Umbarger v. Chaboya
Before: Rhodes, Wallace
Synopsis
Special Act Cónpebeing Jurisdiction on Coubt.—If an Act of Congress gives jurisdiction to a District Court of the United States to adjudicate on the title to certain lands, the Court has no authority under the Act, to adjudicate on the title to lands other than those mentioned in the Act.
Jubisdiction op Coubt UNDEB Speoial Act op Congbess.—If a District Court of the United States is authorized by a special Act of Congress to adjudicate on the validity of a Mexican grant to a tract of land described in a petition filed by the claimant in said Court, the Court has jurisdiction to reject the grant except a portion thereof, and confirm that portion not thus rejected.
Grants of Pueblo Lands.—If the claim of a Pueblo to a tract of land in California, under the laws of Mexico, was confirmed, and the decree excepted from the confirmation such parcels of land within the limits of the Pueblo as had, by grants from lawful authority, vested in and been confirmed to parties claiming thereunder, and such parcels as should thereafter, in proceedings then pending, be confirmed to such parties, the confirmation of such excepted parcels gave to the confirmees a title, as against claimants under the Pueblo confirmation.
Idem.—In such case, the claimant under the Pueblo confirmation is not a third person, within the meaning of the Act of Congress of March 3, 1851, whose rights were not concluded by the confirmation to the grantee within the Pueblo limits, and cannot, in ejectment brought by the latter, show that the grant to the latter was a fabrication.
Effect of Confirmation of Grants within Pueblo Lands.—If the tribunals of the United States confirm lands to a Pueblo, excepting therefrom grants made within the limits of the Pueblo to other parties, whether confirmed before the Pueblo confirmation, or afterwards upon proceedings then pending, a confirmation of one of such grants is conclusive as against the Pueblo, and cannot, in a collateral action, be questioned by one claiming under the Pueblo.
Construction of Boundary Line in Deed.—If a party -conveys land by a deed, in which he describes it as being bounded on the east by the land of a third person, the eastern line of the land conveyed is the true boundary line between it and the land of such third person, and not the line as understood to exist when the deed was given, if the two lines are not the same.
Opinion — Wallace
By the Court, Wallace, C. J.: This is an action of ejectment brought to recover a tract of land in Santa Clara county, lying southerly of the city of San José, known as lot numbered six of the five hundred acre lots so-called. At the trial the plaintiff’s had judgment, from which judgment and also from an order denying their motion for a new trial, the defendants bring the present appeal.
The plaintiffs claim the premises by title derived from one Pedro Chaboya, who was the confirmee thereof under certain proceedings taken by him before the District Court of the United States, pursuant to a private Act of Congress passed April 25, 1862, entitled “an Act to authorize the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of California to hear and determine upon its merits the claim of Pedro Chaboya to a certain tract of land in California, called La Posa San Juan Bautista.” (Private Acts of the Thirty-seventh Congress of the United States, page 70.)
The defendants claim by this title derived .from the authorities of the city of San José, "which city, as the successor of the former pueblo of that name, was the confirmee of a large area of lands, embracing the premises here in controversy with its exterior limits as confirmed; but there were expressly excepted out of the tract confirmed to the city certain ranchos and smaller tracts designated by name, and also “such other parcels of land as have been by grants from lawful authority vested to private proprietorship, and have been finally confirmed to parties claiming under said grants by the tribunals of the United States, or shall hereafter be finally confirmed to parties claiming thereunder by said tribunals in proceedings now pending therein for that purpose;” all of which said excepted par[535]cels of land were included, in whole or in part, within the boundaries mentioned in the decree, but were excluded from the confirmation to the city.
The District Court of the United States, pursuant to the private" Act of April 25, 1862, adjudicated the claim of Pedro Chaboya, and in November, 1862, rendered a decree rejecting his claim to the tract called “La Posa San Juan Bautista ” in the private Act of Congress mentioned, except five hundred acres thereof, as to which latter tract, mentioned in the decree as “ the same five hundred acres allotted to said Pedro Chaboya by the authorities of San José and accepted by him,” his claim was confirmed, and upon appeal subsequently taken by Chaboya this decree was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States (Vide 2d Black’s R. S. C. U. S., in which the history of the claim of Chaboya is detailed at length.)
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