[suijuris]

When two patents interfere in part, and before possession is taken under the elder patent, the junior patentee enters on the land within the interference with an intention to take possession, he shall be considered to be in possession to the extent of his claim. Ellicott v Pearl, 35 US 412, 9 L Ed 475.





The act of recording a patent and a deed from the patentee has been held to be an act of ouster as against anyone else claiming the land. Walker v Easterling, 215 Miss 429, 61 So 2d 163, 39 ALR2d 348.





A contract to cause a conveyance of land to be made to the purchaser on payment of the purchase money and the issuance of a patent by the government to a railroad company is not within a statute providing for title by adverse possession by one entering under claim of right founded on a written instrument as being a conveyance of the land in question; and payment of the purchase price will not carry the adverse possession back to the time of entry. Central P. R. Co. v Tarpey, 51 Utah 107, 168 P 554, 1 ALR 1319.





If a patent for public land, after the transfer by the patentee of his right thereto, issues to the heirs of the transferor, they cannot successfully claim adverse possession under color of title. Cagle v Sabine Valley Timber & Lumber Co., 109 Tex 178, 202 SW 942, 6 ALR 1426.







§ 164 Patent; conveyance of or rights in public land [3 Am Jur 2d ADVERSE POSSESSION]

Whether a patent conveys a valid title or not, it divests the title of the United States, so that the statute of limitations begins to run in favor of the patentee or grantees of the patentee, they being in possession under claim and color of title; and whether an adverse possession under a claim of title is under a good or a bad, a legal or an equitable, title is immaterial insofar as it relates to the rights of all except the government. Color of title for purposes of adverse possession may be predicated on a patent, as between individuals, where the patent is void, or on invalid or imperfect instruments of conveyance of public lands after patent has issued. Thus, a receipt or a certificate of purchase sufficient on its face to convey the full equitable title to the entry person has been held to be color of title, even though the land was not subject to entry. The same has been held true of a deed from a person who was entitled to a patent; on confirmation by a board of commissioners; or on a warrant and survey, whether a patent has been subsequently granted or not. Confirmation of a Spanish land grant has also been held to be color of title. A wholly unauthorized grant of public land, however, that shows its invalidity on its face, has been held to be insufficient as the basis of a prescriptive title.



The general rule that title by adverse possession cannot be acquired against the nation or a state precludes a junior patentee from going behind the elder patent, or the elder patentee's right to a patent, for the purpose of giving color to possession by the junior patentee prior thereto, since the statute of limitations begins to run only on issuance of a patent. A junior patentee may go behind his own patent, however, and also behind the patent of the elder patentee, for the purpose of giving color to possession from, or subsequently to the granting of, the elder patent.





In a trespass to try title action brought by plaintiff seeking to recover a tract of land, the presumption of a grant doctrine would be applied to eliminate a gap in title from 1845, the date the first owner received a patent from the sovereign, to 1878, when a second party deeded the land to a third party, where, inter alia, there was no suggestion that a claim had ever been asserted by any purported heir or grantee of the first owner, and there was a series of sales and conveyances of the land in the plaintiff's chain of title which evidenced an assertion of ownership; a lost grant or conveyance would be presumed as a matter of law, notwithstanding the rule that such presumption is usually one of fact, where the deeds were ancient and the evidence was undisputed. Howland v Hough (Tex) 570 SW2d 876.







§ 345 --Public lands [23 Am Jur 2d DEEDS]

Although executed and delivered before location of the land, a deed transferring the rights of a holder of a land certificate operates to effect a conveyance of the land itself when located by the transferee, who is thereupon entitled to have the patent issued to him, and if the patent should issue to the transferor or his heirs, they have no right thereto, for by operation of the doctrine of estoppel the title inures to the benefit of the transferee. A quitclaim deed, however, has been held not to have the effect of passing title to land for which the releasor had merely filed an application to purchase from the state.







§ 1090 Real property actions [32A Am Jur 2d FEDERAL COURTS]

Where a complaint shows only that it involves a right to land granted under the laws or treaties of the United States, the case is not within federal question jurisdiction. It is insufficient to establish federal question jurisdiction by merely alleging that ownership or possession of land is claimed under a United States patent, since once a patent is issued, the incidents of ownership are, for the most part, matters of local property law to be vindicated in a local court. If the rule were otherwise, every suit to establish title to land in the states later admitted to the Union would arise under federal law, since all titles in such states are traceable to federal law. Consequently, the fact that land is held by title derived from the Federal Government has been held not to be a basis of federal question jurisdiction of a trespass, ejectment, or quiet-title suit concerning the land.



The situation is different where the outcome of the suit depends on the construction of federal law. Federal question jurisdiction exists where federal law controls the outcome of a real-property action, such as a possessory action seeking to enforce a federal right to possession governed wholly by federal law, or a suit whose outcome depends on the interpretation of the federal public land laws, railroad land grant statutes, reclamation statutes, or homestead laws. Federal question jurisdiction also exists in suits making substantial challenges under the Federal Constitution to state laws or municipal ordinances as to zoning or land use generally.







A covenant to convey land patented to the covenantor by the United States has been held to apply only to a patent from the United States directly. Davenport v Lamb, 80 US 418, 20 L Ed 655.







The jurisdiction of the United States Supreme Court extends to a review of the judgment of a state court involving the impairment of a contract granting a ferry right by the state to an individual, but the fact that more land was taken in an eminent domain proceeding for a ferry landing than was necessary does not introduce a question of the impairment of a contract obligation, within the rule which gives the United States Supreme Court jurisdiction to review a decision of a state court involving such a question, notwithstanding the land taken was held under a patent; it rests with the local government to protect its citizens from injustice or oppression of this nature. Mills v St. Clair County, 8 How (US) 569,





In a suit brought by the Federal Government to obtain the cancellation of a patent issued under the homestead laws, where the matter relied upon was that the entryman, at the time of submitting his application, falsely and fraudulently stated under oath that he was not then the proprietor of more than 160 acres of land, whereas in fact he was then the proprietor of 720 acres of land situated in the county where lay the land which was covered by the patent, it has been held that inasmuch as the entryman's title was of public record at the time the affidavit was made, the statute commenced to run at that time, since, said the court, "possession of the means of knowledge is tantamount to knowledge itself," and "one having reasonable opportunity at hand for knowing essential facts will not be heard to assert that they were unknown." United States v Christopher (CA10 Colo) 71 F2d 764, reh den 72 F2d 375.