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I actually saw a tax protestor at a tax foreclosure hearing who didn't want to pay property taxes ... and he got into this ucc-redemption / land-patent stuff ... not surprisingly, the guy had no clue what he was doing (and it was painfully obvious that the guy had no clue what his papers actually said ... as someone clearly told him what to write).
Here's another example of what not to do ... don't attempt to grant yourself some sort of land patent.
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607 F.Supp. 536, 2 Fed.R.Serv.3d 356
United States District Court,
N.D. Indiana,
Fort Wayne Division.
Arnold W. HILGEFORD and Martha A. Hilgeford, Plaintiffs,
v.
The PEOPLES BANK, PORTLAND, INDIANA, Defendant.
Civ. No. F 85-154.
April 19, 1985.
WILLIAM C. LEE, District Judge.
This matter is before the court on its sua sponte analysis of the complaint filed in this cause. For the following reasons, this cause will be dismissed on the court's own motion.
Plaintiffs are proceeding pro se. Pro se pleadings are to be liberally construed. Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 92 S.Ct. 594, 30 L.Ed.2d 652 (1972). The district court's role is to ensure that the claims of pro se litigants are given “fair and meaningful consideration.” Matzker v. Herr, 748 F.2d 1142, 1146 (7th Cir.1984); Caruth v. Pinkney, 683 F.2d 1044, 1050 (7th Cir.1982). This court also recognizes that federal courts have historically exercised great tolerance to ensure that an impartial forum remains available to plaintiffs invoking the jurisdiction of the court without the guidance of trained counsel. Pro se motions and complaints such as the plaintiffs' are held to less stringent pleading requirements; rigor in the examination of such motions, complaints and pleadings is inappropriate.
This is the second action filed by plaintiffs against this defendant within the last two weeks. The first action, Hilgeford v. The Peoples Bank, No. F 85-142, was dismissed by this court for lack of jurisdiction in an order dated April 11, 1985. This court ruled in that order that the basis of jurisdiction preffered in the complaint failed to allege any federal question, and that diversity jurisdiction failed because both the plaintiffs and the defendant are citizens of Indiana. With knowledge of the court's April 11, 1985 ruling, plaintiffs filed this cause, which is nearly identical to the first cause, except that the plaintiffs have made reference to federal constitutional and statutory provisions in an apparent attempt to bolster jurisdiction.
The essence of both No. F 85-142 and this cause is that plaintiffs seek to quiet title to certain real property located in Portland, Indiana. The plaintiffs claim superior title to the property by virtue of a *538 “Land Patent” which they drafted and signed themselves and recorded with the Recorder of Deeds in Jay County, Indiana. The defendant bank had apparently made a loan to the plaintiffs, and secured the loan via a mortgage on the property. The bank filed a foreclosure action, and on April 10, 1985, had the plaintiffs evicted from the property. Plaintiffs seek to have the title to the property and the interests of the parties determined in this court, and the defendant bank enjoined from asserting any rights in the land.
[1] Link to KeyCite Notes The alleged bases for jurisdiction are article IV, section 3, clause 2 of the United States Constitution, and an Act of Congress of April 24, 1820, 3 Stat. 566. Article IV, § 3, cl. 2 gives Congress the power to “dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States ···,” and the Act of Congress of April 24, 1820 was the statute enacted by which the government apparatus for disposing of public lands via issuance of land patents was created. However, neither of these provisions are implicated here. These provisions, and the current statutory machinery for land patents set out at 43 U.S.C. § 1, et seq., are for land patents to public lands of the United States. These provisions allow the United States to grant title to public land to private individuals, thereby creating private title in the patent holder, and extinguishing title in the United States. The “patent” involved here is not a grant by the United States; it is a grant by the plaintiffs. The “patent” here is not a grant to some other holder so as to pass title on to another party; it is a self-serving document whereby the plaintiffs grant the patent to themselves. This “patent” does not involve or concern “public land;” it relates to plaintiffs' private property. The court cannot conceive how these federal provisions are implicated here, and thus federal question jurisdiction is absent.
[2] Link to KeyCite Notes Of course, the purported “land patent” in this case fails for reasons independent of jurisdiction. As was noted before, the “land patent” attached to plaintiffs' various filings is a grant of a land patent from the plaintiffs to the plaintiffs. It is, quite simply, an attempt to improve title by saying it is better. The court cannot conceive of a potentially more disruptive force in the world of property law than the ability of a person to get “superior” title to land by simply filling out a document granting himself a “land patent” and then filing it with the recorder of deeds. Such self-serving, gratuitous activity does not, cannot and will not be sufficient by itself to create good title.
The blatant insufficiency of the “patent” is evident when it is compared to the copy of a land patent attached to the plaintiffs' “Motion Barring Action of Ejectment.” That copy, which is apparently of the original land patent for part of the property which is the subject matter of this cause, bears the signature of the President of the United States by his appointed Secretary of the Interior. It is clearly a grant from the United States to a private citizen (one Reuben Montgomery). Plaintiffs' “land patent” is obviously insufficient when compared to this valid patent.
Finally, the court acknowledges the plaintiffs' fifty-one page “Memorandum of Law,” which sets out a lengthy history of land ownership principles in England and the United States. This Memorandum is irrelevant to the issues raised by this suit. The plaintiffs apparently granted the defendant bank a right in the property by mortgaging the property, and gave the bank the contractual right to foreclose on the property in case of default. The filing of the purported “land patent,” and then the filing of these two lawsuits to quiet title, after the creation of the bank's mortgage interests, smacks of bad faith attempts to interfere with the defendant's contractual and property rights.
Because this cause constitutes the third quiet title suit filed in this court within the past month on the basis of a most identical self-serving land patents (two of which were filed by these same plaintiffs), the court fears that other such suits will be *539 filed unless a signal is sent that this court will not tolerate such obviously frivolous suits based upon documents which on their very face are legal nullities.
[Court then goes on to analyze sanction provisions and impose sanctions on the poor soul].
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