Aurrecoechea v. Sinclair

Citations

• 60 Cal. 532
• 1882 Cal. LEXIS 503

Syllabus

<p>Patent—Constructive Trust—Review op Decision of Land Officers— Purchaser in Good Faith—Complaint—Legal Conclusions—Certificate of Purchase—Evidence—Right of Pre-emption under the Act of July 23, 1866.—In an action by the assignee of a purchaser from the State under an invalid selection—claimed to have been confirmed by the Act of Congress of July 23, 1866, “to quiet land titles in California” —against a pre-emption claimant, to whom, after a contest before the Land Department, a patent had been issued—the object of the action being to have the defendant adjudged a trustee of the legal title for the plaintiff— the complaint alleged that on the contest the commissioner “found as a matter of fact, that in the year 1863, the State of California selected and located said land under the laws of said State, and did thereafter sell and dispose of the same to the grantor of the plaintiff, as is hereinbefore more fully stated; and that on the seventeenth day of February, 1864, the grantor of the plaintiff became the purchaser in good faith of said land from the State under her laws—paid the purchase price and received a certificate of purchase therefore as hereinbefore stated;” * * * that the only objection made to said claim, on said contest and investigation, and the only objection which lias ever existed thereto, was the fact that said land so selected and located as aforesaid was embraced by said exterior boundaries of the Mexican grant “Las Focitas.” * * * that said contest and investigation was had long after said tract of land in question had been forever excluded from any claim under said Mexican grant;” and that the decision of the commissioner and of the Secretary of the Interior was based solely on this mistake of law; but it did not appear from the allegations of the complaint that the plaintiff’s grantors had complied with the laws of the State so as to constitute them bona fide purchasers except so far as this might appear from the general averment that they