Burke v. Southern Pacific Railroad

Citations

• 234 U.S. 669
• 34 S. Ct. 907
• 58 L. Ed. 1527
• 1914 U.S. LEXIS 1120

Syllabus

<p>The act of July 27, 1866, making a grant of alternate odd numbered sections of public land to.the Southern Pacific Railroad Company in aid of the construction of its main-line railroad did not include mineral lands, but on the contrary excluded them from its operation and provided that the company should receive other lands as indemnity for them.</p> <p>The administration of the grant, including the issue of patents following the construction of the road, was committed to the Land Department of which the Secretary of the Interior is the supervising officer.</p> <p>It was contemplated by the granting act' that the mineral or non-mineral character of the lands should be determined by the Land Department and that, depending upon the result, patents should issue or indemnity be allowed.</p> <p>The patents were to be the legally appointed evidence that the lands described in them had passed to the company under the grant.</p> <p>A patent issued under such a grant is to' be taken, upon a collateral attack, as affording conclusive evidence of the non-mineral character of the land and of the regularity of the acts and proceedings resulting in its issue, and, upon a direct attack, as affording such presumptive evidence thereof as to require plain and convincing proof to overcome it.</p> <p>If the land officers are induced by false proofs to issue such a patent ■ for mineral lands, or if they issue it fraudulently or through mere inadvertence, a bill in equity on the part of the Government wEl lie to cancel the patent and regain the title; or, in the like circumstances, a prior mineral claimant who had acquired such rights in the land as to entitle him to protection may maintain a bill to have the patentee declared a trustee for him; but such a patent is merely voidable, not void, and cannot be successfully attacked by a stranger who had no interest in the land at the time the patent was issued and was not prejudiced by it.</p> <p>One who relocates land under the mining la