1. The first section of the Act of June 13, 1812, 2 Stat. 748,
making further provision for settling the claims to land in the
Territory of Missouri, confirms,
proprio vigore, the
rights, titles, and claims to the lands embraced by it, and, to all
intents and purposes, operates as a grant.
2. The Court adheres to the doctrine, announced in its previous
decisions, that a confirmatory statute passes a title as
effectually as if it in terms contained a grant
de novo,
and that a grant may be made by a law as well as by a patent
pursuant to law.
3. Said first section is not, by the proviso thereto annexed,
excluded from operating on the right and claim of an inhabitant of
a village which is therein named to an out-lot, whose title thereto
had, on his petition, been recognized and confirmed by the board of
commissioners for adjusting and settling claims to land in said
territory.
This is an action of ejectment brought Aug. 27, 1873, for part
of a tract of land known as Survey 422, situate in the County of
St. Louis, Mo. The parties claimed title under Auguste Dodier, and
defendants relied also on the statute of limitations.
On the 13th of October, 1800, Dodier asked of the then Spanish
Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Louisiana a concession of five hundred
arpens of land, and on the 14th of that month, the
Lieutenant-Governor ordered that he should be put in possession
Page 93 U. S. 79
of the land requested. A survey and plat of the land so ceded
was made by Soulard, surveyor under the Spanish government, and
certified by him Dec. 10, 1800, and recorded by him in the record
book of surveys. Dodier duly filed and presented his claim to the
board of commissioners for adjusting land titles in the District of
Orleans, Territory of Louisiana, who, on the thirty-first day of
July, 1810, issued to him the following certificate:
"
Commissioners' Certificate, No. 422, July 31,
1810"
"We, the undersigned, commissioners for ascertaining and
adjusting the titles and claims to lands in the Territory of
Louisiana, have decided that Auguste Dodier, original claimant, is
entitled to a patent under the provisions of the second section of
an act of the Congress of the United States, entitled 'An Act for
ascertaining and adjusting the titles and claims to land within the
Territory of Orleans and the District of Louisiana,' passed the
second day of March, 1805, for five hundred arpens of land, situate
in the District of St. Louis, on Beaver Pond, as described in a
plat of survey, certified the 10th of December, 1800, and to be
found of record in book A, page 326, of the recorder's office, by
virtue of a permission from the proper Spanish officer, and also of
actual inhabitation and cultivation prior to and on the twentieth
day of December, 1803."
"JAMES B. C. LUCAS"
"CLEMENT B. PENROSE"
"FREDERICK BATES"
The land so confirmed was surveyed in 1817 by the proper
surveyor of the United States, and is known as United States Survey
No. 422, but the patent reciting the confirmation and survey was
not issued until Aug. 9, 1873.
Dodier died in 1823, leaving heirs at law under whom the
plaintiffs claim title. Dodier and wife conveyed a part of the land
by deed, bearing date Jan. 18, 1805, to Louis Labeaume, who died in
1821, having devised the property to his wife by will made in 1817,
and by mesne conveyances her title passed to the defendant Carter.
He and those under whom he claims have been in the open, notorious,
and undisputed possession of the demanded premises for thirty-five
years before the commencement of this suit. In 1818, on the
petition of Labeaume, partition was made between him and the heirs
of Dodier, but
Page 93 U. S. 80
the land in controversy is not within the boundaries of the
tract described in the report of the commissioners in said
partition suit to be set off to Labeaume.
In the year 1822, Susan Labeaume brought an action of trespass
quare clausum fregit against Dodier's heirs in the Circuit
Court of St. Louis County, to which was pleaded the general issue
and
liberum tenementum, whereupon the plaintiff replied to
second plea by novel assignment (describing the close as in the
report of commissioners in the above partition suit). On July 27,
1825, the defendants in said suit obtained a verdict and a judgment
thereon, and the case was taken by writ of error to the Supreme
Court of the State of Missouri, by which, on May 25, 1826, the
judgment was reversed and the case remanded, and on May 8, 1827,
defendants again obtained judgment in the said circuit court. From
the record of the said supreme court in said cause, it appears that
a transcript of the record of said partition suit of
Louis
Labeaume v. Dodier's Heirs was read in evidence, but that the
notice to defendants in said partition suit was not included in the
bill of exceptions, and was not before the supreme court, and that
the conveyance from Auguste Dodier and wife to Louis Labeaume,
being admitted by defendants in said trespass suit, was also read
upon the trial of said cause, and a copy thereof preserved in the
bill of exceptions taken and filed in said cause.
