73 P. 436 | Cal. | 1903
Actions to quiet title.
Monterey at the date of the cession of California to the United States was a Mexican pueblo, and, by special concession from the Spanish crown, was entitled to more than the four square leagues of land generally allotted to pueblos. The city of Monterey was incorporated by an act of the legislature of this state, of date March 30, 1850, (Stats. 1850, p. *545
131,) and thereunder succeeded to all the legal rights and claims of the former pueblo to its pueblo lands. On March 2, 1853, said city, by its attorney, D.R. Ashley, duly retained for that purpose by the city, presented to the United States board of land commissioners its petition praying for a confirmation of the pueblo grant to the pueblo of Monterey, and a decree was made accordingly on January 22, 1856, confirming its title. An appeal was taken from this decree by the United States, which appeal was on June 16, 1858, dismissed, with leave to the city to proceed upon the commissioners' decree as a final decree of confirmation. In 1857 the original act incorporating the city of Monterey was amended, and by section 7 thereof it was provided as follows: "The trustees may also pay for the expenses of prosecuting the title of the city before the United States land commissioners and before the United States courts, and for that purpose may sell and transfer any property, right, or franchise, upon such terms and for such price as may by them be deemed reasonable." (Stats. 1857, p. 55.) On January 24, 1859, said Ashley presented to the trustees of the city of Monterey a claim amounting to $991.50 for services as its attorney in presenting such pueblo claim to the commissioners. The claim was approved and allowed, and, there being no funds in the treasury to pay it, the board of trustees passed a resolution directing that a sale of all the pueblo lands of the city, or so much of them as might be necessary to pay the claim of said Ashley, be made at public auction on the ninth day of February, 1859. Due notice of the time for holding said sale was given, and the same was held at the time and in accordance with the notice, at which sale the entire pueblo tract was bid in by the said D.R. Ashley and the defendant, David Jacks, for the sum of $1,002.50, being the amount of the indebtedness and the necessary expenses of sale; no one offering to purchase less than the whole, or bid a higher amount. Thereafter said trustees made, executed, and delivered a conveyance of said lands, dated February 9, 1859, but acknowledged February 12, 1859, in favor of said D.R. Ashley and the defendant, David Jacks, and in the conveyance the proceedings taken by the trustees in the matter of such sale were recited. This conveyance was recorded in the county recorder's office of the *546
county of Monterey, June 11, 1859. On April 2, 1866, the act to incorporate the city of Monterey was amended to read as follows: "Sec. 2. All sales and conveyances made by the corporate authorities of said city since the eighth day of February, 1859, and which conveyances purport to have been recorded in the county recorder's office of Monterey County, purporting to convey public lands, or lands confirmed to said city of Monterey, in pursuance of the act of Congress of March 3, 1851, (
During the trial below it was proven by production of the records of deeds from the office of the county recorder of Monterey County that between February 7, 1859, a few days prior to the execution of the deed in question, and the second day of April, 1866, the date of the passage of the act, there was no record of any other conveyance by the corporate authorities of said city, purporting to convey any of the pueblo lands of the city of Monterey, other than the conveyance to said Ashley and Jacks.
The patent of the United States to the city of Monterey was issued November 19, 1891, and includes the land in controversy, to quiet its title to which the plaintiff shortly afterwards brought these suits. There are two cases submitted upon this appeal, and they will be both disposed of in this opinion. They are precisely similar; the parties are identical; each is an action to quiet title; both depend upon the same facts and present the same propositions of law, and differ only as to the amount of land involved in each. Judgment in both cases went for the defendant in the court below, and on this appeal it is contended on behalf of the appellant, — 1. That the trustees of the city of Monterey had no power under the charter to sell or convey the entire pueblo lands, or any considerable portion thereof, as a whole, and that the sale to Ashley and defendant, Jacks, was therefore void; 2. That the persons purporting to act as trustees of the city of Monterey, and who executed the deed to Ashley and defendant, were never trustees of the city; 3. That the act of April 2, 1866, did not ratify or purport to ratify the *547 sale or deed in question; and 4. That the legislature had no power to ratify or validate that transaction. Errors are also assigned to rulings of the court on the admission of evidence.
