Stephen Johnson Field

Name: Hornsby v. United States — Opinion of the Court
Author: Stephen Johnson Field

Hornsby v. United States — Opinion of the Court

Summary

“Hornsby v. United States — Opinion of the Court”, is a work by Stephen Johnson Field. It explores elements such as grantees, the United States and Mexican.

Quotes from Hornsby v. United States — Opinion of the Court (Stephen Johnson Field)

Stephen Johnson Field, Hornsby v. United States — Opinion of the Court

“ According to the regulations of 1828, the authority to make grants of land in California was lodged solely with the governor. It was not shared by him with the assembly. That body only possessed the power to approve or disapprove of grants made by him. Until such approval the estate granted was subject to be defeated. With such approval the grant became, as it was termed in the regulations, 'definitively valid,' that is, it ceased to be defeasible, and the estate was no longer liable to be divested, except by proceedings for breach of its other conditions. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Stephen Johnson Field, Hornsby v. United States — Opinion of the Court

“ There having been no forfeiture of the grantees' interest in the present case, nor any such disregard of the conditions annexed to their grant as to have justified a forfeiture, the claimants under the grant are entitled to a confirmation. The interest which passed by the grant, whether it be regarded as a legal title, imperfect in its character, and to be perfected by a subsequent official survey and segregation of the quantity designated, or as a mere equitable or inchoate title, constituted property which the United States were bound to protect by the stipulations of the treaty of cession. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Stephen Johnson Field, Hornsby v. United States — Opinion of the Court

“ It is also true that the regulations provided that the governor, upon receiving a petition for land, should proceed to obtain the necessary information as to the qualifications of the petitioner and the character of the land. But they did not prescribe any particular mode by which this information should be acquired. It might have been obtained by the governor from his own investigations, or he might, as stated in the regulations, if that course were preferred, consult the appropriate municipal authority, which was that of the district, whether any objection existed to making the grant. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Stephen Johnson Field, Hornsby v. United States — Opinion of the Court

“ The objection applies only to the period intervening between the date of the grant, and the time when the country passed under the jurisdiction of the United States. The question is, what right did the grantees acquire in the land from the Mexican authorities. The court cannot inquire into any acts or omissions by them since those authorities were displaced. It is not authorized to pronounce a forfeiture for anything done, or anything omitted by them since that period. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Stephen Johnson Field, Hornsby v. United States — Opinion of the Court

“ The grant here, like the one in the Fremont case, is a grant by quantity. It was made under the same law and regulations, and like that, was subject to the approval of the departmental assembly, and has certain conditions annexed. It was issued to Luis Arenas and John Roland, on the sixth of May, 1846, by the then governor of California. A petition for the land had been presented by them to him on the fifth of May, and the same day he made an order on its margin directing a decree of concession, and the issue of a grant to the parties. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Stephen Johnson Field, Hornsby v. United States — Opinion of the Court

“ They have usually designated the land ceded by the general name of the valley or locality where situated, with a clause annexed that the concession was limited to the specific quantity mentioned, and that the magistrate of the vicinage, of whom possession was to be solicited, should cause the same to be surveyed, and that any surplus existing should be reserved for the use of the nation. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Stephen Johnson Field, Hornsby v. United States — Opinion of the Court

“ When the first grand of this kind was presented for the consideration of this court, in the Fremont case, [2] which was for ten leagues within a tract of much greater extent, it was objected that the grant was void for uncertainty of description, and that no interest passed to the grantee until the quantity was surveyed and severed by known boundaries from the public domain ”

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Source: Wikisource

Stephen Johnson Field, Hornsby v. United States — Opinion of the Court

“ And this court, in deciding the Fremont case, observed in reference to this case of Rutherford v. Greene's Heirs, that 'it recognizes as a general principle of justice and municipal law, that such a grant for a certain quantity of land by the governments, to be afterwards surveyed and laid off within a certain territory, vests in the grantee a present and immediate interest. In the language of the court, the general gift becomes a particular gift when the survey is made ”

Stephen Johnson Field

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