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1920.

PAYNE v. CENTRAL PACIFIC R. CO.

lief sought herein in protection and preservation of its property rights.

Burfennings v. Chicago, St. P. M. & O. R. Co. 163 U. S. 321, 323, 41 L. ed. 175, 176, 16 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1018; Wirth v. Branson, 98 U. S. 118, 121, 25 L. ed. 86, 87; Lake Superior Ship Canal, R. & Iron Co. v. Cunningham, 155 U. S. 354, 372, 39 L. ed. 183, 189, 15 Sup. Ct. Rep. 103; St. Paul & S. C. R. Co. v. Winona & St. P. R. Co. 112 U. S. 720, 733, 28 L. ed. 872, 877, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 334.

Mr. Justice Van Devanter delivered the opinion of the court:

This is a suit to enjoin the Secretary of the Interior and the Commissioner of the General Land Office from canceling a selection of indemnity lands under a railroad land grant. The trial court dismissed the bill, and the court of appeals reversed that decree and directed that an injunction issue. 46 App. D. C. 374, Ann. Cas. 1918C, 1002. An appeal under § 250, 6, of the Judicial Code, brings the case here.

[232] The allegations of the bill were admitted by a motion to dismiss, upon which the defendants announced their purpose to stand; and the case as thus made is as follows:

By the Act of July 25, 1866, chap. 242, 14 Stat. at L. 239, a grant of public lands in California and Oregon was made "for the purpose of aiding in the construction" of a line of railroad from a point in Sacramento valley to Portland, "and to secure the safe and speedy transportation of the mails, troops, munitions of war, and public stores" over such line. The part of the grant in California was made to the California & Oregon Railroad Company, its successors and assigns, and the part in OrThe grant egon to another company. was in present terms,-"there be, and hereby is, granted,"-and was of "every alternate section of public land, not mineral, designated by odd numbers" within designated limits on each side of the line. With this was coupled a provision that "when any of said alternate sections or parts of sections shall be found to have been granted, sold, reserved, occupied by homestead settlers, pre-empted, or otherwise disposed of, other lands, designated as aforesaid, shall be selected by said companies in lieu thereof, under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, in alternate sections designated by odd numbers as aforesaid, nearest to and not more than ten miles beyond the limits of said firstnamed alternate sections." The line of

the road was to be definitely located by
filing a map with the Secretary of the
Interior; and the work of construction
was to be completed in sections of 20
miles within a time named, which was
extended to July 1, 1880, by an amend-
ment of June 25, 1868, chap. 80, 15 Stat.
at L. 80. The completion of each section
was to be ascertained and reported by
commissioners appointed by the Pres-
ident, whereupon patents for the lands
coterminous therewith were to be is-
sued. The railroad was to be and re-
main "a public highway for the use of
the government of the United States,
free of all toll or other charges" for the
transportation of [233] its property or
troops. An assent to the act on the part
of each grantee was to be filed within one
year after its passage.

The California & Oregon Railroad
Company duly assented to the act, def-
initely located its part of the line by
filing the required map, and constructed,
completed, and equipped that part of the
railroad within the extended time. The
completion was duly reported by the
In addition, that com-
commissioners and was recognized by
the President.
pany and its successors have complied
with the act in all other respects. The
Central Pacific Railway Company, the
plaintiff, became the legal successor of
that company in 1899, and holds its
rights, title, and interest under the
grant. The part of the road in Oregon
also was completed, but that is not of
present concern.

In the process of adjusting the grant it has developed that many of the designated sections in the place limits were lost to the grant by reason of other disposals, homestead settlements, and preemption claims antedating the definite location of the line of the road, thereby making it necessary to resort to the indemnity limits to satisfy the grant. The present ascertained losses amount to thousands of acres, and it is certain that further substantial losses will develop as the adjustment proceeds. As yet it is impossible to determine even approximately the total losses, because a material part of the grant is still unsurveyed; and this makes it uncertain whether all can be made good from the lands available for indemnity.

