Russell vs. Maxwell Supreme Court Decision

The following are excerpts from the U. S. Supreme Court decision:

A claim under the United States to land situated in the Maxwell Land Grant arising fourteen years after the confirmation of that grant by Congress, is inferior and subordinate to a claim of the same land under that grant.

A survey, made by the proper officers of the United States and confirmed by the land department of a confirmed Mexican grant is conclusive against any collateral attack in controversies between individuals.

Where the lines run by such survey lie on the ground, whether any particular tract is on one side or the other of that line, are questions of fact which are open to inquiry in the courts.

The Maxwell Land Grant is no stranger to this court. After the issue of the patent a bill was filed by the United States to set it aside on the ground of error and fraud, and after an exhaustive investigation, both in the Circuit and this court, a decree was entered, dismissing the bill. <em>Maxwell Land Grant Case, 121 U.S. 325; 122 U.S. 365; Interstate Land Company v. Maxwell Land Grant Company, 139 U.S. 569, 580</em>, in which it was said: “The confirmation and patenting of the grant to Beaubien and Miranda operated to divest the United States of all their rights to the land embraced in the grant which this country acquired from Mexico by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. And the only way that that grant can be defeated now is to show that the lands embraced in it had been previously granted by the Mexican government to some other persons.”

In order to obviate the effect of this, the defendants offered to prove on the trial that the survey described in and upon which the patent was based was inaccurate, and that a correct survey would run the lines of the Maxwell Land Grant so as to exclude there from the tract in controversy. This testimony was rejected by the court, and this is the error complained of.

In the suit brought to set aside the patent, it was said by this court, <em>121 U.S. 382</em>: “In regard to the questions concerning the surveys, as to their conformity to the original Mexican grant and the frauds which are asserted to have had some influence in the making of those surveys, so far from their being established by that [*256] satisfactory and conclusive evidence which the rule we have here laid down requires, we are of opinion that if it were an open question, unaffected by the respect due [***972] to the official acts of the government upon such a subject, depending upon the bare preponderance of evidence, there is an utter failure to establish either mistake or fraud.”

It may be said that the defendants have the same right to rely upon the regular surveys, [***973] that the plaintiff has upon the survey of this special land grant. This is undoubtedly true, [*259] but the survey is one thing and the title [**830] another. If sectional lines had been run through the entire limits of the Maxwell grant, it would not thereby have defeated the grant or avoided the effect of the confirmatory act. A survey does not create title; it only defines boundaries. Conceding the accuracy of a survey is not an admission of title. So the boundaries of the tract claimed by defendants may not be open to dispute, but their title depends on the question whether the United States owned the land when their ancestor filed his homestead claim thereon. If at that time the government had no title, it could convey none.

Whether a survey as originally made is correct or not is one thing, and that, as we have seen, is a matter committed exclusively to the Land Department, and over which the courts have no jurisdiction otherwise than by original proceedings in equity. While on the other hand, where the lines run by such survey lie on the ground, and whether any particular tract is on one side or the other of that line, are questions of fact which are always open to inquiry in the courts. In the case before us the offer was not to show that the land in controversy was one side or other of the line established by the survey. On the contrary, it was conceded that it was within the limits of the survey, and the offer was simply to show that that survey was inaccurate, and that the lines should have been run elsewhere, but this is not a matter for inquiry in this collateral way in the courts.

There was no error in the ruling of the Circuit Court, and its judgment is firmed.

Full text of the Supreme Court Decision

Tools