The principal point in this case is relative to the power and control of the legislature over the lands of the pueblos to which municipalities created by the legislature succeeded.
There is no doubt but that by the statute of 1857, amending the charter of the city of Monterey, that municipality was authorized to make some sale or transfer of its property for the very purpose for which it appears the conveyance in question was made, because it is recited in the amended charter that for such purpose the trustees may sell and transfer any property, right, or franchise, upon such terms as may by them be deemed reasonable. That this sale was attempted to be made, and all the proceedings were regularly taken under that provision of the charter, is unquestionable, and certainly they were empowered to make a sale of at least some portion of the lands. If they had done this, there could hardly arise any question as to the validity of such a transaction.
It is insisted by the attorney for the respondent that this sale under such charter provision was valid, independent of any confirmatory act of the legislature. As this, however, involves the power of the legislature to authorize such a sale, which appellant denies, the whole subject will have to be examined, both as to the original and confirmatory power of the leglislature over pueblo lands, and we simply here refer to the statute to show that thereunder a power of sale, to some extent at least, was given, and that the confirmatory act of 1866, if effectual at all, was undoubtedly intended to validate the attempted exercise of that power, if irregularly or improperly exercised in making the deed in question, and to the extent that it purported to be made. It may be conceded, as insisted by appellant, that the lands granted to a Mexican pueblo were in trust for the benefit of its inhabitants, and that after the incorporation of the pueblo into a city by the legislature, these trusts remained the same in their general nature, and that the municipal authorities had no power to alienate these lands in gross, but the question in the case is not what power the pueblo or the city of itself had over the *548 pueblo lands, but what power or control the legislature had over them, and what authority it could confer upon the city with reference to their disposition, and to what extent it could ratify an attempted but unauthorized sale thereof. Because if the legislature in the first instance could have empowered the city in general terms to dispose of all its pueblo lands, it certainly had the authority, if an unauthorized disposition was made of them by the municipality, to conform such a conveyance. It is a familiar principle of law that if authority could be originally conferred, its unauthorized exercise may be subsequently ratified. Ratification, by its very terms, assumes power to grant original authority, and, if the power exists, the ratification can be as broad and extensive as the original authority might have been extended or conferred.
It is to be borne in mind while discussing these cases that the transactions here involved occurred almost half a century ago, and that the control of the legislature over pueblo lands is to be measured by the terms of the constitution of 1849, under which it was exercised.
To what extent that control existed in the legislature was a matter which in the early history of this state came before this court for determination in several cases, the earliest of which is almost contemporaneous with the transactions here involved, and the general principle there announced relative to the control of the legislature over pueblo lands has ever since been adhered to. This is the case of Hart v. Burnett,
To the same effect it is said in San Francisco v. Canavan,
These cases at an early date so effectually disposed of this point that little further presentation of it has since been deemed necessary, and while the court in these cases was discussing the matter of pueblo lands as contained in the pueblo of Yerba Buena, to whose rights the city of San Francisco succeeded, still the same rule would apply to all pueblos established in California under the Spanish or Mexican law and incorporated into California municipalities, as they were all laid out on the same general plan and vested with the same general powers concerning their lands. Upon this subject counsel for appellant has cited us to no case in this state holding a contrary view. He contends that some of the language *551
in Hart v. Burnett,
Some cases from foreign jurisdictions have been cited, but these necessarily have no special application, as they did not involve pueblo lands. The general principle which they decide is, that where land is acquired by a municipality through purchase or devise, or is specially granted to it by the state, the municipality stands in relation to the land so acquired the same as a private individual, and that it is beyond the power of the state to control its disposition, without the consent of the municipality.
