De Bernal v. Lynch

By the Court, Rhodes, J. : The plaintiffs are the widow and son of José Cornelio Bernal. Their claim to the premises, which they derived under an alleged grant from Governor Figueroa to José Cornelio Bernal, was confirmed by the District Court, and the survey of the lands granted was finally confirmed by the District Court in 1863. Theodore Dehon, under whom the defendants claim, contested the survey, and his executor appealed to the Supreme Court; and in that Court the decree of the District Court was affirmed. The defendants rely upon title in the estate of Dehon under the Van ¡Ness Ordinance, the premises being within the corporate limits of the City of San Francisco, as defined by the Act of April 15th, 1851.

The petition for confirmation of the claim being sufficient to give the Board of Commissioners jurisdiction of the claim, the decree of the District Court, on appeal from the decision of the Board of Commissioners, is not subject to a collateral attack from any quarter. The rule is well stated by Mr. Justice Field, in Beard v. Federy, 3 Wal. 489: “The Board having acquired jurisdiction, the validity of the claim presented, and whether it was entitled to confirmation, were matters for it to determine, and its decision, however erroneous, cannot be collaterally assailed on the ground that it was rendered on insufficient evidence. The rule which applies to the judgments of other inferior tribunals applies here—that where it has once acquired jurisdiction its subsequent proceedings cannot be collaterally questioned for mere error or irregularity.” This question was considered in Semple v. Hagar, 27 Cal. 163, and the decision in that case accords with the conclusion now announced.

The decree confirming the survey was an adjudication that the lands mentioned in the decree confirming the claim were properly located and correctly surveyed. Dehon having made himself a party to the proceedings for the confirmation of the survey, neither he nor those claiming under him will [144]be permitted, to question the decree. (Treadway v. Semple, 28 Cal. 652; Semple v. Wright, 32 Cal. 659.)

The Act of Congress of June 14th, 1860, provides that “the said plat and survey, so finally determined by publication, order, or decree, as the case may be, shall have the same effect and validity in law as if a patent for the land so surveyed had been issued by the United States.” The title thus established is sufficient to enable the plaintiffs to maintain the action. To overthrow this title the defendants allege that the title was in the city, and claim that it passed from the city to Dehon, under the operation of the Van Hess Ordinance, and by virtue of the Act of Congress of 1864. They claim that the title of the pueblo and of the city, as its successor, was a perfect title; and that if not a perfect title, yet it was such a title that the city and her grantors were such “third persons” as are mentioned in the Act of Congress of March 3d, 1851, who are not affected by the patent of the United States, and, consequently, not by the decree of confirmation of the claim, nor the confirmed survey upon which the patent is to be issued. And they claim the right to attack the decree of confirmation and the survey, on the ground that the Act of 1864 excepts from the operation of the Act only the bona fide claims of others.