Defendants, who had full notice of plaintiff's application for patent, should have availed themselves of their right to make an adverse claim in the United States Land Office (defendants admit there was no fraud in plaintiff's action in obtaining his patent, and no promises made them).
Defendants should have put in their adverse claim beforethe Land Office.
One party can not hold another as trustee, when he has failed to comply with all the provisions of the law on which he bases his claims, unless he was prevented by plaintiff by some unfair means from so doing. He must show that he possessed all the qualifications, performed all the acts, and complied with all the conditions required by law to entitle him to pre-empt, or to hold, or to locate, and that he proved these facts by competent testimony at a trial in the Land Office. Defendant did none of these.
The defendants in this action are in no privity with the United States; and possess no claim, legal or equitable, to the lands they claim. The proffered offer of the Government to protect them if they put in an adverse claim, according to Sections 2325-2326, of the Revised Statutes, has never been accepted by them. (Doll v. Meador , 16 Cal. 326.)
It was not necessary for the Court to find on the question of defendant's adverse possession prior to plaintiff's patent; the Court found, they failed to put in any adverse claim to plaintiff's application for a patent, and that they were not induced to refrain from so doing by plaintiff in any way, andthat was all that was necessary.
JUDGES: Ross, J. Myrick and McKinstry, JJ., concurred.
OPINION
ROSS, Judge
Action to quiet title--plaintiff relying on a patent from the Government, issued March 30, 1876, under and by virtue of the mining laws. In their answer the defendants admit that they, respectively, claimed interests in certain separate and distinct portions of the premises embraced in the patent, adverse to the plaintiff; and aver, that for more than fifteen years immediately preceding the commencement of the action, they had, respectively, held the adverse possession of the respective portions so claimed. But they could not have held adversely to the Government, and the action having been commenced within five years after the issuance of the patent, the statute of limitations could not avail them against the patentee.
In their answer, the defendants affirmatively aver that the plaintiff's patent was duly obtained, and that they had notice of his application to purchase the land, but charge, that for the purpose of preventing the defendants from contesting the plaintiff's application to purchase the premises, he, plaintiff, fraudulently represented to them, and each of them, that he only wanted the premises for mining purposes, and that he would never disturb their respective possessions; that the title he should acquire should inure to their benefit so far as their respective tracts were concerned, and that on obtaining the patent he would convey such title to them; that relying upon these representations, the defendants took no steps to prevent the plaintiff from acquiring the legal title to the whole of the premises, but that they continued to reside upon, and at great expense to improve the respective portions claimed by them, with the full knowledge, acquiescence, consent, and approval of the plaintiff, until shortly before the commencement of this action, when the plaintiff for the first time refused to recognize any right on the part of defendants; that nearly the entire value of the premises claimed by the defendants consists in the improvements made by them; that defendants have at all times been, and now are, ready and willing and able to pay to plaintiff their just and proportionate share of the costs and expenses incurred by him in obtaining the patent, etc.
Issues of the fact were raised by the plaintiff on the matters thus set up by the defendants, and which they contended constituted the plaintiff trustee for them of the title to the respective portions of the premises claimed by them, which issues were found upon by the trial Court against the defendants, on evidence which clearly justified the findings.
Indeed, we find in the statement on motion for a new trial the following: " The defendants all admit that the plaintiff never at any time made to them any promises to make deeds or deed to them if they would not put in an adverse claim to his application for a patent, and that he never held out any inducements to them to prevent them from putting in adverse claims and opposing his application for a patent."
The other assignments of error we have examined, but do not find that any of them call for an interference at our hands with the action of the Court below.
Judgment and order affirmed.