The lands in question were selected by means of an indemnity list filed in the local land office February 24, 1910, and the selection was in lieu of losses specified in the list which were actual and entitled the plaintiff to indemnity. The lands selected are in the indemnity limits

601

and admittedly nonmineral, and at the time of selection were such as could be selected to supply the losses specified. The list was accompanied by the requisite sustaining proofs, [234] and conformed in all respects to the regulations embodying the directions of the Secretary of the Interior upon the subject. The plaintiff paid the fees collectable thereon, and the local land officers approved the list, and promptly forwarded it and the accompanying proofs to the General Land Office, with the usual certificates and indorsements. It remained pending in that office until January 16, 1915, when the Commissioner ordered its cancelation solely on the ground that, in the meantime, the selected lands had been included in a temporary executive withdrawal for a water-power site under the Act of June 25, 1910, chap. 421, 36 Stat. at L. 847, Comp. Stat. § 4523, 8 Fed. Stat. Anno. 2d ed. p. 657. The plaintiff appealed to the Secretary of the Interior, and he affirmed the Commissioner's action. A reconsideration was sought and denied, and the plaintiff then brought this suit.

It is not questioned that, had the selection been reached for consideration before the withdrawal, it would have been the duty of the Commissioner and the Secretary to approve it and pass the lands to patent; nor that, if the withdrawal be not an obstacle, it still is their duty to do so. But it is insisted that, so long as the selection was without the Secretary's actual approval, it gave no right as against the government, and that the withdrawal, made while it was as yet unapproved, became a legal obstacle to its approval. In this there is an obvious misconception of the office and effect of the selection, and the misconception is particularly shown in the brief for the appellants, where the selection is treated as only a preliminary land application or filing. Counsel there say: "What is the effect, then, of the mere filing of an indemnity selection? Its only effect, we submit, is to give the selector a preference right to the land as against one tendering a filing thereafter."

Rightly speaking, the selection is not to be likened to the initial step of one who wishes to obtain the title to public land by future compliance with the law, but rather [235] to the concluding step of one who, by full compliance, has earned the right to receive the title. Referring to a similar grant and the relative obligations of the government and the grantee, it was said in Burke v. Southern P. R.

Co. 234 U. S. 669, 679, 680, 58 L. ed. 1527, 1544, 1545, 34 Sup. Ct. Rep. 907: "The act did not follow the building of the road, but preceded it. Instead of giving a gratuitous reward for something already done, the act made a proposal to the company to the effect that if the latter would locate, construct, and put into operation a designated line of railroad, patents would be issued to the company, confirming in it the right and title to the public lands falling within the descriptive terms of the grant. The purpose was to bring about the construction of the road, with the resulting advantages to the government and the public, and to that end provision was made for compensating the company, if it should do the work, by patenting to it the lands indicated. The company was at liberty to accept or reject the proposal. It accepted in the mode contemplated by the act, and thereby the parties were brought into such contractual relations that the terms of the proposal became obligatory on both. Menotti v. Dillon, 167 U. S. 703, 721, 42 L. ed. 333, 339, 17 Sup. Ct. Rep. 945. And when, by constructing the road and putting it in operation, the company performed its part of the contract, it became entitled to performance by the government. In other words, it earned the right to the lands described." And speaking specially of the right to indemnity lands under such a grant, it was said in United States v. Southern P. R. Co. 223 U. S. 565, 570, 56 L. ed. 553, 555, 32 Sup. Ct. Rep. 326: "What a railroad is to be indemnified for may be fixed as of the moment of the grant; but what it may elect when its right to indemnity is determined depends on the state of the lands selected at the moment of choice. Of course, the railroad is limited in choosing by the terms of the indemnity grant, but the so-called grant is rather to be described as a power. Ordinarily no color of title is gained until the power is exercised. When it is exercised in satisfaction of [236] a meritorious claim which the government created upon valuable consideration, and which it must be taken to have intended to satisfy (so far as it may be satisfied within the territorial limits laid down), it seems to us that lands within those limits should not be excluded simply because, in a different event, they would have been subject to a paramount claim."

