United States v. Loughrey

Citations

• 172 U.S. 206
• 19 S. Ct. 153
• 43 L. Ed. 420
• 1898 U.S. LEXIS 1649

Syllabus

<p>Under the act of June 3, 1856, c. H, 11 Stat. 21, the State of Michigan tools the fee of the lands thereby granted, to be thereafter identified, subject to a condition subsequent that, if the railroad, to aid in whose construction they were granted, should not be completed within ten years, the lands unsold should revert to the United States; but, until proceedings were taken by Congress to effect such reversion, the legal title to the lands and the ownership of the timber growing upon them remained in the State, and the United States could not maintain an action of trespass against a person unlawfully entering thereon, and cutting and removing timber from the laud so granted: and timber so cut and separated from the soil was not the property of the United States, and did not become such after acquisition of the lands by reversion; and the United States could not avail themselves of the rule that in an action of trover, a mere trespasser cannot defeat the plaintiff’s right to possession by showing a superior title in a third person, without showing himself in priority with, or connecting himself with such third person.</p>