Schulenberg v. Harriman , 22 L. Ed. 551 ( 1875 )

88 U.S. 44 (____) 21 Wall. 44

SCHULENBERG ET AL.
v.
HARRIMAN.

Supreme Court of United States.

Mr. E.C. Palmer, for the plaintiff in error.

Messrs. I.C. Sloan, B.J. Stevens, and J.C. Spooner, contra.

Mr. Justice FIELD, after stating the facts of the case, delivered the opinion of the court, as follows:

The position of the plaintiffs, that under the stipulation of the parties and the pleadings no proof of title in the State to the logs in controversy was admissible, cannot be sustained. The complaint alleges property and right of possession in the plaintiffs; the answer traverses directly these allegations, and under the issue thus formed any evidence was admissible on the part of the defendant which went to show that the plaintiffs had neither property nor right of possession. Evidence of title in the State would meet directly the averment, upon proof of which the plaintiffs could alone recover; and the stipulation was evidently framed upon the supposition that title in the State — for there was no other stranger — would be offered, and it provided for the inconclusiveness of the evidence against the possession of the plaintiffs unless the defendant connected himself with that title. The admitted quiet and peaceable possession of the property by the plaintiffs at the time of the seizure was primâ facie evidence of title, and threw the burden upon the defendant of establishing the contrary.

The position that if the acts of Congress vested in the State a title to the lands designated, that title was transferred by the act of its legislature, passed March 10th, 1869, is equally untenable. The State by the terms of the grants from Congress possessed no authority to dispose of the lands beyond one hundred and twenty sections, except as the road, in aid of which the grants were made, was constructed. The company named in the act never constructed any portion of such road, and there is no evidence that the State ever exercised the power to sell the one hundred and twenty sections authorized in advance of such construction. The acts of Congress made it a condition precedent to the conveyance by the State of any other lands, that the road should be constructed in sections of not less than twenty consecutive miles each. No conveyance in violation of the terms of those acts, the road not having been constructed, could pass any title to the company.

Besides, it is evident, notwithstanding the words of transfer to the company contained in the first part of the nineteenth section of the act of the State, that it was not the intention of the State that the title should pass except upon the construction of the road. Its concluding language is that "upon the construction and completion of every twenty miles of said railway the said company shall acquire the fee simple absolute in and to all that portion of the land granted" to the State appertaining to the portion of the railway so constructed and completed.

We proceed, therefore, to the consideration of the several grounds upon which the defendant justifies his seizure of the logs in controversy, and claims a return of them to him.

1. That the act of Congress of June 3d, 1856, passed a present interest in the lands designated there can be no doubt. The language used imports a present grant and admits of no other meaning. The language of the first section is, "that there be, and is hereby, granted to the State of Wisconsin" the lands specified. The third section declares "that the said lands hereby granted to said State shall be subject to the disposal of the legislature thereof;" and the fourth section provides in what manner sales shall be made, and enacts that if the road be not completed within ten years "no further sales shall be made, and the lands unsold shall revert to the United States." The power of disposal and the provision for the lands reverting both imply what the first section in terms declares, that a grant is made, that is, that the title is transferred to the State. It is true that the route of the railroad, for the construction of which the grant was made, was yet to be designated, and until such designation the title did not attach to any specific tracts of land. The title passed to the sections, to be afterwards located; when the route was fixed their location became certain, and the title, which was previously imperfect, acquired precision and became attached to the land.

In the case of Rutherford v. Greene's Heirs, reported in the second of Wheaton, a similar construction was given by this court to an act of North Carolina, passed in 1782, which provided that twenty-five thousand acres of land should be allotted and given to General Greene and his heirs within the limits of a tract reserved for the use of the army, to be laid off by commissioners appointed for that purpose. The commissioners pursuant to the directions of the act allotted the twenty-five thousand acres and caused the quantity to be surveyed and the survey to be returned to the proper office, and the questions raised in the case related to the validity of the title of General Greene, and the date at which it commenced. The court held that the general gift of twenty-five thousand acres lying in the territory reserved became by the survey a particular gift of the quantity contained in the survey, and concluded an extended examination of the title by stating that it was the clear and unanimous opinion of the court, that the act of 1782 vested a title in General Greene to the twenty-five thousand acres to be laid off within the bounds designated, and that the survey made in pursuance of the act gave precision to that title and attached it to the land surveyed.

On the 6th of March, 1820, Congress passed an act for the admission of Missouri into the Union, and among other regulations to aid the new State, enacted, "that four entire sections of land be and the same are hereby granted to said State for the purpose of fixing the seat of government thereon, which said sections shall, under the direction of the legislature of said State, be located as near as may be in one body, at any time, in such townships and ranges as the legislature aforesaid may select, on any of the public lands of the United States." In Lessieur v. Price, reported in the twelfth of Howard, the operation of this act was considered; and the court said:

"The land was granted by the act of 1820; it was a present grant, wanting identity to make it perfect; and the legislature was vested with full power to select and locate the land; and we need only here say, what was substantially said by this court in the case of Rutherford v. Greene's Heirs, that the act of 1820 vested a title in the State of Missouri of four sections; and that the selection made by the State legislature pursuant to the act of Congress, and the notice given of such location to the surveyor-general and the register of the local district where the land lay, gave precision to the title, and attached to it the land selected. The United States assented to this mode of proceeding; nor can an individual call it in question."