The ultimate obligation of the government in respect of the indemnity lands is on the same plane as that respecting the lands in place. The only difference

1920.

PAYNE v. CENTRAL PACIFIC R. CO.

is in the mode of identification. Those
in place are identified by filing the map
of definite location, and the indemnity
lands by selections made in lieu of losses
in the place limits. St. Paul & S. C. R.
Co. v. Winona & St. P. R. Co. 112 U. S.
720, 731-733, 28 L. ed. 872, 876, 877, 5
Sup. Ct. Rep. 334; Southern P. R. Co.
v. Bell, 183 U. S. 675, 687, 46 L. ed. 383,
389, 22 Sup. Ct. Rep. 232. The selections
are to be made by the grantee, not by
the Secretary of the Interior. True, the
act provides that they shall be made
under the Secretary's direction, but this
merely applies to them the general rule,
announced in Rev. Stat. §§ 441, 453,
2478, Comp. Stat. §§ 681, 699, 5120, 3
Fed. Stat. Anno. 2d ed. p. 947, 8 Fed.
Stat. Anno. 2d ed. pp. 491, 862, that the
administrative execution of all public
land laws is to be under his "supervi-
sion" and "direction." Catholic Bishop
v. Gibbon, 158 U. S. 155, 166, 39 L. ed.
931, 936, 15 Sup. Ct. Rep. 779. Its pur-
pose is to make sure that, in accord with
that power of supervision and direction,
he is to see to it that the right of selec-
tion is not abused, that claims arising
out of prior settlement and the like are
not disturbed, that no indemnity is giv-
en except for actual losses of the class
intended, and that the lands selected are
such as are subject to selection. But
of course it does not clothe him with
any discretion to enlarge or curtail the
rights of the grantee, nor to substitute
his judgment for the will of Congress,
as manifested in the granting act.
Cornelius v. Kessel, 128 U. S. 456, 461,
32 L. ed. 482, 483, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 122;
Orchard v. Alexander, 157 U. S. 372,
383, 39 L. ed. 737, 741, 15 Sup. Ct. Rep.
635; Williams v. United States, 138 U.
S. 514, 524, 34 L. ed. 1026, 1031, 11 Sup.
Ct. Rep. 457; Daniels v. Wagner, 237 U.
S. 547, 557-561, 59 L. ed. 1102, 1106,
1107, L.R.A.1916A, 1116, 35 Sup. Ct.
Rep. 740, Ann. Cas. 1917A, 40; North-
ern P. R. Co. v. McComas, 250 [237] U.
S. 387, 392, 393, 63 L. ed. 1049, 1053,
The cases
1054, 39 Sup. Ct. Rep. 546.
cited as making for a different conclusion
respecting the Secretary's discretion were
examined, and that view of them reject-
ed, in Weyerhaeuser v. Hoyt, 219 U. S.
380, 387, 388, 55 L. ed. 258, 261, 262, 31
Sup. Ct. Rep. 300, and Daniels v. Wag-
ner, 237 U. S. 547, 557-561, 59 L. ed.
1102, 1106, 1107, L.R.A.1916A, 1116, 35
Sup. Ct. Rep. 740, Ann. Cas. 1917A, 40.
In the Weyerhaeuser Case it was held
the
that the authority conferred on
Secretary respecting the selection of in-
demnity lands "involved not only the

power, but implied the duty to determine
the lawfulness of the selections as of
the time when the exertion of the au-
thority was invoked by the lawful filing
of the list of selections."

