Leutholtz v. Hotchkiss

California Court of Appeal Oct 4, 1927 No. Docket No. 5933.Published

Before: Warne

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Holding. The court held that the defendant abandoned his claim to the land by failing to appeal the government's cancellation of the state's lieu land selection and by failing to assert his rights for many years, despite intervening rights of the plaintiff.

Issues

Whether the defendant's failure to appeal the cancellation of a lieu land selection and subsequent delay in asserting title constitutes abandonment of an equitable interest.
Whether the defendant is barred from asserting an interest in the land after the government reasserted title and issued a prospecting permit to the plaintiff.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“Such delay as is shown here must, we think, be treated as an abandonment of his claim. The appellant slept on his rights.”

“The government through its cancellation of the state selection reasserted its title to the land and resumed control of it for a much longer period than the statute of limitations provides”

WARNE, J.,

pro tem.

This is an appeal by the defendant from a judgment in favor of plaintiff adjudging plaintiff the owner of the exclusive right to the possession of certain lands in Kern County to prospect for and remove oil and gas therefrom and to the possession of said lands, and decreeing that defendant had not any right, title, or interest in said land and enjoining defendant from asserting any claim of ownership in, or any right, title, or interest in or to, said land adverse to plaintiff.

[754]

Defendant answered denying the claim of plaintiff and asked for affirmative and injunctive relief.

The legal title of the land is vested in the United States.

Plaintiff’s claim is predicated upon an oil and gas prospecting permit issued by the Secretary of the Interior on May 23, 1921, under the provisions of an act of Congress, approved February 25, 1920.

Defendant claims an equitable title to the land under a lieu land selection made therefor by the state of California on February 17, 1908; a purchase thereof by one Clarrage on March 12, 1921, and a grant deed from Clarrage on January 9, 1923. This deed was recorded in Kern County on June 11, 1924.

On February 17, 1908, when the land in question was selected by the state in lieu of certain school land within the boundaries of the government reservation, it was vacant and unappropriated public land and not known to contain any valuable minerals or pools of oil or gas. This selection was rejected by the local land office because the base lands -tendered by the state in exchange were within a temporary forest reserve withdrawal. An appeal was taken to the commissioner of the general land office resulting in a reversal of the order on April 20, 1909, with the direction that it be allowed “if no other objection appears than the defect for which you reject the same.”

No further action was taken by either the local or general land office until November 20, 1909, when the local land office returned the selection to the general land office, stating that it was suspended on October 12, 1909, on account of the lands selected being classified as oil lands. The state was allowed to furnish, and did furnish, an

Leutholtz v. Hotchkiss

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WARNE, J.,

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