Sacramento Valley Reclamation Co. v. Cook

Citations

• 61 Cal. 341
• 1882 Cal. LEXIS 612

Syllabus

<p>Swamp and Overflowed Land—Patent—Conflicting Patents—Jurisdiction of Land Department—Relation — Ejectment — Evidence. The plaintiff, in an action of ejectment, deraigned title under a United States patent dated June 8/1874. Erom the approved list upon which the same was issued it appeared that the land had been claimed by the State under Section 4 of the Act of Congress of July 23, I860, as having been segregated by the State as swamp lands prior to that date, and that approved amended maps showing such segregation had been returned by the United States Surveyor General. The defendant gave in evidence a patent of the United States of the same land to his predecessor in title of date August 5, 1869, and offered evidence tending to prove that the land, at the date of the Swamp Land Act, was not swamp or overflowed land; hut the evidence was rejected. It was admitted by the plaintiff that the land was surveyed by the United States surveyors and returned and represented on the township plat approved by the United States Surveyor General, December 3, 1853, as high lands.</p> <p>Held: The State, by the selection and segregation of said lands as swamp and overflowed prior to July 23, 1866, acquired the right under the Act of that date to have the character of said lands determined in the mode prescribed by that Act, and any one who purchased said lands from the United States pending the proceedings for the determination of the ques- ' tion of right of the State to said lands took subject to that determination, which, if in favor of the State, entitled it to a patent which would relate back to the twenty-eighth day of September, 1850, the date of the passage of the Act granting swamp and overflowed lands to the State. The Secretary of the Interior having determined the character of said lands, evidence tending to impeach that determination was clearly inadmissible in this action and properly ruled out by the Court.</p>