Los Angeles Farming & Milling Co. v. Thompson

Harrison, J. This action was brought against a large number of defendants to recover possession of certain land in the county of Los Angeles, and to restrain the defendants from injury thereto. The land described in the complaint is the south half of the Rancho ex-Mission de San Fernando, with certain exceptions, and the complaint alleges its ownership by the plaintiff, and the unlawful entry thereon and withholding of the possession by the defendants, and that they are committing injury, both temporary and permanent, to the said land. Most of the defendants suffered default, but eight of them filed answers to the complaint, upon which the cause was tried before a jury. At the close of the trial, upon the motion of the plaintiff, the court directed the jury to find a verdict in its favor against these defendants. From the judgment entered thereon and from an order denying a new trial they have appealed.

At the trial the plaintiff introduced in evidence a patent from the United States to Eulogio de Celis for the Rancho ex-Mission de San Fernando, dated January 8, 1873, and showed that the grantor of the plaintiff, who had purchased an undivided half of the rancho in 1869, had, after the issuance of the patent, brought a suit for a partition of the rancho, and that by the decree in that suit he was awarded the tract described in the complaint.

The patent recites that in the petition of the claimant presented to the board of land commissioners he “claimed the confirmation of his title to a tract of land known by the name of Mission of San Fernando, containing fourteen square leagues, situated in the county of Los Angeles and state of California, said claim being founded on a Mexican deed of grant to the petitioner, made on the seventeenth day of June, 1846, by Pio Pico, then constitutional governor of the department of the [598]Californias.” The defendants offered to introduce in evidence the petition of Eulogio de Celis to the hoard of land commissioners for the confirmation of his claim to the land, together with copies of the grant from Governor Pico to him; the decree of confirmation of the claim by the board, with its opinion upon its validity; and stated,in connection with their offer that they “ proposed to prove by said petition and by such alleged grant that the petitioner did not claim said lands, or any part thereof, by virtue of any right or title derived from the Spanish or Mexican government; that they wished to prove by said documents that said grant was void, for the reason that it was an attempted grant of mission lands reserved from and not subject to grant under the laws and regulations of the Mexican government, and that the facts stated in said petition and in said grant proved that said board liad no jurisdiction over the subject matter of said case, and that the decree confirming said claim was without jurisdiction and void.” Upon the objection of the plaintiff that this evidence was irrelevant, incompetent, and immaterial, it was excluded by the court. This ruling is claimed by the appellants to have been erroneous, and in support of their claim they contend that the only claims to land which the hoard of land commissioners had jurisdiction to pass upon were such as were “ by virtue of any right or title derived from the Spanish or Mexican government,” and that as the petition for confirmation showed that the claim was not by virtue of such right or title, the board had no jurisdiction over it, and that its decree of confirmation, as well as the patent issued thereon, were void, as being the acts of officers without authority over the subject matter upon which they acted; that it appears upon the face of the petition that the board of land commissioners had no jurisdiction in the matter, for the reason that at the date of the grant the governor of California had no authority to make a sale of this land. In support of the latter proposition appel