Corkran Oil & Development Co. v. Arnaudet

Citations

• 111 La. 562
• 35 So. 747
• 1903 La. LEXIS 559

Syllabus

<p>ACTION TO RECOVER REALTY—PRESCRIPTION — PUBLIC LANDS — QUIETING TITLE — TAX DEED—PRESUMPTION OP VALIDITY.</p> <p>1. Defendants’ title to the property claimed by the plaintiff rests upon a tax sale, duly recorded, made by the tax collector for the parish of St. Landry in enforcement of delinquent state taxes for the year 1881, assessed upon it as private property belonging to Anthony Cork-ran, or his- heirs. The property was in the actual possession of the defendants. at the time of the institution of the present suit, on the -day of-, and they and their authors had been in possession for more than 10 years prior thereto.</p> <p>Plaintiff claims that at the date of this tax sale the property belonged to the United States, and so remained until it was segregated from the public domain by patent issued in November, 1897; that the property at the time of the tax sale was not subject to state taxation, and the tax sale was an absolute nullity; that no prescription could run in favor of the purchaser against the government so long as it remained the owner. The patent under which plaintiff claims issued prior to the adoption of the Constitution of 1898, and any party in interest holding under the patent could have attacked defendants’ title from that date. Defendants, having remained in corporeal possession of the property, unmolested, for throe years after the adoption of the Constitution, are free from attack by the prescription of three years provided for in article 233 of the Constitution of 1898. In re Lockhart Praying for Possession, 33 South. 753, 109 La. Ann. 740; Pillow v. Roberts, 13 How. 472, 14 L. Ed. 228.</p> <p>2. On February 10, 1897, Congress passed an act (29 Stat. 517, c. 213) entitled “An act to quiet title and possession with respect to certain unconfirmed and located private land claims in the state of Louisiana,” in which it ■was enacted that all the right, title, and interest of the United States in and to the lands situate in the state of Louisia