Prior to and on Dec. 20, 1803, Auguste Dodier was an inhabitant
of the Village of St. Louis, possessed and cultivated the land
known as United States Survey No. 422, and had a right, title, and
claim thereto. It was an out-lot of the said village within the
meaning of the Act of June 13, 1812, with definite boundaries and
location, prior to and at the date of the acquisition of Louisiana
by the United States.
These are the material facts found by the court below, which, by
written stipulation of the parties, made a special finding of the
facts.
The court gave judgment for the defendants, whereupon the
plaintiffs sued out this writ of error.
Page 93 U. S. 81
MR. JUSTICE DAVIS delivered the opinion of the Court.
The defendants, and those under whom they claim, have been in
continuous and adverse possession of the land in controversy,
claiming title to it for more than thirty-five years. The justice
of the case, growing out of such length of possession, is
manifestly with the court below, and we think the law of it is
equally so.
The property in suit is part of a tract of land known as Survey
422, in the County of St. Louis. The court below, by stipulation,
tried the case and made a special finding of facts, on which it
based its conclusion of law, that the plaintiffs could not recover.
It is objected that some of these facts were not warranted by the
evidence, but this is not a subject of inquiry here. If the parties
chose to adopt this mode of trial, they are concluded by the
propositions of fact which the evidence, in the opinion of that
court, establishes. Whether general or special, the finding has the
same effect as the verdict of a jury, and its sufficiency to
sustain the judgment is the only matter for review in this Court.
Norris v.
Jackson, 9 Wall. 125;
Flanders v.
Tweed, 9 Wall. 425;
Kearney v.
Case, 12 Wall. 275;
Miller v.
Life Ins. Co., 12 Wall. 285.
Both parties claim under Auguste Dodier, to whom the tract was
confirmed in 1810 by the board of commissioners created to settle
the title to lands in the Territories of Orleans and Louisiana. The
plaintiffs insist that this confirmation vested only an equitable
title, and that the statute of limitations did not begin to run
until the fee passed out of the United States by patent in 1873. On
the other hand, the defendants contend that the fee passed directly
to him in 1812 by operation of the Act of June 13 of that year, 2
Stat. 748, and if so it is conceded that the statute of limitations
gives them title. It becomes necessary, therefore, to inquire how
far the acts of Congress to protect the rights of property in the
territory acquired from France by the Treaty of April 30, 1803,
apply to and affect the title to the land in controversy.
Page 93 U. S. 82
The United States stipulated that the inhabitants of the ceded
country should be protected in the free enjoyment of their
property, and in discharge of this obligation and with a view to
ascertain and adjust their claims to land, Congress passed acts in
1805, 1806, and 1807. As the board progressed in its
investigations, it was found that the enforcement of the rules
prescribed for its guidance excluded from confirmation a large
number of meritorious claims, and more liberal provision was made
for them by the Act of June 13, 1812. Its first section
declares
"That the rights, titles, and claims to town or village lots,
out-lots, common field lots, and commons in, adjoining, and
belonging to the several towns and villages [naming them] in the
Territory of Missouri, which lots have been inhabited, cultivated,
or possessed, prior to the twentieth day of December, 1803, shall
be, and the same are hereby, confirmed to the inhabitants of the
respective towns or villages aforesaid according to their several
right or rights of common thereto, provided that nothing herein
contained shall be construed to affect the rights of any person
claiming the same lands, or any part thereof, whose claims have
been confirmed by the board of commissioners for adjusting and
settling claims to lands in the said territory."
It does not require the production of proofs before any
commission or other tribunal established for that special purpose,
but confirms,
proprio vigore, the rights, titles, and
claims to the lands embraced by it and operates as a grant to all
intents and purposes. Repeated decisions of this Court have
declared that such a statute passes the title of the United States
as effectually as if it contained in terms a grant
de
novo, and that a grant may be made by a law as well as by a
patent pursuant to a law.
The court below found that the lot of ground, now known as
Survey 422, was an "out-lot" of the Village of St. Louis, with
definite boundaries and location, prior to and at the date of the
acquisition of Louisiana by the United States, and that Dodier was
in possession of it and an inhabitant of the village. It follows
that the confirmation became complete, and vested in him a legal
title valid against the United States and all persons claiming
under it by a subsequent patent unless his case
Page 93 U. S. 83
was taken out of the enacting clause by the proviso that the act
shall not affect any confirmed claims to the same lands. How
"affect" them? If in the sense of simply acting upon them, then his
title is excepted from the operation of the act. But this exception
is not within the reason of the proviso, and the court is at
liberty to adopt another construction, if it may be fairly done, by
giving full and just effect to the words used.
The general rule of law is that a proviso carves special
exceptions only out of the body of the act, and those who set up
any such exception must establish it as being within the words as
well as the reason thereof.
