Saunders v. La Purisima Gold Mining Co.

Citations

• 125 Cal. 159
• 57 P. 656
• 1899 Cal. LEXIS 818

Syllabus

<p>School Lands oe State—Conclusiveness oe Patent—Character oe Land—Collateral Attack by Mining Claimants—Where public land of the United States was surveyed and sectionized, and designated upon the survey as agricultural land, and was thereafter certified as such by the land department of the United States, and listed as such to the state for school purposes, under the grant of 1858, and was subsequently' patented, by the state as agricultural land, the investigation as to the character of the land is concluded, as against a collateral attack; and no persons subsequently intruding upon the patented land, for the purpose of mining, can assail the state patent by proof that the land was mineral at the time of the grant to the state, and was reserved as such from the grant.</p> <p>Id.—Grant of School Lands to State—Absence of Known Minerals.—The grant by Congress to this state of the sixteenth and thirty-sixth sections, by the act of 1853, was a grant in presentí, and if at that time there were no known minerals, or other exceptions noted in the grant, those sections then became the land of the state.</p> <p>Id.—Adjudication as to Character of Lands—Case Overruled.— The decisions of the land department of the United States as to the nonmineral character of a school section, and as to the absence of any exceptions or limitations contained in the act of 1853, and the subsequent patent of the state therefor, are conclusive adjudications as to the character and condition of the land, as against all third parties subsequently entering upon the land. Eermocilla v. Eubbell, 89 Gal. 5, overruled, on this point.</p>