Stephen Johnson Field

“ But this rule applies only to those cases where the patent has been in fact executed, and the authority of the officers to issue the same was complete. In such cases the impeachment must be by pleadings setting up the specific acts which, it is alleged, vitiate and defeat the instrument. It is always open to show that an instrument produced in evidence, whether in an action at law or in a suit in equity in support of a claim or defense, was never executed by the person whose signature it bears, but that it is a simulated and forged document ”

“ It always imports that the government conveys, or has previously conveyed, interests in the lands,-something which it at the time owns, or its predecessor once owned. And by the proceedings previous to its issue there is created in the claimant an equitable right to the conveyance of the legal title, or his right to such title is so established that he can enforce it against others who, with notice of his claims, may have obtained the patent. ”

“ It is true, the omission of the signature of the acting secretary of the interior to the instrument issued to the complainants Marsh and Lefever was not a mere clerical error, but an omission of a signature essential to the creation of the instrument as a patent, being in that respect like the omission of a grantor's name to a deed. A clerical error, as its designation imports, is an error of a clerk or a subordinate officer in transcribing or entering an official proceeding ordered by another. ”

“ But we have no doubt that the power of the department, to prevent the consequences of inadvertences and mistakes in its officers, extends so far as to remedy an omission like the one under consideration. ”

“ The position that an accounting for profits earned subsequently could be claimed in this suit is not tenable. An accounting for such profits after suit can be demanded only where the infringement complained of took place previously, and continued afterwards. ”