Security Land & Exploration Co. v. Burns

after making the foregoing statement of facts, delivered the opinion of the court.

The land in controversy in this case is- described in the foregoing statement of facts, and it lies between the meander line as 'it appears on the plat of the survey referred to in the patents and the actual borders of the lake. (See the sketch of the plat at page 43 of volume 189, United States Reports.) Regarding the question of the boundaries, counsel for plaintiff in error assert in their brief -that if distance is to prevail, then the land in controversy is an unsurveyed strip lying between the lots of the plaintiff in eri’or and the lake; while if the natural monument is to prevail, then the strip of land in controversy is part and parcel of the lots of the plaintiff in error. The boundaries of-'the lots as shown upon the plat of survey giving' the so-called meander line of the lake, described in the'field notes, are unquestionably correct, so far as the three sides of-, the fractional lots are concerned,, and the only difference is as to the side which purports to front on the lake. In regard to. this fourth side, the plaintiff in error,-as a remote grantee from ■the' patentees, bases its claim to'the land lying between the

In support of these contentions the plaintiff in error cited. Cragin v. Powell, 128 U. S. 691 , and Jefferis v. East Omaha Land Co., 134 U. S. 178 , 194, as to the effect of a grant according to an official plat of a survey referred to in the grant, and the cases of Mclver’s Lessee v. Walker (1815), 9 Cranch, 173 ; Newsom v. Pryor’s Lessee (1822), 7; Wheat. 7; County of St. Clair v. Lovingston (1874), 23 Wall. 46 ; Land Company v. Saunders (1880), 103 U. S. 316 ) and other cases, affirming the. general rule that, in matters of boundaries, natural monuments or objects will control courses and distances.

These general rules may be admitted. The rule -as to natural monuments is not, however, absolute and inexorable. It is founded upon the presumed intention of the parties, to be gathered from the language contained in the grantr and upon - the assumption that the description by monuments approaches accuracy within some reasonable distance, and places the monument somewhere near where it really exists. White v. luning, 93 U. S. 514 ; Ainsa v. United States, 161 U. S. 208 , 229; Baldwin v. Brown, 16 N. Y. 359 ; Buffalo &c. Railroad Company v. Stigeler, 61 N. Y. 348 ; Higinbotham v. Stoddard, 72 N. Y. 94 ;

It is well to see what the facts in this case were upon which the state court founded its decision. They are set forth in detail in the foregoing statement of facts, but a few of the more important may be here referred to.

■ There was, in truth, no such survey as was called for by the contract between the government and the surveyor. The exterior lines, with the exception of the south line of the township, were run, but no survey of the interior of the township was ever made and no section lines thereof were ever run, with one possible exception, and in truth the survey-as a whole was a'jfraud. ■ No such body of water at the place indicated on the plat of survey then existed or now exists. On the contrary, the lake is from half a mile to a mile away from what is called

The patentees, it must also be borne in mind, get all the land they really purchased and paid for, as laid down by the lines and distances set forth in the survey and as stated in the patents. These lines and distances (of lots 3, 5, 6-and 7) gave the patentees 140.87 acres of land, and that was the amount they paid for, while if the fourth line of the boundary of the lots were taken out and others substituted in the way shown by the dotted lines in the plat in 189 U. S. supra, and so as to reach the borders of the lake as it then actually existed and now exists, they would get 571 acres, or fourfold more land than was actually mentioned and described in the.patents conveying these four lots, or than they supposed they were purchasing, or than they actually paid for.

Upon these facts the question recurs whether the patentees

The fraudulent’character of the survey, the non-existence of the lake within at least half a mile of the point indicated on the plat, the excessive amount of land claimed as compared with that which was described and stated in the patents and actually purchased and paid for, the difficulty in reaching the lake at all, and the. necessity in order to do it of going outside of section 4, (with the exception as to a small part of lot 7,) the section in which the description and plat placed all the land, all go to show that the lake ought not to be regarded as a natural -monument within the cases, or within the principle upon which the rule is founded, and therefore the courses and distances by which the amount of land actually purchased and paid for was-determined, ought to prevail.

The non-existence of a lake anywhere near the spot indicated on the plat is a strong reason for regarding the so-called meander line as one of boundary instead of a true meander line, and when the plat itself is the result of a gross fraud, and indeed is entirely founded "upon it, the reason for refusing to recognize the lake as a boundary becomes apparent.

The land actually purchased and paid for was conveyed and covered by the description by courses and distances set forth in the'field notes and referred to in-the patents, and the government is concluded as to such land, but the implication of a boundary by the lake as delineated on the plat of survey, which might otherwise be made, will not be permitted when it is based upon such facts' as have been already adverted to in this case. Giving the patentees all the land in acres, stated in the patents.and described and contained in lines and dis

As is said in the trial court in this case, there must be' some limit to the length courts will go .in search of the water delineated on a plat of survey, with a meander line shown thereon. If the water were ten miles away, it is certain that a claim to be bounded thereon would not for one moment be admitted* A distance of half a mile, enough to plainly show the gross error .of the survey, together with the other facts adverted to herein, are sufficient.to justify a refusal to apply the general rule that a meander line is not usually one of boundary.

Nor in such case is it necessary to go into equity to reform the patent. Where the patentee has in fact' received and is in possession of all the land actually described in the lines and distances, and is seeking for more on the theory that his plat of survey carries him to the water, a denial of that claim upon such facts as appear here is well founded, and requires no reformation of the patent. It is simply a question of boundary, and it is a legal defence, it is but a denial that the land claimed is in fact included in the patent as it exists, and no aid of a court of equity is necessary to sustain such a defence.

