Who are third persons within the meaning of the Act of Congress?
At the date of the cession of California by Mexico, the United States took the ceded territory subject to grants of portions thereof, already made by Mexico. Some of those grants had been made by segregating the lands granted from the public domain by actual measurement, the fixing of monuments to mark the boundaries, and the delivery of possession to the grantees; but most of them had been made of quantities of land to be located upon larger tracts by the Government, and at the time of the cession the locations had not yet been made. The location of these grants was a duty devolving on the sovereign, and could not be performed by the grantee. This duty was imposed on the United States as the successor of Mexico, and would have been binding on her by good faith and the law of nations in the absence of any stipulation to that effect in the treaty. The former grants were held under perfect titles, and Mexico neither had the right or claimed the power to cede to the United States any right there to except her rights as sovereign. But the other class of grants, being made of no particular land, were designed to give the grantee the right to have measured off to him, at some subsequent time, from the public domain, the quantity mentioned therein. Had no cession been made, Mexico would have proceeded, as she was obligated, at the request of the grantees, to separate from the public lands the quantities called for by the grants in the particular localities named therein, and have given possession of the same to the grantees. Until a segregation took place, the grantees held, in one sense, as tenants in common with the Government; and this relation was subsisting when the territory passed to the United States. To enable the Government to ascertain what lands belonged to it, and what had been conveyed by Mexico, and were held in private ownership, Congress passed the Act of March 3d, 1851, under which persons claiming lands by grant from Mexico, which required any action on the part of the Government to make them perfect, were called upon to present their claims within two years thereafter, and it provides that " all lands, the claims to which shall not have been presented to the Commissioners within two years after the date of the Act, shall be deemed, held, and considered as part of the public domain of the United States." But claims to lands which required no further acts on the part of the Mexican Government at the date of the treaty to vest in the grantees absolute titles, and concerning which no duty or obligation passed to the United States, are not comprehended in the Act. Persons holding lands under such titles are in a position to resist successfully any action of the United States Government in respect to them, and hold under titles which do not depend for their validity upon any action on the part of the latter Government. They are the third persons mentioned in the Act. (Waterman v. Smith, 13 Cal. 420; Leese v. Clark, 20 Cal. 425; Teschemacher v. Thompson, 18 Cal. 27; Minturn v. Brower, 24 Cal. 669; DeArguello v. Greer, 26 Cal. 626.)
The pueblo title of San Francisco was not a perfect title.
Grant that San Francisco was a " pueblo," and as such entitled to four square leagues of land, yet the same may be said of every grantee of an inchoate grant: each is entitled to the amount of land specified in his grant, but it does notfollow that he has a perfect title to it. It was never claimed that any particular four leagues, as " the pueblo," belonged to the city. The decree of the Circuit Court confirming the claim describes the land confirmed as " a tract situated in the County of San Francisco, and embracing so much of the extreme upper portion of the peninsula above ordinary high water mark, on which the City of San Francisco is situated, as will contain an area of four square leagues; said tract being bounded on the north and east by the Bay of San Francisco, on the west by the Pacific Ocean, and on the south by a due east and west line drawn so as to include the area aforesaid." (See, also, Thornton v. Mahoney, 24 Cal. 579; United States v. Fossat, 20 How. 426; Fremont v. United States, 17 How. 558; Estrada v. Murphy, 19 Cal. 248; Steinbach v. Moore, 30 Cal. 498; Seale v. Ford, 29 Cal. 107.)
By the Acts of Congress of July 1st, 1864, and March 8th, 1866, the Government of the United States relinquished all its interest in and right of control over the lands therein described, while the Van Ness Ordinance provides only for the relinquishment of the title of the City of San Franciscoto the lands therein described, and vests the city's title in the persons in the actual possession at the times named therein, or if interrupted by a trespasser, in the person who should be able to recover possession by legal process. The plaintiffs are endeavoring to recover that possession, and the ordinance is sought to be used to defeat them in a way not contemplated by its provisions.
The Court found in this case that the defendant Lynch, on behalf of the estate of Dehon, filed exceptions to the survey as made by the Surveyor General, and at his instance the same was returned into Court for correction. That on the hearing he appeared by counsel and contested the survey, and the correctness of the same was fully tried and litigated. These facts bring the case clearly within Treadway v. Semple, 28 Cal. 552, and Semple v. Wright, 32 Cal. 659. (See, also, Semple v. Hagar, 27 Cal. 170; Park v. Jenners, 7 How. 634; United States v. Peters, 5 Cranch, 115; Freeman v. Howe, 24 How. 450; United States v. Booth, 21 How. 506; Mott v. Smith, 16 Cal. 533.)
JUDGES: Rhodes, J. Mr. Justice Crockett, being disqualified, did not sit in this case.
OPINION
RHODES, Judge
The plaintiffs are the widow and son of Jose Cornelio Bernal. Their claim to the premises, which they derived under an alleged grant from Governor Figueroa to Jose Cornelio Bernal, was confirmed by the District Court, and the survey of the lands granted was finally confirmed by the District Court in 1863. Theodore Dehon, under whom the defendants claim, contested the survey, and his executor appealed to the Supreme Court; and in that Court the decree of the District Court was affirmed. The defendants rely upon title in the estate of Dehon under the Van Ness Ordinance, the premises being within the corporate limits of the City of San Francisco, as defined by the Act of April 15th, 1851.
