Hamman v. Milne (1919) · DecisionDepot

Hamman v. Milne

Name: California Superior Court Tentative Rulings
Creator: DecisionDepot
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

California Supreme Court Jan 30, 1919 No. L. A. No. 4465.Published

Before: Lennon

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Holding. The court held that a patent to public lands cannot be collaterally attacked by private parties in a quiet title action, and that the defendants' answer failed to raise a material issue of fact because its admissions of the plaintiffs' chain of title rendered the denial of ownership legally ineffective.

Issues

Whether defendants in a quiet title action may collaterally attack the validity of a government land patent.
Whether the trial court erred in granting judgment on the pleadings when the answer's specific denials were nullified by subsequent admissions of the plaintiffs' title.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“the lower court upon demurrer correctly held defendants’ allegations, in the particulars stated, to be unavailing as a defense in that they sought singly and collectively to collaterally attack the patents”

Synopsis

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

LENNON, J.

This is an action to quiet title. The áppeal, based on the" judgment-roll alone, is from a judgment on the pleadings in plaintiffs’ favor after an order sustaining plaintiffs’ demurrer to defendants’ amended answer without leave to amend further. The action involved certain lands in Orange County, plaintiffs’ /title to which, it was a’^ged in the second count of the complaint, was deraigned from patents. issued by the state of California in 1882 and 1887 to one Shanklin wherein the lands are declared to be nonmineral. Appellants by their answer make no attack on the validity of plaintiffs’ title as deraigned from the Shanklin grant. They sought rather to defeat it by an assault on the validity of the patents themselves, alleging that the lands at the time of the grants were known to be mineral lands within the limits of a mining district and that, therefore, they were not subject to

[635]

selection as lieu lands. With the alleged invalidity of the patents as a basis the answer further pleaded a purported defense framed upon the theory that the lands in suit were still open to entry, and that the appellants had acquired a mining title thereto by virtue of an alleged mining location under the mining laws of the United States.

The lower court upon demurrer correctly held defendants’ allegations, in the particulars stated, to be unavailing as a defense in that they sought singly and collectively to collaterally attack the patents, and that the patents were not rightfully subject to such an attack, and could be attacked only on direct proceedings and by proper parties. The reasons behind and supporting this view are clearly set forth in the case of

Burke

Southern Pacific R. R. Co.,

234 U. S. 669, [58 L. Ed. 1527, 34 Sup. Ct. 907, see, also, Rose’s U. S. Notes].

Although the sufficiency of the pleaded defense was asserted and attempted to be upheld in the briefs filed upon behalf of appellants, still when the appeal came on for oral argument it was conceded by counsel for appellants that the case of

Burke

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sequent averments of the defendants’ answer to the first count of the plaintiffs’ complaint admits the plaintiffs’ ownership of and title to the land in suit. In this behalf it will be noted that the plaintiffs’ chain of title was specifically pleaded in the second count of the complaint, which chain of title commenced with the sovereign source of the title and ran to and rested in the plaintiffs’ at the time of the commencement of the action. It is affirmatively alleged, however, in each answer to the two counts of the complaint, that the selection of the land in question by the state of California as lieu lands, and the issuance of a patent therefor, was void for the reason that the land was mineral land and known to be such by the state and government officials making and consenting to such selection. Upon this hypothesis it was further alleged in the answer to the first count of the complaint that the patent in question was void. Defendants further set up the fact in the same answer that they had located the land in question as mineral land and were proceeding with development work with a view to discovering petroleum upon the premises in question. It is true that in the answer to the first count of the complaint there is a specific denial of plaintiffs’ ownership, but this denial is accompanied in the same answer by admissions and allegations which make it plain that if the patent in question is valid, plaintiffs are the owners of the property in question. Without attempting to analyze in detail the various allegations and admissions, express and implied, in the answer, we may take as a fair construction of that answer a statement by appellants in their opening brief as follows: “A careful reading of the amended answer interposed by the defendants will disclose . . . that this is not an effort to defeat a grant covered by patent because of conditions subsequently arising. Under the issues presented by the pleadings, defendants offered to show that the patents themselves Were void, not voidable. ... It will appear from a reading of the amended answer that the claim of the. defendants rests upon the theory that the land involved is now and always has been public mineral land of the United States and was not

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Synopsis

LENNON, J.

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