As before shown, this indemnity selec-
tion was made in full compliance with
the directions promulgated by the Sec-
retary, was of lands subject to selection,
and was based on actual losses in the
place limits adequate to sustain it. The
railroad then had been constructed and
equipped as required by the granting
act, and nothing remained to be done by
the grantee or its successor to fulfil the
conditions of the grant and perfect the
right to a patent. The rule applicable in
such a situation is that "a person who
complies with all the requisites neces-
sary to entitle him to a patent for a
particular lot or tract is to be regarded
as the equitable owner thereof." Wirth
v. Branson, 98 U. S. 118, 121, 25 L. ed.
86, 87; Benson Min. & Smelting Co. v.
Alta Min. Co. 145 U. S. 428, 432, 36 L.
ed. 762, 764, 12 Sup. Ct. Rep. 877, 17
Mor. Min. Rep. 488. This rule has been
applied and enforced where the Sec-
retary, through an error of law, declined
to approve and give effect to lawful
selections, and certified the lands for
the use of another claimant,-the court
saying that the Secretary could not thus
deprive the selecting company of "rights
which became vested by its selection of
those lands." St. Paul & S. C. R. Co. v.
Winona & St. P. R. Co. 112 U. S. 720, 28
L. ed. 872, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 334.

The act under which the subsequent power-site withdrawal was made is confined to "public lands," a term uniformly regarded as not including lands to which rights have attached and become vested through full compliance [238] with an applicable land law. Newhall v. Sanger, 92 U. S. 761, 763, 23 L. ed. 769, 770; Minnesota v. Hitchcock, 185 U. S. 373, 391, 46 L. ed. 954, 964, 22 Sup. Ct. Rep. 650; United States v. Hemmer, 241 U. S. 379, 385, 386, 60 L. ed. 1055, 1057, 36 Sup. Ct. Rep. 659. Besides, to apply the act to the lands in question, lawfully earned and selected as they were, would work such an interference with private rights as plainly to require that it be construed as not including them. Wilcox v. Jackson, 13 Pet. 498, 513, 10 L. ed. 264, 271; Lytle v. Arkansas, 9 How. 314, 333, 335, 13 L. ed. 153, 160, 161; Sinking Fund Cases, 99 U. S. 700, 718, 719, 25 L. ed. 496, 501; United States v. Jin Fuey. Moy, 241 U. S. 394, 400, 60 L. ed. 1061, 1064, 36 Sup. Ct. Rep. 658, Ann. Cas. 1917D, 854.

603

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power of Congress

property

enemy

We are asked to say that this is a suit, Property Custodian the administration of against the United States, and therefore $ 7c of the act, including the power to not maintainable without its consent; determine, after investigation, whether but we think the suit is one to restrain property was enemy-owned. the appellants from canceling a valid indemnity selection through a mistaken conception of their authority, and thereby casting a cloud on the plaintiff's title. Ballinger v. United States, 216 U. S. 240, 54 L. ed. 464, 30 Sup. Ct. Rep. 338; Philadelphia Co. v. Stimson, 223 U. S. 605, 619, 620, 56 L. ed. 570, 576, 577, 32 Sup. Ct. Rep. 340; Lane v. Watts, 234 U. S. 525, 540, 58 L. ed. 1440, 1456, 34 Sup. Ct. Rep. 965.

Our conclusion is that, in giving effect to the withdrawal as against the prior selection, which admittedly was valid when made, the appellants departed from a plain official duty, and that to avoid the resulting injury to the plaintiff, for which no other remedy is available, an injunction should issue directing a disposal of the selection on its merits, unaffected by the withdrawal. Such an injunction, we think, is better suited to the occasion than that indicated by the Court of Appeals. In other respects the decree of that court is affirmed.

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War - enemy property-determination of Alien Property Custodian act of President.

seizure and sequestration. 3. Congress, in time of war, may authorize and provide for the seizure and sequestration, through executive channels, of property believed to be enemy-owned, if adequate provision be made for a return in case of mistake.

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power of Congress

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enemy seizure and sequestration

due process of law.