The petition for confirmation of the claim being sufficient to give the Board of Commissioners jurisdiction of the claim, the decree of the District Court, on appeal from the decision of the Board of Commissioners, is not subject to a collateral attack from any quarter. The rule is well stated by Mr. Justice Field, in Beard v. Federy, 3 Wal. 489: " The Board having acquired jurisdiction, the validity of the claim presented, and whether it was entitled to confirmation, were matters for it to determine, and its decision, however erroneous, cannot be collaterally assailed on the ground that it was rendered on insufficient evidence. The rule which applies to the judgments of other inferior tribunals applies here--that where it has once acquired jurisdiction its subsequent proceedings cannot be collaterally questioned for mere error or irregularity." This question was considered in Semple v. Hagar, 27 Cal. 163, and the decision in that case accords with the conclusion now announced.
The decree confirming the survey was an adjudication that the lands mentioned in the decree confirming the claim were properly located and correctly surveyed. Dehon having made himself a party to the proceedings for the confirmation of the survey, neither he nor those claiming under him will be permitted to question the decree. (Treadway v. Semple, 28 Cal. 652; Semple v. Wright, 32 Cal. 659.)
The Act of Congress of June 14th, 1860, provides that " the said plat and survey, so finally determined by publication, order, or decree, as the case may be, shall have the same effect and validity in law as if a patent for the land so surveyed had been issued by the United States." The title thus established is sufficient to enable the plaintiffs to maintain the action. To overthrow this title the defendants allege that the title was in the city, and claim that it passed from the city to Dehon, under the operation of the Van Ness Ordinance, and by virtue of the Act of Congress of 1864. They claim that the title of the pueblo and of the city, as its successor, was a perfect title; and that if not a perfect title, yet it was such a title that the city and her grantors were such " third persons" as are mentioned in the Act of Congress of March 3d, 1851, who are not affected by the patent of the United States, and, consequently, not by the decree of confirmation of the claim, nor the confirmed survey upon which the patent is to be issued. And they claim the right to attack the decree of confirmation and the survey, on the ground that the Act of 1864 excepts from the operation of the Act only the bona fide claims of others.
It may be conceded that all the title the city held passed to Dehon by virtue of the Van Ness Ordinance; but the defendants are not assisted by the Act of Congress of 1864. For, if the Act was sufficient to transfer the legal title, it did not have that effect, because it was subsequent to the confirmation of the survey, which is declared by the Act of 1860 to be equivalent to a patent issued by the United States. If the title was ever in the United States, it passed to the plaintiffs before the passage of the Act of 1864. The proviso to the fifth section declares " that the relinquishment and grant by the Act shall in no manner interfere with or prejudice any bona fide claims of others, whether asserted adversely under rights derived from Spain, Mexico, or the laws of the United States, nor preclude a judicial examination or adjustment thereof." The Bernal claim is clearly within the proviso. But the defendants' counsel says that the bona fides of the claim is the vital matter in issue here. The position may be admitted, but in answer to the argument of counsel, it may be added that the bona fides of the claim conclusively appears from the decree of confirmation of the claim. The question was necessarily involved in the proceedings for confirmation. The good faith of the claim is an essential element of its validity, and its validity is conclusively established by the decree of confirmation. It could scarcely be credited that it was the intent of the Act of 1864, entitled " An Act to expedite the settlement of titles to lands in the State of California," to impair or destroy the decrees in all the proceedings had during the preceding twelve years for the settlement of private land claims within the limits of the City of San Francisco.
The principal if not the only purpose for which a litigant establishes the fact that he is a " third person" within the meaning of the Act of 1851, is to enable him to produce a better title than that which is shown on the other side. We deem it unnecessary to argue the question whether the city possessed a perfect title to the pueblo lands; for it is not pretended that the four leagues, or any other amount of land, was set off to the pueblo. It is clear, both upon principle and authority, that the title is not deemed perfect until the lands are segregated from the public domain. (Estrada v. Murphy, 19 Cal. 248; Thornton v. Mahoney, 24 Cal. 579; Seale v. Ford, 29 Cal. 105; Stevenson v. Bennett, 35 Cal. 424; Fremont v. United States, 17 How. 558; United States v. Fossat, 20 How. 426.)
It does not necessarily follow, that because the inchoate title of the pueblo was older than that of Bernal, it was the better title. The Governor, in repeated instances, granted parcels of land within the limits of most, if not all, the pueblos in California; and many of those grants have been upheld and confirmed by the Courts of the United States. What was the source or extent of the Governor's power in this respect, or whether the pueblo lands were withdrawn from his control, or remained subject to his disposal, as well as that of the pueblo authorities, are questions of great importance and interest, but their solution is not essential to the proper disposition of this case. The exercise of the power by the Governor to grant lands within the pueblos has been so long acquiesced in, and so many titles depend upon a recognition of the power, that it ought not now to be drawn in question, except upon the most cogent considerations. Counsel does not directly deny such authority in the Governor, but only indirectly, and by insisting that the pueblo held a perfect title. The decree of confirmation of the title of the city recognizes these grants by excepting them from the operations of the decree; and in confirmation of this particular grant, the Court affirmed the power under which it was made. The result is, that the title which the defendants as " third persons" set up--the title derived from the city--is not superior to that which the plaintiffs acquired by the confirmation of their claim and the approved survey.
The purchase of the property at a sale for taxes by the agent of the administrator of Dehon, while he or his tenants were in possession, did not pass or otherwise affect the title to the property. (Kelsey v. Abbott, 13 Cal. 609; Moss v. Shear, 25 Cal. 38; McMinn v. Whelan, 27 Cal. 318; Coppinger v. Rice, 33 Cal. 408.)
Judgment affirmed.