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eBook details

• Title: United States v. Sepulveda
• Author : United States Supreme Court
• Release Date : January 01, 1863
• Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
• Pages : * pages
• Size : 57 KB

Description

Mr. Wills, in favor of the right, relied on United States v. Fossatt,5 in this court, as being in point. A motion was made in that case–one similar, in many respects, he remarked, to the present,–to dismiss an appeal; the ground of the motion being that the decrees of the board of commissioners relate only to the question of the validity of the claim, and that by the term 'validity' is meant 'authenticity,' 'legality,' and in some cases, 'interpretation,' but not in any case, 'location,' 'extent,' or 'boundary.' The court asks, 'What are the questions involved in the inquiry into the validity of a claim to land?' and it answers thus: 'It may present questions of the genuineness and authenticity of title, and whether the evidence is forged or fraudulent, or, it may present an inquiry into the authority of the officer to make the grant . . . or, it may disclose questions of the capacity of the grantee to take, or whether the claim has been abandoned or is a subsisting title. But in addition to these questions upon the vitality of title, there may arise questions of the extent, quantity, location, and legal operation, that are equally essential in determining the validity of the claim.' The District Court was accordingly ordered 'to ascertain the external lines of the land.' The jurisdiction of the District Court to supervise and correct the action of the Surveyor-General in this case is not derived from the act of June 14th, 1860. That act applies to surveys subsequently made, with certain exceptions, within which the present case does not fall. The exceptions embrace only those surveys previously made and approved by the Surveyor-General, which had been, at the passage of the act, returned into the District Courts, or in relation to which proceedings were then pending for the purpose of contesting or reforming the same. The jurisdiction is asserted independent of the act of 1860, upon the authority of the decision of this court in the case of the United States v. Fossatt.6 In that case the decree had been rendered by the District Court, and it was held that the jurisdiction of the court extended not merely to the determination of questions relating to the genuineness and authenticity of the grant presented, and its efficacy in transferring the title, but also to questions relating to its location and boundaries; and that for the settlement of these latter questions, the power of the court over the case did not terminate until the issue of the patent conformably to its decree. Previous to the act of 1860, the jurisdiction of the board and of the District Court, on appeal, was derived entirely from the act of March 3d, 1851, and the act of August 31st, 1852; and when the claims presented were adjudged valid and confirmed, the duty devolved upon the Surveyor-General to cause them to be surveyed. 'For all claims finally confirmed,' says the statute, 'by the said commissioners, or by the said District or Supreme Court, a patent shall issue to the claimant upon his presenting to the General Land Office an authentic certificate of such confirmation, and a plat or survey of the said land, duly certified and approved by the Surveyor-General of California, whose duty it shall be to cause all private claims which shall be finally confirmed to be accurately surveyed, and to furnish plats of the same.' The action of the surveyor in this respect was not in terms made subject to the control of the board or court; it was only made returnable to the Commissioner of the General Land Office at Washington, who was invested, by the previous legislation of Congress, with a general supervision over the acts of all subordinate officers charged with making surveys. Whatever jurisdiction the District Court may have possessed to enforce the execution by the Surveyor-General of its own decrees, it possessed no control over the execution of the decrees of the board.

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