There is a marked difference, however, between lands which are held by a municipality in trust for public municipal purposes, such as pueblo lands, and lands acquired by a municipality through purchase or special grant, and held in proprietary right.
And if this distinction is kept in mind, it obviates all difficulty in determining when the legislature has absolute control and when it has no control.
In the one case, the lands being simply ancillary to the execution of the public trust, — lands in which the pueblo never had an indefeasible proprietary interest, — and which were subject to the supreme political dominion of the former Mexican government, became equally subject to the sovereignty of the state of California, through its legislature, upon the change of government. In the other case, when the legislature has conferred on a municipality the right to acquire and hold property, such property when so acquired is invested with the same security as other private rights of property, *552
and, unless with the consent of the municipality, its disposition, so as to deprive the municipality of it, cannot be interfered with by the legislature to any greater extent than can the property of individuals. This distinction was clearly pointed out in Grogan v. San Francisco,
This last case was in relation to the "City Slip Property," which the legislature had granted to San Francisco under what is known as the "Beach and Water Lot Act."
It was a special grant by the state to the city of San Francisco of land which was not embraced within the original pueblo lands, and which belonged to the state.
After the grant the legislature undertook to control the disposition of it without the consent of the city, and its power to do so was denied by this court. It was held, in harmony with the general rule above stated, that this land, having been acquired by special grant from the state, was held under the same right by the city as the property of an individual is held and not subject to legislative control without municipal consent.
And in order that there might be no doubt as to the difference in the rule governing the power of the legislature over the two classes of property, and so that the rule in Grogan v. SanFrancisco,
We are satisfied from the above authorities that while under the Mexican law the officers of a pueblo were empowered to make grants of the pueblo lands, yet the pueblos had no indefeasible proprietary interest in them; that they were held in trust for public and municipal purposes, subject to the control and dispostion of the Mexican government; that upon the establishment of our state government it succeeded to the same sovereignty over them as was exercised by the former government, and that their control and disposition came fully, entirely, and absolutely within the power of the legislature as representing such sovereignty.
And as the full and complete control of said lands was a matter within the power of the legislature, it could have originally conferred upon the trustees of the city of Monterey (if under the act it did not) the right to dispose of them. We think also that there is no doubt that the legislature had the power to confirm the deed in question, and that the act in question here operated to effect that purpose.
As before stated, it is a principle of law that where authority exists to empower an act to be originally done, and the power is attempted to be exercised by an agent without authority, or contrary to a mode provided for its exercise, such attempted exercise of power may be ratified by the principal, and when so ratified operates as effectually as if the authority were originally conferred and properly exercised, and this rule applies as well to municipalities as to individuals.
Under the old constitution, which made it possible for the legislature to indulge in this species of legislation, it was not uncommon in amending the charters of cities to insert therein provisions similar to the one under consideration, and this *554
court has had occasion to deal with this precise question growing out of such legislation, in the case of Thompson v. Thompson,
It would hardly be necessary to discuss these two propositions separately if it were not for an additional objection urged by appellant against the power of the legislature to either originally authorize, or subsequently confirm, a sale of pueblo lands to the extent that was attempted by the trustees in this instance, because the power to confirm implies the power to authorize, and when one is proven the other exists as a necessary legal consequence. This objection is, that the only power and control that the legislature had over *555 the pueblo lands was limited in extent, and that it could only authorize their sale or disposition in limited quantities; that it could not authorize, hence could not confirm, a sale of them in an entirety. Our attention has not been called to any such limitation in the constitution, and our examination discloses none. No such restriction is referred to in any of the authorities cited or examined, and such a limitation could hardly exist.
