Dominguez De Guyer v. Banning

Citations

• 167 U.S. 723
• 17 S. Ct. 937
• 42 L. Ed. 340
• 1897 U.S. LEXIS 2128

Syllabus

<p>The Board of Commissioners appointed under the act.of Congress of March 3, 1851, 9 Stat. G31, c. 41, confirmed to Manuel Dominguez and others, claimants under a Mexican grant, a certain tract of land known as the Rancho San Pedro. Upon appeal to the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of California, the action of the Board was approved, and it was-adjudged, February 10, 1857, that the claimants had a valid title to that ranche* the decree giving the boundaries to the lands so confirmed. In execution of the decree, the lands were surveyed under the direction of the United States surveyor general of California. The survey upon its face excepted, reserved and excluded from the claim surveyed the inner bay of San Pedro. Within the exterior lines of that bay is Mormon Island, containing at mean low tide 18.88 acres, and at mean high tide, about one acre. The survey having been filed in the Land Department, a patent was issued February 19,1858, to the claimants under the decree of confirmation, conveying lands that were outside the exterior lines of the inner bay of San Pedro, and containing eight square leagues more or less. The patent followed the' survey, and did not include that bay or any lands within its exterior lines. The present action was brought by various parties, asserting title under the decree of confirmation, to recover possession of the above 18.88 aeres. The defendant claimed under a patent issued to him by the United States in 1881. No application was ever made to the District Court of the United States to correct any error in the decree of 1857, nor was any step taken to have a new survey or to obtain a patent conveying all the lands apparently embraced by that decree: Held,</p> <p>(1) If the surveyor general misinterpreted the decree of confirmation, and made a survey which excluded from the surveyed' claim any of the lands within the lines given by that decree, it was within the power of the District Court to have its dec