Frellsen v. Crandell

Citations

• 120 La. 712
• 45 So. 558
• 1908 La. LEXIS 557

Syllabus

<p>Public! Lands — Patents—Conclusiveness— COLLATERAL ATTACK.</p> <p>In 1905 the plaintiffs made application, with tender of the price, to the State Register to enter many thousand acres of land acquired by the state of Louisiana from the general government under the swamp land grants of 1849 and 185Ó. The Register refused the application and tender because all the lands applied for had been previously patented by the state to the assignees of John McEnery. In 1906 the Legislature passed Acts Nos. 85 and 86, pp. 141, 142, validating, on certain conditions, all outstanding patents and certificates of entry for public lands which had been paid for with certificates or scrip not legally receivable for that purpose. Plaintiffs then instituted the present suit, alleging that the patents covering the lands for which they had applied in 1905 were null and void because the entries were made with illegal scrip issued to John McEnery in violation of the provisions of Act No. 23, p. 25, of 1880, that Acts Nos. 85 and 86, pp. 141, 142, of 1906, were unconstitutional, as impairing their vested contract right to enter said lands. Plaintiffs prayed that said legislation be decreed unconstitutional, null, and void, as impairing the obligation of their contract with the state, and that the Register, Auditor, and Treasurer of the state be perpetually enjoined from executing the provisions of said acts. Held, that the patents issued to John McBnery’s assignees were conclusive against the state and all persons claiming under junior titles, until set aside or annulled in a proper action by some judicial tribunal, and that such patents vested the legal title in the patentees, segregated the land from the public domain, and deprived the land department of further jurisdiction in the premises, and that consequently the application and tender of plaintiffs, made in 1905, vested in them no contract rights whatever in the lands previously patented.</p> <p>(Syllabus by the Court.)</p>