Pueblos under the Mexican law were simply part of the political government of the country, and as political agencies the state succeeded to control over them upon the change of government. Whatever property they had, incidental to their existence as pueblos, was held as a municipal trust for the public use of the pueblo. As such agencies, the state was under no obligation to continue their existence. In the exercise of her sovereign power she could have abolished them altogether, or have incorporated them into her own scheme of government as municipalities, with such powers and restrictions as she might see fit to impose upon them. When incorporated by the legislature as municipalities under our government, the new municipalities did not by the simple fact of incorporation succeed to the rights and claims of their pueblo predecessors to the pueblo lands. The former pueblo trust, and the ownership of lands incident to it, had passed with the change of flags, and vested in the state of California as succeeding sovereign. When the pueblo was by the legislature incorporated into a municipality, the act of incorporation was but the expression of the sovereign will that, in the important business of good government, a municipality should take the place of the former pueblo, modeled in such form and invested with such powers as the legislature might determine. If the new municipality acquired control of the lands of the former pueblo (as was usually the case), it did so by express provision in the act of incorporation from the state, not by virtue of any independent claim it could make as successor to the pueblo, because it was only successor by virtue of legislative grant.
So in the case under consideration the city of Monterey acquired control of these lands not as an incident to its creation as successor to the former pueblo of Monterey, but *556
by express concession in the act of incorporation. It held them in trust for public municipal purposes as a chartered agent of the state, and could only hold them under such conditions and for such time as the state might permit. Its own existence as a municipal corporation depended entirely upon the will of the legislature, and the power which created it could at any time repeal its charter and end its existence. Through such repeal the entire property held for public use — which would include the pueblo lands — would revert to the state, and no limitation being imposed upon the legislature under the constitution of 1849 in that respect, could be then disposed of in any manner it saw fit. And it is difficult to understand why, as the state could acquire this entire property through the repeal of the charter of the city of Monterey, it did not have the power to give effect, by confirmatory legislation, to the act of the city trustees in disposing of it. (Hart v. Burnett,
It is also contended by appellant that it was not the intention of the legislature by the act of 1866 to confirm this conveyance. It would be beside the question to enter into any particular discussion concerning the rules that are to govern in determining the intent of the legislature, because it is a conceded fact in this case that the only conveyance purporting to have been made at all by the corporate authorities of said city, between the periods mentioned in the act, is the one in question here. It is therefore apparent that the legislative intent must have operated upon this deed, or it could not have operated at all. There is no process of reasoning whereby it could be excluded from its application.
It is further insisted by the appellant that the act of 1866 did not operate to confirm this deed because it only pretends to confirm "all sales and conveyances made by the corporate authorities of said city," etc., and that there is no evidence to show that the three persons who signed the deed were the trustees of the city at the time of its execution. The deed recites that it is executed between the city of Monterey, through the trustees of said city, — to wit, John Burke Phillips, as president, and Salvador Osio, as treasurer, and John D. Callaghan, as clerk; has affixed to it what purports to be the official seal of the city; contains a resume of the proceedings taken by the board of trustees and leading up to the execution of the deed; is acknowledged by them in the respective capacities in which they executed it; and is recorded. If the recitals in the deed, the certificate of acknowledgment, and the recordation were not primafacie proof that the parties executing it were the trustees(Middleton v. Dubuque,
In addition it is urged that the deed executed by the trustees of the city did not have affixed to it any corporate seal. This, however, if true, could not avail the appellant. It was an infirmity in the conveyance which was cured by the confirmatory act of 1866. An act ratifying and confirming a conveyance operates not only to ratify the unauthorized sale made under it, but to cure all defects in the form and manner of the execution of the conveyance itself. The last point made is, that the court erred in the admission of evidence *559 that the persons who signed the deed were commonly reputed to be the trustees of the city of Monterey at that time. We think the evidence was admissible. (Jones on Evidence, sec. 204.)
We see no error in either of the judgments or the orders denying the motions for new trials, and they are all therefore affirmed.
McFarland, J., Henshaw, J., and Angellotti, J., concurred.
Van Dyke, J., and Shaw, J., dissented.
Rehearing denied.
Shaw, J., Van Dyke, J., and Beatty, C.J., dissented from the order denying a rehearing.