Louis Brandeis

“ It matters not how long a time elapsed before the error in making the overpayment was discovered or how long the attempt to recover it was deferred. The statute of limitations does not ordinarily run against the United States and would not present a bar to a suit for the amount. ”

“ To such a case the rule of long-continued construction has no application. The appellant must be held to have taken the road with notice of the burdens legally imposed upon it.
Second. If the road was land-aided, it is immaterial that the company which later carried the mail over it received none of the land and obtained no benefit from the grant. The obligation to carry mails at eighty per cent. of rates otherwise payable attached to the road like an easement or charge; and it affects every carrier who may thereafter use the railroad, whatever the nature of the tenure. ”

“ On November 1, 1864, he certified 6,428.68 acres, all but 97 40/100 acres of which lay east of Flint, for the company which was to build the line from Flint to Port Huron, the Port Huron & Milwaukee Railway Company. Neither company constructed its line nor received any patent for land. The rights of way and other property of the Port Huron & Milwaukee Railway Company passed through a foreclosure sale to the Port Huron & Lake Michigan Railroad Company ”

“ Kinsey, 45 Mich. 446, 8 N. W. 64 (1881) , that court held that an act of the Michigan Legislature passed May 14, 1877 (Laws 1877, No. 132) , which purported to ratify the patent, was inoperative so far as it concerned the lands west of Flint because it impaired rights reserved to the United States by the Act of June 3, 1856. Meanwhile, Congress had relinquished to Michigan, by joint resolution of March 3, 1879, No. ”