Romero

This is an appeal from a judgment in an action at law in ejectment in which the appellant, administrator of the estate of Maria Dorotea Alanis de Romero, seeks to establish his right to possession of land situated in the county of Los Angeles, state of California. Appellant’s case rests upon a claimed Mexican title vesting in his intestate as the alleged owner of the one-half community interest of her mother in the land in question.

The title of the appellee, defendant below, rests upon a patent from the United States made to certain persons, Wilson and Sanford, who had acquired a Mexican title to the property prior to March 3, 1851. They had had it adjudicated as conveying a valid title to them under the Land Commission Act of that date, the patent being issued pursuant to the provisions of the statute after the adjudication. The title so acquired by Wilson and Sanford was by mesne conveyances transferred to the Holmby Corporation, which, in turn, trans *333 ferred portions of the land in question to the appellee.

Dorotea failed to file any claims before the Commission created by the Act of March 3, 1851 ( 9 Stat. 631 ), and the first question presented by the appeal is whether…