United States v.
Dickson, 15 Pet. 165. Why should Congress wish to
exclude Dodier's title if it did not conflict with any other and
was embraced by the general words of the statute? If it was left
incomplete by the act of 1807, and completed by the act of 1812,
there was certainly no reason for excluding it. It was within the
power of Congress to favor the inhabitants of villages over other
claimants, and the fact that he had documentary evidence of his
title to this out-lot, which the commissioners recognized and
approved, affords no ground for supposing that Congress meant to
deprive him of the benefit of another law dispensing with this
evidence and still meeting the requirements of his case. This would
lead to unjust consequences, for it would discriminate between
villagers and put claims supported by paper title with possession
on a less favored footing than those resting only on cultivation
and possession. Besides, such a purpose is inconsistent with the
avowed object of the law, which is to confirm to the villagers,
without discriminating in favor of any class, their rights of
property, whether held in severalty or in common. If Congress had
intended to exclude confirmed claims, the fair presumption is that
it would have in terms excepted them or by some form of words
declared their exclusion. But common fairness required that
successful claimants before the board of commissioners should in
any event be protected, and that the general words of the law
should be so limited as not to produce a conflict of title. It
would have been wrong, in legislating for the inhabitants of
ancient villages, to do anything prejudicial to those who, having
been invited to present their claims to the
Page 93 U. S. 84
board, had obtained its approval of them. This was recognized by
Congress, and to guard against the possibility of conflict, the
proviso was inserted. No known rule of law requires us to interpret
it according to its literal import when its evident intent is
different. It may be that the words, taken in their usual sense,
would exclude the case of Dodier; but if it can be gathered from a
view of the whole law and others
in pari materia that they
were not used in that sense, and if they admit of another meaning
in perfect harmony with the general scope of the statute, it will
be adopted as the declaration of the will of Congress. Especially
is this so when this construction withdraws the least number of
cases from the operation of the statute. It is unnecessary to give
the various definitions of the word "affect." It is enough to say
that it is often used in the sense of acting injuriously upon
persons and things, and in this sense we are all of opinion it was
used in this proviso. This interpretation accords with the reason
and manifest intent of the proviso. It unsettles no confirmed title
and secures to the inhabitants of the villages, according to their
respective rights, the protection which Congress in its wisdom
thought proper to afford them.
If there were any doubt remaining about the correctness of this
construction, it would be removed by a consideration of the act of
1807, which is
in pari materia. The various laws from time
to time passed respecting the claims to lands in the Territories of
Orleans and Louisiana were modified as policy required, but they
constitute a land system, are all
in pari materia, and, in
explaining their meaning and import, are to be regarded as one
statute.
Patterson v.
Winn, 11 Wheat. 336. The third section of the act
of 1807, 2 Stat. 440, confirms the claim of the corporation of the
City of New Orleans to the commons adjacent to the city, and
provides that
"Nothing herein contained shall be construed to
affect or
impair the rights of any individual or individuals to the said
commons which are derived from any grant of the French or Spanish
governments."
The word "impair" is dropped from the proviso in the act of
1812, doubtless because it was deemed superfluous and unnecessary.
There was no reason why the different provisos should have
different limitations. Both had a common
Page 93 U. S. 85
object -- to protect individual rights and prevent conflict of
titles. The grants of the New Orleans commons, in the one case, and
of the village lots in the other, were simply on the condition that
no adverse claimant should be injured by them. If it should turn
out that any one was benefited by the grant, he was not barred from
availing himself of it because he had given another title in
evidence before a regularly constituted board of commissioners.
Strother v.
Lucas, 12 Pet. 410, is cited by the plaintiffs as
an authority in this case, but it can hardly be considered in that
light. It is true that the court treat Lucas' title as "being a
grant by the United States, under the confirmation of the
commissioners and the act of 1812," but the effect which that act
has on a lot confirmed by the commissioners was not discussed at
the bar, or considered in the opinion, nor has it, to our
knowledge, been heretofore decided by this Court.
It is claimed that the effect of the partition suit is to estop
the defendants from setting up title to lands which were not
assigned to Labeaume by the commissioners in partition. But the
lines of partition were incorrect, for the court finds that the
land in controversy is a part of that conveyed to Labeaume by deed
from Dodier, and is not within the boundaries of the land set off
to him. Besides, neither party recognized the proceedings in
partition as binding, nor were they at all necessary, as the deed
calls for the whole estate in a specified part of a tract of land.
In such a case, the deed ought to and must control the rights of
the parties.
It is unnecessary to notice any other assignments of error, for
these views dispose of the whole case and affirm the judgment of
the circuit court.
Judgment affirmed.
