property by any subdivision of the state, shall be brought only
within six years of the issuance of patent, provided, that suits to
annul patents previously issued shall be brought within six years
from the passage of this Act."
It was not brought until April 26, 1919; that is, six years and
nearly ten months after the passage of the statute, nearly nineteen
years after Wisner and Dresser acquired the claim of the Board of
Commissioners, and more than twenty-eight years after the Pharr and
Williams patents were recorded.