4. Shares of stock standing in the name of one who is neither an enemy nor an

ally of an enemy could, consistently with due process of law, be seized and required to be transferred to the Alien Property Custodian in virtue of a determination by that official in an ex parte administrative proceeding that they belonged to an alien enemy, conformably to the provisions of 6, 1917, since such act distinctly reserves the Trading with the Enemy Act of October to any claimant who is neither an enemy nor an ally of an enemy, a right to assert and establish his claim by a suit in equity, unembarrassed by the precedent executive determination, and provides that, pending the suit, which the claimant may bring as promptly after the seizure as he chooses, the property is to be retained by the Alien Property Custodian to abide the result, and, if the claimant prevails, is forthwith to be returned to him.

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enemy property seizure and sequestration right of claimant under pre-war contract.

5. No such an interest in shares of stock in a domestic corporation, which were seized by the Alien Property Custodian under the Trading with the Enemy Act of October 6, 1917, as the property of a German corporation, as entitles another domestic corporation in whose name the stock stands to demand that such shares be freed from the seizure, was given to the latter corporation by a pre-war contract between it and the German corporation, where such contract was not prompted by commercial motives, nor based on an estimate of mutual advantages, and was not intended as a genuine transaction, but was made to avoid inconvenience which otherwise might ensue from a state of war; the parties intending to leave the beneficial ownership in the German corporation, and not pass it to the domestic corporation. War enemy property seizure and sequestration treaty rights.

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2. A determination by the Alien Property Custodian that certain property is enemy-owned must be regarded as the act of the President, within the meaning of the Trading with the Enemy Act of October 6. Treaty provisions which relate only 6, 1917, in view of the provision of § 5 to the rights of merchants of either counof that act, authorizing the President to try, residing in the other when war arises, exercise any of the powers with which he are inapplicable to a controversy as to is invested by that act, respecting the whether the beneficial ownership of propsequestration, custody, and disposal of erty seized and proposed to be sold under enemy property through such officer or the Trading with the Enemy Act of October officers as he shall direct, and of the orders 6, 1917, as the property of a German corof the President, committing to the Alienporation, is in truth in an American cor

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York & N. H. R. Co. 13 N. Y. 627; Jellenik v. Huron Copper Min. Co. 177 U. S. 1, 44 L. ed. 647, 20 Sup. Ct. Rep. 559; Pendery v. Carleton, 30 C. C. A. 510, 59 U. S. App. 288, 87 Fed. 41; Brigham V. Mead, 10 Allen, 245; Lipscomb v. Condon, 56 W. Va. 416, 67 L.R.A. 670, 107 Am. St. Rep. 938, 49 S. E. 392; Francis v. New York & B. Elev. R. Co. 17 Abb. N. C. 1, affirmed in 108 N. Y. 93, 15 N. E. 192; Scripture v. Francestown Soapstone Co. 50 N. H. 571; Black v. Zacharie, 3 How. 483, 11 L. ed. 690; Johnson v. Underhill, 52 N. Y. 203; Booth v. Cleveland Rolling Mill Co. 74 N. Y. 15; Jones

Argued January 4 and 5, 1921. Decided v. Kent, 80 N. Y. 588, 3 Mor. Min.

February 28, 1921.

Rep. 190; New England Iron Co. v.
Gilbert Elev. R. Co. 91 N. Y. 165;

APPEAL from the District Court of Patterson v. Guardian Trust Co. 144

the United States for the Southern District of New York to review a decree which dismissed the bill in a suit to establish a claim to and prevent a sale of property seized by the Alien Property Custodian as enemy property. Affirmed. See same case below, 269 Fed. 827. The facts are stated in the opinion. Mr. Louis Marshall argued the cause, and, with Mr. Louis J. Vorhaus, filed a brief for the appellant:

By the terms of the agreement of February 20, 1917, Stoehr & Sons, Inc., the New York company, acquired at least the equitable title to the 14,900 shares of the capital stock of the Botany Worsted Mills, prior to that date belonging to Kammgarnspinnerei Stoehr & Co., Aktiengesellschaft, the Leipzig company, which are the subject-matter of that instrument.

