1. The construction of a law of the United States was "drawn in
question by the defendant" within the meaning of § 250, par. 6 of
the Judicial Code permitting appeals to this Court from the Court
of Appeals of the District of Columbia where the Secretary of the
Interior, as defendant, secured the dismissal of plaintiff's bill
upon the ground that the lieu land selection in controversy was not
permitted by an Act of Congress. P.
267 U. S.
515.
2. Under the Act of June 22, 1874, providing that railroads may
relinquish lands appertaining to their land grants which are found
in possession of actual settlers, etc., and select an equal
quantity of other lands in lieu thereof from any of the public
lands "not mineral" within the limits of the grant, not otherwise
appropriated
Page 267 U. S. 512
at the date of selection, "to which they shall receive title the
same as though originally granted," a railroad company is not
entitled to lieu-select coal land even though coal and iron lands
are not excluded from its land grant, but are declared therein not
to fall within the term "mineral." P.
267 U. S.
516.
54 App.D.C. 161; 295
id. 982, affirmed.
Appeal from a decree of the Court of Appeals of the District of
Columbia which affirmed a decree of the Supreme Court of the
District, dismissing a bill to restrain the Secretary of the
Interior from cancelling a railroad lieu selection.
Page 267 U. S. 513
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE TAFT delivered the opinion of the Court.
The bill in this case was filed by the Santa Fe Pacific Railroad
Company, incorporated under an Act of Congress, against the
Secretary of the Interior to enjoin him from cancelling a certain
selection of lieu lands, and to command him to recall the order for
such cancellation, and to refrain from any further action except to
issue a patent therefor in accordance with the rights of the
plaintiff.
Page 267 U. S. 514
By Act of Congress of July 27, 1866, 14 Stat. 292, Congress made
a grant of lands in New Mexico and Arizona to the Atlantic &
Pacific Railroad Company in aid of the construction of a railroad
of that name. The company defaulted on its bonds, the mortgage was
foreclosed, and a sale effected to the Santa Fe Pacific Railroad
Company, the complainant, which became possessed of all the rights
granted by the Act of July 27, 1866, to the mortgagor company. The
grant of 1866 covered every alternate section of public land, not
mineral, designated by odd numbers, to the amount of 20 alternate
sections per mile on each side of the railroad line not reserved,
sold, granted, or otherwise appropriated at the time that the line
of the road was designated by the filing of a plat in the General
Land Office. The granting Act provided further that the word
"mineral," when it occurred in the Act, should not be held to
include iron or coal.
The Act of June 22, 1874, c. 400, 18 Stat. 194, provided:
"That, in the adjustment of all railroad land grants, whether
made directly to any railroad company or to any state for railroad
purposes, if any of the lands granted be found in the possession of
an actual settler whose entry or filing has been allowed under the
preemption or homestead laws of the United States subsequent to the
time at which, by the decision of the land office, the right of
said road was declared to have attached to such lands, the
grantees, upon a proper relinquishment of the lands so entered or
filed for, shall be entitled to select an equal quantity of other
lands in lieu thereof from any of the public lands not mineral and
within the limits of the grant not otherwise appropriated at the
date of selection, to which they shall receive title the same as
though originally granted. And any such entries or filings thus
relieved from conflict may be perfected into complete title as if
such lands had not been granted: Provided, that nothing herein
contained shall in any manner be so
Page 267 U. S. 515
construed as to enlarge or extend any grant to any such railroad
or to extend to lands reserved in any land grant made for railroad
purposes."
Pursuant to this legislation, the railroad company, on December
1, 1921, filed in the proper local land office an application to
select the subject of the controversy here, being a 40-acre tract,
the quarter of a quarter section within the primary or place limits
of the grant in Arizona, in lieu of a tract of the same area in the
same limits which it had relinquished because of a homestead claim
coming within the terms of the Act of 1874. The filing was accepted
by the local land office, but was rejected by the Secretary of the
Interior because the land applied for was embraced in a coal
withdrawal. The view of the Secretary was that the Act of June 22,
1874, did not authorize the selection of coal land in lieu of the
land relinquished. The argument of the railroad company is that, as
the granting Act of 1866 declared that "mineral" in that Act should
not include coal or iron, the same construction should be given to
the same word in the Act of June 22, 1874, insofar as selections
made by the appellant are concerned.
