1. Under Rev.Stats. § 2347, and Rule I of the Regulations of the
Land Department of March 6, 1903, an application to purchase
coal
Page 276 U. S. 561
lands within a previously surveyed school section conferred upon
the applicant merely the status of a contestant endeavoring to
overcome the presumptive title of the state upon the ground (in
this case) that the mineral character of the land was known before
the school grant attached. P.
276 U. S.
565.
2. This amounted to no more than a privilege of seeking to
restore the land applied for to the public domain, and success in
the contest would not have brought the contestant a preferential
right of entry, there being no statute or regulation securing him
such a preference.
Id.
3. Such a privilege was subject to withdrawal by the United
States pending the contest, and was withdrawn by the Act of
February 25, 1920, which provides that coal lands shall be disposed
of only by lease, excepting only (§ 37)
"valid claims existent at the date of the passage of this Act
and thereafter maintained in compliance with the laws under which
initiated, which claims may be perfected under such laws,"
etc.
Id.
4. The exception in the Leasing Act above quoted embraces only
such substantial claims as would, on compliance with the provisions
of the former law, ripen into ownership. P.
276 U. S.
566.
57 App.D.C.192 reversed.
Certiorari, 275 U.S. 514, to a judgment of the Court of Appeals
of the District of Columbia sustaining a mandamus to the Secretary
of the Interior directing him to issue a patent for coal lands
applied for by the present respondent upon payment of the purchase
price.
MR. JUSTICE STONE delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondent's intestate brought suit in the Supreme Court of the
District of Columbia for a mandatory injunction compelling the
Secretary of the Interior to vacate his decision rejecting an
application under R.S. § 2347 for the purchase of certain coal land
included in
Page 276 U. S. 562
the school land grant to Utah, and directing that a patent
issue. The case was heard on bill and answer, from which it appears
that the land in question is part of § 32 in a particular township
in Utah. Section 32 of each township was included in the school
land grant to the State of Utah under the Enabling Act of July 16,
1894, c. 138, 28 Stat. 107, 109, which became effective on the
admission of Utah into the Union January 4, 1896. But the grant did
not include any land that was known to be mineral.
United
States v. Sweet, 245 U. S. 563. In
the official government survey, the land in question was reported
by the surveyor as nonmineral. In May, 1902, the state sold the
lands, and the purchaser later conveyed them to the Pleasant Valley
Coal Company, which has since appeared as the record owner and paid
taxes on them. On February 4, 1918, Braffet, respondent's
intestate, filed in the local land office at Salt Lake City his
application to purchase the lands as coal lands. At this time, and
for many years before, the settled practice of the Land Office,
under Rule 1 of the Regulations of March 6, 1903, 32 L.D. 39, had
been to treat applications for purchase, under the mining laws, of
parts of a section designated in the school land grant, where made
after the date when the grant would attach if the land was
nonmineral, as a contest of the state's right.
Braffet's application was so treated. The state was cited, and
answered, protesting the application and setting up that the lands
were not known coal lands on the date of the grant to it. The coal
company intervened and made like answer. Braffet assumed the burden
of the contest and offered evidence. At the conclusion of his case,
motions of the state and the coal company to dismiss were granted
without the submission of testimony in their behalf. Braffet
appealed to the Commissioner of the General Land Office, who
reversed the action of the local land office, and, without
affording the state or the
Page 276 U. S. 563
coal company opportunity to offer evidence, directed that
Braffet's contest be sustained and the protest of the state
dismissed. The state and the coal company appealed to the
Secretary, who, July 31, 1922, held that the local office had erred
in dismissing the contest for insufficiency of evidence, and that
the Commissioner had also erred in disposing of the case without
affording the state and the coal company an opportunity to offer
evidence. He remanded the cause to the local office to proceed with
the contest. 49 L.D. 212.
In the meantime, the Leasing Act of February 25, 1920, c. 85, 41
Stat. 437, 438, 451, had been enacted, authorizing the disposition
of certain classes of mineral lands including coal lands of the
United States only by lease by the Secretary of the Interior.
Acting under this statute, the Secretary, on June 4, 1923, executed
a lease of the land to the coal company, which, in contemplation of
this action, had waived its claim under the state grant, expressly
stipulating that its waiver was on condition that the lease be
granted. The state, in the meantime, had withdrawn its protest to
Braffet's application, without prejudice to the claim of the
company, setting up that it had no beneficial interest in the land
by reason of its own conveyance to the coal company's grantor.
Braffet's contest was dismissed January 8, 1924, and his
application to reopen it was denied on March 24, 1924. Later, the
present suit was brought. The decree of the Supreme Court of the
District directed the Secretary to vacate his decision remanding
the proceedings to the local office, and to issue a patent on
payment of the purchase price. The Court of Appeals modified the
judgment in respects not now material, but held that Braffet's
application was valid, and that the Secretary should be directed to
issue a patent. 57 App.D.C.192.
