Southern Pac. R. Co. v. United States

This is an appeal from a deeree [ (D. C.) 43 F.(2d) 591 ] vacating a patent issued in January, ,1921, to the appellants by the United States government to the east one-half of the northeast one-quarter of section 35, Township 3 south, range 10 east, S. B. & M., an 80-acre tract in Riverside county, Cal. The trial eourt found that the patent therefor was issued inadvertently and through the error of a clerk,in the Land Office, who certified that the land was clear and subject to patent, whereas an appeal by the appellants herein, from a decision rendered by the register and receiver of the land office at El Centro, Cal., in February, 1920, that the land in question was in fact mineral land and therefore not subject to patent, was then pending before the Commissioner of the General Land Office. In April, 1921, after the issuance of the patent, the decision of the Land Office was affirmed by the Commissioner, and on appeal to the Secretary of the Interior was again affirmed. The decision of the trial court that the government has the right to maintain a suit to vacate a patent so issued is sustained in United States v. Stone, 14 Pet. (69 U. S.) 525, 10 L. Ed. 572 , and Germania Iron…