Keeran v. Griffith

Citations

• 34 Cal. 580

Syllabus

<p>Title to Land—Adveese Patents feoii State and United States.—Where, in an action of ejectment, plaintiff claimed under a patent from the State of California, dated January 15th, 1856, as of swamp and overflowed lands, acquired under the Act of Congress of 1850, granting the same to the State, and the defendant claimed the same land under a patent from the United States, dated September 10th, 1866 : held, first, that both patents were properly admitted in evidence on the trial of the issue of title, as being necessary links in the respective chains of proofs of the parties, but that the question as to which patent conveyed the title, depended on the further fact whether or not the lands were swamp and overflowed, within the meaning of said Act of Congress; second, that this question was properly determinable, not from the recitals of either patent or the records of either • the State or United States Land Office, but upon parol proofs as to the real character of the lands. (Keeran v. Griffith, 27 Cal. 87, and 31 Cal. 461, and Keeran v. Allen, 33 Cal. 542, affirmed.)</p> <p>Act of July 23d, 1866, “ to quiet Land Titles in Califoenia.”—The confirmation of titles, provided for in the first section of the Act of Congress, “to quiet land titles in California,” passed July 23d, 1866, does not extend to lands as to which an adverse pre-emption, homestead, or other right had been acquired at the date of the passage of that Act by any settler under the laws of the United States. Whether or not said section is applicable to titles to any swamp and overflowed lands, is not decided.</p> <p>Exceptions must be Taken in Court Below.—The Court will not consider, on appeal, rulings to which no exception was taken in the Court below.</p>