Stephen Johnson Field

“ The provision of the fifteenth section of the act of March 3d, 1851, declaring that the final decrees of the commissioners, or of the District Court, and patents following them, in these California land cases, shall be conclusive between the United States and the claimants only, and shall not affect the interests of third persons, does not change the operation of this general rule. Final decrees in other judicial proceedings affecting the title to property, are not conclusive except between the parties; they bind only them and their privies ”

“ In March, 1858, the legislature of the State ratified and confirmed the ordinance; and in July, 1864, Congress passed an act by which all the right and title of the United States to the lands were granted to the city of San Francisco, for the uses specified in the ordinance. [2] The party through whom the defendants claim was in the actual possession of the premises in controversy at the time designated in the ordinance, and also on the passage of the confirmatory act of the legislature, and therefore acquired whatever right or title the city then possessed. ”

“ The object of the section was to give to lotholders deriving title from a common source-from the authorities of a pueblo or town, or from an individual who was originally the grantee of the land upon which the pueblo or town is situated-the benefit of the examination by the board of the general title under which they hold, and relieve the commissioners from the necessity of considering a multitude of separate claims for small tracts depending upon the validity of the same original title. ”