The principal question presented is whether, by the application
to purchase and by bringing and conducting the
Page 276 U. S. 564
contest, Braffet acquired rights which could not be or were not
extinguished by the action taken by the Secretary under the Leasing
Act. In giving an affirmative answer, the Court of Appeals thought
that, as the Secretary had ruled that Braffet had made a
prima
facie case before the Department, the abandonment by the state
and the coal company of the protest and their assent that the
mineral lease be given were equivalent to the allowance of his
claim, and that the Secretary, under the Leasing Act, was without
power to defeat the claim, since it had then ripened into a vested
right.
After the Leasing Act, coal lands of the United States were
subject to disposition by the Secretary only by lease
"except [under § 37] as to valid claims existent at date of the
passage of this Act and thereafter maintained in compliance with
the laws under which initiated, which claims may be perfected under
such laws, including discovery."
Braffet's application was for the purchase of mineral lands, and
not for a lease. It was not entitled to consideration under the
Leasing Act unless saved by the exception as a "valid claim"
existent at the date of the Act.
R.S. § 2347, under which the application was made, gives the
"right to enter . . . vacant coal lands of the United States not
otherwise appropriated or reserved by competent authority." The
departmental Regulations of March 6, 1903, 32 L.D. 39, withdrew
school lands from entry with direction to local officers to treat
applications for them in the same manner as contests. Rule 1
reads:
"When a school section is identified by the government survey
and no claim is at the date when the right of the state would
attach, if at all, asserted thereto, under the mining or other
public land laws, the presumption arises that the title to the land
has passed to the state, but this presumption may be overcome by
the submission of a satisfactory showing to the contrary.
Applications presented
Page 276 U. S. 565
under the mining laws covering parts of a school section will be
disposed of in the same manner as other contest cases."
This rule has never been expressly repealed. The Department has
consistently held that it is applicable to school lands, Charles L.
Ostenfeldt, 41 L.D. 265; Santa Fe P. R. Co. v. California, 34 L.D.
12, and that applications for tracts embraced in an entry of record
give rise to no rights until the entry has been cancelled of
record, Walker v. Snider, 19 L.D. 467; Stewart v. Peterson, 28 L.D.
515, 519; Hiram M. Hamilton, 38 L.D. 597.
The rule is an appropriate application to school land grants of
the established policy of the Department to treat as excluded from
entry or preemption lands which may, in the execution of the laws
of Congress, fall within the claims of others, a policy which
avoids confusion and conflicting claims.
Shepley v. Cowan,
91 U. S. 330;
Holt v. Murphy, 207 U. S. 407,
207 U. S.
414.
Under both R.S. § 2347, conferring the right to purchase only
"vacant coal lands of the United States not otherwise appropriated
or reserved by competent authority," and Rule 1,
supra, as
interpreted and applied by the Department, we think that Braffet,
by his application, acquired no legal status other than that of a
contestant, and that this amounted to no more than a privilege of
seeking to restore the lands to entry. The pending contest
presented no obstacle to the withdrawal of the privilege by the
United States.
Compare Shepley v. Cowan, supra; 76 U.
S. Whitney, 9 Wall. 187;
The
Yosemite Valley Case, 15 Wall. 77;
Campbell v.
Wade, 132 U. S. 34,
132 U. S. 37;
United States v. Norton, 19 F.2d 836; Alice M. Reason, 36
L.D. 279, 280-1; Instructions, 40 L.D. 415, 416, 417. Plainly it
was withdrawn by the provisions of the Leasing Act already quoted,
unless saved by the exception "in favor of valid claims existent at
the date of passage." Even if so saved, the land would have
been
Page 276 U. S. 566
restored to entry only if the contest were determined in
respondent's favor, which was not done.
But we think that the exception in § 37 was not intended to save
so nebulous and insubstantial a claim as that of the privilege of
contesting the presumptive title of the state. The construction
argued for would tend to defeat the purpose of the Leasing Act,
which was to prevent the sale of the mineral lands of the United
States where substantial rights had not been acquired in them, and
to permit their exploitation only by lessees paying royalties to
the government. The reference in § 37 to valid claims "thereafter
maintained in compliance with the laws under which initiated, which
claims may be perfected under such laws, including discovery" at
least suggests that they embrace only such substantial claims as
would, on compliance with the provisions of the former law, ripen
into ownership -- such claims as might be acquired under the mining
laws by location, possession and development which, if continued to
discovery and entry, would entitle the claimant to a patent. That
such was the purpose is established by the congressional debates.
58 Cong.Rec. pt. 5, pp. 4577-4585, 66th Cong. 1st Sess.
Here, the claim of the contestant was not one which would
necessarily ever come to fruition in ownership, for, if successful,
he would not have been entitled to entry or patent in preference to
any other citizen desiring to apply for the land. In the absence of
a statute or a departmental regulation securing it, there is no
preference right.
Compare Hartman v. Warren, 76 F. 157;
Howell v. Sappington, 165 F. 944; Charles L. Ostenfeldt,
41 L.D. 265, 267. As the provisions of the Leasing Act precluded
the contestant, if successful, from purchasing the lands in
question as coal lands, his contest was rightly dismissed, and it
becomes unnecessary to consider the effect upon the proceedings in
the Department of the withdrawal of the state's protest.
Page 276 U. S. 567
Whether, if the situation were otherwise, the Secretary could by
a mandatory injunction be directed to issue a patent we need not
consider. No decision of this Court has given sanction to such a
direction.
Reversed.