The Supreme Court of the District sustained a motion to dismiss
the bill for want of equity, and this action was affirmed by the
Court of Appeals.
The question whether this Court has jurisdiction of the appeal
is raised on behalf of the Secretary of the Interior. We think it
has under the 6th paragraph of § 250 of the Judicial Code, which
permits an appeal from the court of appeals of the District in
cases "in which the construction of any law of the United States is
drawn in question by the defendant." Certainly the Secretary of the
Interior, as the defendant herein, by his contention that the Act
of 1874 does not permit the railroad company to select lieu lands
which are coal lands, draws in question the construction of a law
of the United States.
Page 267 U. S. 516
The Act of 1874 was passed to help homestead and other settlers
who were in hard case because they had established their settlement
after the grant to the railroad company was held to have attached.
The question when it did attach was for a long time doubtful, and
the subject of litigation. This Act of 1874 was intended to induce
the railroad companies to relinquish such lands thus illegally
occupied as against them by promising in lieu thereof other lands
of equal area in both odd and even sections within the prescribed
limits. The Act applied not only to railroad grants in which the
term "lands not mineral" did not exclude iron or coal lands as in
this case, but also to similar grants, of which there were several,
in which the phrase "not mineral" was used in its usual sense, and
excluded iron and coal --
e.g., see Grants to Union
Pacific R. Co. and Central Pacific, 12 Stat. 489, 492, c. cxx, § 3;
Joint Resolution Jan. 30, 1865, 13 Stat. 567. It would seem to be
impossible, therefore, to give a meaning to the phrase "not
mineral" in the Act of 1874 which should mean including coal in
some cases and excluding coal in others.
More than this, the settlers who were to be aided by the Act of
1874 were those who made homestead or preemption filings. Coal
lands were not subject to such entry or disposition. As the lands
which the railroad companies were invited to relinquish could not
be known coal lands, it is not to be inferred that Congress
intended that the railroad companies should, in compensation,
acquire coal lands by their lieu selections.
This construction of the Act of 1874 accords with the action of
the Department of the Interior since its passage. Not until this
case had the precise question been mooted so as to invoke a formal
decision of the Secretary, but the record discloses that it has
been the uniform practice of the General Land Office, in its
printed forms furnished under the Act, to confine such lieu
selections to lands not
Page 267 U. S. 517
known to contain coal, iron, or other minerals, and that
railroad companies generally have acquiesced therein by furnishing
proofs of the non-coal and iron character of the land selected.
It has also been insisted on behalf of the Secretary that the
discretion vested in him by Congress in supervising the selection
of lieu lands and in executing the laws of 1866 and 1874 is
quasi-judicial, and that it may not be controlled through
mandamus or injunction by the courts unless his conclusion can be
said to be capricious or arbitrary, or so unreasonable as not to be
debatable. To sustain this claim, the cases of
Riverside Oil
Co. v. Hitchcock, 190 U. S. 316,
190 U. S. 324,
Ness v. Fisher, 223 U. S. 683,
223 U. S. 692,
Alaska Smokeless Coal Co. v. Lane, 250 U.
S. 549,
250 U. S. 555,
and
Hall v. Payne, 254 U. S. 343, and
a number of earlier cases, are cited.
See Brown v.
Hitchcock, 173 U. S. 473,
173 U. S. 478.
It may be that the authority of these cases would require us to
yield to the contention made on behalf of the Secretary in this
regard. We are not, however, required to decide this point. The
case against the construction of the Act of 1874 urged by the
railroad company is so clear that we prefer to put our decision
directly on the merits of that issue.
Affirmed.