Stuart v. Haight (1870) · DecisionDepot

Stuart v. Haight

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

California Supreme Court Jul 1, 1870 No. No. 2,238Published

Before: Wallace

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Holding. The Court held that the Governor has a mandatory duty to issue a duplicate land warrant upon the presentation of a valid certificate from the Register of the State Land Office, as the Governor lacks the authority to review or second-guess the Register's findings.

Issues

Whether the Governor has discretion to refuse the issuance of a duplicate land warrant after the Register of the State Land Office has issued a certificate of entitlement under the Act of March 28, 1868.
Whether the Act of March 28, 1868, permits the issuance of a duplicate warrant for a warrant that has been previously located.

Disposition. Peremptory mandamus ordered to issue.

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“The certificate being sufficient in form and substance, and such as the Register might lawfully issue, the statute declares, in mandatory terms, that upon its presentation by the applicant, the Governor “shall prepare and deliver to said applicant”

“the Governor has no discretion to refuse its performance”

Synopsis

State Public Land Law.—Statute of 1868.-—When the location of a State Land Warrant cannot he made available, in consequence of the prior claims of persons holding pre-emption rights upon the lands located, the owner of the warrants will be entitled to duplicate land warrants, in accordance with the provisions of the Act of 1868, “to provide for the management and sale of the lands belonging to the State.”

Idem.—Resistes of the State Land Office.—In awarding a certificate upon a located land warrant, the Register of the State Land Office does not exceed his authority, under the 59 th Section of the Act of 1868, if he is satisfied the location made is ineffectual or useless, and that the lands located would not, by reason of such location, be lost to the State.

Idem. —The determination and judgment of the Register upon these matters, are not the subject of review either by the Executive or the Courts.

Wallace, J., delivered the opinion of the Court:

This is an application made directly to this Court, in the exercise of its original jurisdiction, for a peremptory mandamus, to be directed to the defendant in his official capacity, [88]requiring him to prepare and deliver to the plaintiff a duplicate land warrant, to bear the same number as original Land Warrant No. 132.

There is no dispute about the facts; they appear by stipulation and upon the face of the complaint, to which the defendant, by the Attorney General, has interposed a general demurrer.

Original Warrant No. 132 was formerly the property of one Quintana, who, in 1860, caused it to be located upon certain lands, then supposed to be subject to such location, and it was thereupon returned into the office of the Register of the State Land Office cancelled, and has ever since remained on file in that office.

The plaintiff has, since that time, succeeded to all the rights of Quintana in the warrant and in the location itself. It subsequently turned out, however, that the location was defeated by the prior claims of certain persons holding preemption rights upon the same premises.

Under these circumstances the plaintiff obtained from the Register of the State Land Office a certificate of the fact that he is the owner of the original warrant; that it had been located, and that the location had become unavailable on account of the pre-emption claims, and that the warrant itself was then on file in his office, cancelled. A further certificate, of the same officer, showed that of the three hundred and twenty acres covered by the location, two hundred and forty had been actually lost to the locator by reason of the pre-emptions, and that no part of the entire three hundred and twenty acres had been charged to the State by the Federal Government as a portion of the five hundred thousand acres, to which the State was originally entitled.

These certificates were presented to the defendant as Governor, and he was requested to prepare and deliver to the plaintiff a duplicate warrant, in accordance with the provisions of “An Act to provide for the management and sale of the lands belonging to the State,” approved March 28, 1868. (Stats. 1867-8, p. 507.) This the defendant refused to do, and placed his refusal upon the ground that the provisions [89]

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“ Section 59. Any person making application for a duplicate school land warrant in lieu of one alleged to have been lost or destroyed, shall make satisfactory proof, by affidavit of himself or others, to the Register of the State Land Office, that the party applying therefor is the bona fide owner of such warrant; that the same has not been located, and of the facts establishing the loss or destruction of the same, and shall file with the Register of the State Land Office a good and sufficient bond in form, joint and several, with two or more sureties, to be approved by said Register, payable to the State of California, in double the value of said school land warrant, conditioned that the said warrant alleged to have been lost or destroyed, shall not be presented for location; and in any case, where, for want of a proper acknowledgment of an assignment of the original or partial destruction or defacement thereof, or for any other cause, it cannot be made available, the applicant shall make affidavit that he is the owner of the warrant, together with affidavit of any other person or persons to the satisfaction of the Register, showing the fact of the assignment, and that such warrant has not been located, and shall file the original warrant for cancellation with the Register of the State Land Office. The said Register shall certify that the applicant is entitled to a duplicate school land warrant in lieu of the one proven to have been lost or destroyed, or presented for cancellation, and upon presentation of such certificate to the Governor, he shall prepare and deliver to the said applicant a duplicate warrant, bearing the same number as the original warrant, having the word ‘duplicate’ written across the face thereof, which said warrant, when so issued, shall be of the same validity and have the same iórce and effect as the original. The Register of the State Land Office shall in no case give the certificate above required until he shall be satisfied that the original has not been located, or, if located, that the lands so located have not been, and will not be, charged to this State by the Federal Government as a portion of the five hundred thousand acres of land granted to this State for internal improvements.”

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