Clara Armstrong v. Stewart Udall, Secretary of the Interior

This is an appeal from an order dismissing plaintiff-appellant’s complaint.

The complaint alleges that plaintiff’s predecessor, William Trauger, on March 31, 1894 received a patent to the Northeast quarter of Section nine in Township seventeen South of Range twenty nine East of Mount Diablo Meridian in California, containing one hundred sixty acres (description from patent), pursuant to a homestead entry; that Trauger “located on the east fork of the Kaweah River, which is shown on the original plat” to flow through the Northeast quarter of Section nine. Plaintiff and her husband (now deceased) purchased a portion of the land in 1955. It is alleged further that in 1920 and 1935 the defendant resurveyed the land which Trauger had entered and which plaintiff now occupies and declared the land to be within a new section, denominated section 38; that in June of 1968 “defendant, through his agents, servants and employees advised plaintiff that they claim an interest in such property on behalf of the United States”; that the claim is “made without any authority whatsoever”; and that the original entryman and his successors in interest are entitled to a patent covering the land actually…