Baldwin v. Humphrey, 44 N. Y. 609; Payne v. New South Wales Coal & Intercolonial Steam Nav. Co. 10 Exch. 283, 156 Eng. Reprint, 450, 24 L. J. Exch. N. S. 117; Barton v. McLean, 5 Hill, 256; Greene v. Creighton, 7 R. I. 8; Thornton v. Kelly, 11 R. I. 498; Rohr v. Baker, 13 Or. 350, 10 Pac. 627; Jones v. Williams, 139 Mo. 1, 37 L.R.A. 682, 61 Am. St. Rep. 436, 39 S. W. 486, 40 S. W. 353; Arnold v. Scharbauer, 116 Fed. 492; Leonard v. Marshall, 82 Fed. 396; Richardson v. Clements, 89 Pa. 503, 33 Am. Rep. 784; Bingham v. North American Ins. Co. 74 Wis. 498, 43 N. W. 494; Moran v. Standard Oil Co. 211 N. Y. 187, 105 N. E. 217; Wells v. New York C. R. Co. 24 N. Y. 181; Black's Law Dict. p. 180; 22 Am. & Eng. Enc. Law, 2d ed. p. 510; Creamer v. Metropolitan Securities Co. 120 App. Div. 422, 105 N. Y. Supp. 28; Grossman v. Schenker, 206 N. Y. 466, 100 N. E. 39; Mechanics' Bank v. New

V.

App. Div. 866, 129 N. Y. Supp. 807; Commercial Wood & Cement Co. Northampton Portland Cement Co. 115 App. Div. 393, 100 N. Y. Supp. 960; Horton v. Hall & C. Mfg. Co. 94 App. Div. 407, 88 N. Y. Supp. 73; Re White Plains Water Comrs. 71 App. Div. 550, 76 N. Y. Supp. 11; Genet v. Delaware & H. Canal Co. 136 N. Y. 593, 19 L.R.A. 127, 32 N. E. 1078; Butler v. Thomson, 92 U. S. 412, 23 L. ed. 684; Simon v. Etgen, 213 N. Y. 589, 107 N. E. 1066; Wing_v. Ansonia Clock Co. 102 N. Y. 534, 7 N. E. 621; Stewart v. Griffith, 217 U. S. 323, 54 L. ed. 782, 30 Sup. Ct. Rep. 528, 19 Ann. Cas. 639; Western U. Teleg. Co. v. Brown, 253 U. S. 101, 64 L. ed. 803, 40 Sup. Ct. Rep. 460; Grymes v. Hone, 49 N. Y. 17, 10 Am. Rep. 313; Harvey v. Stowe, 134 C. C. A. 635, 219 Fed. 22, affirmed in 241 U. S. 199, 60 L. ed. 953, 36 Sup. Ct. Rep. 541; Chemical Nat. Bank v. Colwell, 132 N. Y. 250, 30 N. E. 644; Robinson v. National Bank, 95 N. Y. 642; Travis v. Knox Terpezone Co. 215 N. Y. 259, L.R.A.1916A, 542, 109 N. E. 250, Ann. Cas. 1917A, 387; Re George Ringler & Co. 145 App. Div. 375, 130 N. Y. Supp. 62; Broadway Bank v. McElrath, 13 N. J. Eq. 24, affirmed in Hunterdon County Bank v. Nassau Bank, 17 N. J. Eq. 496; Locke v. Farmers' Loan & T. Co. 140 N. Y. 135, 35 N. E. 578; American Nat. Bank v. Oriental Mills, 17 R. I. 551, 23 Atl. 795; Briggs v. United States, 143 U. S. 346, 36 L. ed. 180, 12 Sup. Ct. Rep. 391; Simmons v. Swift, 5 Barn. & C. 857, 108 Eng. Reprint, 319, 8 Dowl. & R. 693, 5 L. J. K. B. 10, 29 Revised Rep. 438; Gilmour v. Supple, 11 Moore, P. C. C. 551, 14 Eng. Reprint, 803, 6 Week. Rep. 445; Willis v. Willis, 6 Dana, 48.

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