We think French-Glenn Live Stock Company v. Springer, 185 U. S. 47 , is authority which calls for the affirmance of this judgment. In that case the plaintiff claimed under patents' from the United States, which Referred to the official plats of the survey, and by which it appeared the township was rendered fractional by abutting upon the meander line along the south side of Malheur Lake,- which plat appeared to have been approved by the Land Department of the government, and the plat showed the lots as bounded “north by the meander line of Malheur Lake.” The field notes of the survey of the' exterior boundaries of the township and its subdivisions and the meander line of Malheur Lake itself, under the title heading “Meanderings of the south shore .of Malheur Lake through fractional township 26,” etc., indicated that it was run “with

“The land in dispute, in the possession of the defendant in error, was not included within the lines of the original survey, nor in the description of the lots contained in the patents and in the deeds of conveyance under which the plaintiff in error holds, and to add the land in controversy to the lots so de-. scribed would more than double the area of the land claimed by the plaintiff in error; but the contention of the plaintiff in

“While it may be conceded that the description of the lots contained in the survey, plats and patents are conclusive as against the government and holders of homesteads, so far as the lands actually described and granted are concerned, such conclusive presumption cannot be held to extend to lands not included within the lines of the survey, and which are only claimed because of the alleged existence of a lake or body, of water bounding said lots, whose recession has left bare land accruing to the owners of the abutting lots. We agree with the Supreme Court of Oregon in thinking that the question whether, the northern boundary of the lots of the plaintiff in error was an existing lake, the recession of whose waters would leave the bed of the lake, thus laid bare, to accrue to the owner of the lots, was a question of fact which was not concluded by a mere call for a meander line. If, indeed, there had been a lake in front of these lots at the time of the survey, which lake had subsequently receded from the platted meander lines, the claim of the owner of the lots to the ipcrement thus occasioned might be conceded to be good, if such were the law of the State in which the lapds were situated. But if there never was such a lake — no water forming an actual and visible boundary — on the north end of the lots, it would' seem unreasonable, either to prolong the side lines of the survey indefinitely until the lake should be found, or to change the situs of the lots laterally in order to adapt it to a neighboring lake. The jury having found that the facts under this issue were as claimed by the defendant in error, the conclusion mu^t be that the rights of the plaintiff in error must be regarded as existing within the actual lines and distances laid down in the survey and to the extent of the acreage called for in the patents, and

In the above cited case the important point to be considered is that the court refused to be bound by the appearance on the plat of survey showing a meander line of the lake when the fact was found by the jury (and exists in this case) that at the time of the survey there was no such lake existing at any point near where it appeared to be on the plat, and that under those circumstances a meander line appearing on the plat would be and was regarded as a line of boundary to the exclusion of what was claimed to be a natural object, namely, the lake itself.

It is not important that the plaintiff’s claim was founded upon the allegation that the land there in question was the result of a subsidence of the water of the lake, and that he was, therefore, entitled to such land by reason of accretion. The point lies in the fact that what appeared as a meander line on the plat.was treated as a boundary line and the lake was- held, not to be such boundary, for the reasons stated in the opinion. Those reasons exist in' full force in this case, only hero the disparity between the amount of land conveyed and paid for and the amount now claimed is double.that stated in the case cited. Mr. Justice Shiras in the course of his opinion, refers to other cases in this court as authority for the proposition that a meander line may be in some cases a line of boundary limiting the land conveyed or described by the line itself, and not by any body of water. See Niles v. Cedar Point Club, 175 U. S. 300 , 308; Horne v. Smith, 159 U. S. 40 . Upon this subject it was well said by the State Supreme Court in this casé as follows:

“The official plat was only intended to be a picture of the actual conditions on the ground; but the fraudulent mistake in the plat in this case was so gross that no man actually viewing .the premises could possibly be misled; or believe that the shore line of the lake was intended as the boundary line of the lots. He would understand át once that the meander line

“This case, then, is one where the call for the natural monument, the lake, must be disregarded; for the admitted facts show that it is an impossible call, and that, if it is rejected, the courses and distances and the meander line will exactly close, and give to the plaintiff the precise quantity of land bought from the government and paid for. It falls within the ■rule that a meander line is not,, as a general proposition, a boundary line; yet the boundaries of fractional lots will not be indefinitely extended where they appear by the government plat to abut on a body of water which in fact has never existed at substantially the’place indicated on the plat. In such exceptional cases, the supposed meander line will, if ■consistent with the other calls and distances indicated on the plat, mark the limits of -ffhe survey, and be held to be the boundary line' of the land it delimits.”

That this was a fraudulent survey cannot be denied. Still, .the government is concluded by such survey, so far as the lands actually described, granted and paid for are concerned, but it will not be concluded in regard to other lands, which were not within the lines of the survey, and which are only claimed because of the alleged existence of a lake or body of water bounding said lots, when such lake or body of water is in fact and always has been 'more than half a mile away from such lots, and where the patentee has received all the land that he actually paid for.

It appears from the various reports of the case of Kirwan v. Murphy, cited by plaintiff in error, that the government was intending to make a survey of that portion of this township lying between the alleged meander line and the actual lake, as unsurveyed land,' when certain grantees of patentees of lots, which by the plat of survey bounded on the lake, commenced proceedings to obtain an injunction -to prevent what was alleged .would be a resurvey. The case is first reported in 83 Fed. Rep. 275 , where thé opinion of the Circuit Court of Ap

For the reasons we have stated, we cannot concur in the conclusions of the lower Federal courts, that the patentees had the right to bound their lots by the lake as it actually existed.' The judgment is

Affirmed.