Numerous other decisions might be cited to the same purport. They establish the conclusion that unless there are other clauses in a statute restraining the operation of words of present grant, these must be taken in their natural sense to import an immediate transfer of title, although subsequent proceedings may be required to give precision to that title and attach it to specific tracts. No individual can call in question the validity of the proceedings by which precision is thus given to the title where the United States are satisfied with them.

The rules applicable to private transactions, which regard grants of future application — of lands to be afterwards designated — as mere contracts to convey, and not as actual conveyances, are founded upon the common law, which requires the possibility of present identification of property to the validity of its transfer. A legislative grant operates as a law as well as a transfer of the property, and has such force as the intent of the legislature requires.

The case of Rice v. Railroad Company, reported in the first of Black, does not conflict with these views. The words of present grant in the first section of the act there under consideration were restrained by a provision in a subsequent section declaring that the title should not vest in the Territory of Minnesota until the road or portions of it were built.

The grant of additional land by the first section of the act of Congress of 1864 is similar in its language and is subject to the same terms and conditions as the grant by the act of 1856. With the other grants, made by the act of 1864, we are not concerned in the present case.

2. The provision in the act of Congress of 1856, that all lands remaining unsold after ten years shall revert to the United States, if the road be not then completed, is no more than a provision that the grant shall be void if a condition subsequent be not performed. In Sheppard's Touchstone it is said: "If the words in the close or conclusion of a condition be thus: that the land shall return to the enfeoffor, &c., or that he shall take it again and turn it to his own profit, or that the land shall revert, or that the feoffor shall recipere the land, these are, either of them, good words in a condition to give a re-entry — as good as the word ``re-enter' — and by these words the estate will be made conditional."^[*] The prohibition against further sales, if the road be not completed within the period prescribed, adds nothing to the force of the provision. A cessation of sales in that event is implied in the condition that the lands shall then revert; if the condition be not enforced the power to sell continues as before its breach, limited only by the objects of the grant, and the manner of sale prescribed in the act.

And it is settled law that no one can take advantage of the non-performance of a condition subsequent annexed to an estate in fee, but the grantor or his heirs, or the successors of the grantor if the grant proceed from an artificial person; and if they do not see fit to assert their right to enforce a forfeiture on that ground, the title remains unimpaired in the grantee. The authorities on this point, with hardly an exception, are all one way from the Year Books down. And the same doctrine obtains where the grant upon condition proceeds from the government; no individual can assail the title it has conveyed on the ground that the grantee has failed to perform the conditions annexed.^[†]

In what manner the reserved right of the grantor for breach of the condition must be asserted so as to restore the estate depends upon the character of the grant. If it be a private grant, that right must be asserted by entry or its equivalent. If the grant be a public one it must be asserted by judicial proceedings authorized by law, the equivalent of an inquest of office at common law, finding the fact of forfeiture and adjudging the restoration of the estate on that ground, or there must be some legislative assertion of ownership of the property for breach of the condition, such as an act directing the possession and appropriation of the property, or that it be offered for sale or settlement. At common law the sovereign could not make an entry in person, and, therefore, an office-found was necessary to determine the estate, but, as said by this court in a late case, "the mode of asserting or of resuming the forfeited grant is subject to the legislative authority of the government. It may be after judicial investigation, or by taking possession directly under the authority of the government without these preliminary proceedings."^[*] In the present case no action has been taken either by legislation or judicial proceedings to enforce a forfeiture of the estate granted by the acts of 1856 and 1864. The title remains, therefore, in the State as completely as it existed on the day when the title by location of the route of the railroad acquired precision and became attached to the adjoining alternate sections.

3. The title to the land remaining in the State the lumber cut upon the land belonged to the State. Whilst the timber was standing it constituted a part of the realty; being severed from the soil its character was changed; it became personalty, but its title was not affected; it continued as previously the property of the owner of the land, and could be pursued wherever it was carried. All the remedies were open to the owner which the law affords in other cases of the wrongful removal or conversion of personal property.

4. The logs cut from the lands of the State without license, having been intermingled by the plaintiffs with logs cut from other lands, so as not to be distinguishable, the owner was entitled, under the legislation of Minnesota, and the decisions of her courts, to replevy from the whole mass an amount equal to those cut by the plaintiffs, and the stipulation of the parties provides that the seizure by the defendant, so far as the manner of making the same is concerned, was as valid and legal in all respects as though made under and by virtue of legal process. The remedy thus afforded by the law of Minnesota is eminently just in its operation, and is less severe than that which the common law would authorize.

We perceive no error in the rulings of the court below, and the judgment is, therefore,

AFFIRMED.

NOTES

[*] Sheppard's Touchstone, 125.

[†] Sheppard's Touchstone, 149; Nicoll v. New York and Erie Railroad Co., 12 New York, 121; People v. Brown, 1 Caines's Reports, 416; United States v. Repentigny, 5 Wallace, 267; Dewey v. Williams, 40 New Hampshire, 222; Hooper v. Cummings, 45 Maine, 359; Southard v. Central Railroad Co., 2 Dutcher, 13.

[*] United States v. Repentigny, 5 Wallace, 211, 268; and see Finch v. Riseley, Popham, 53.