Opinion · Supreme Court of the United States
Santa Fe Pacific Railroad v. Fall
Santa Fe Pac. R.R. v. Fall, 259 U.S. 197 (1922)
- Type
- Opinion
- Court
- Supreme Court of the United States
- Jurisdiction
- Federal
- Date
- 1922-05-29
- Topic
- general
*198 Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court. These are two bills in equity brought in respect of different parcels of land but seeking the same kind of relief against the Secretary of the Interior, and raising the same question of law. The facts are simple. Under the land grant to its predecessor, the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad Company, the Santa Fe Pacific Railroad Company was the owner of coal lands in New Mexico.
Citator
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- Cited by
- 30 opinions
Headnotes
- Environmental Law — Land Grants — Statutory Construction A statute entitling a railroad company, upon relinquishment of granted lands at the Secretary of the Interior's request, to select in lieu thereof and have patented "other sections of vacant public land of equal quality in said Territory, as may be agreed upon with the Secretary of the Interior," effects a contract binding the Government to convey such vacant lands within the territory as the company selects, provided only that the selected lands are of equal quality to those relinquished; the requirement of the Secretary's agreement does not vest him with arbitrary discretion. 259 U.S. at 199
- Environmental Law — Land Grants — Time of Determining Validity of Selection Where land is relinquished and lieu lands are selected under a statute granting the right to select lands of equal quality, the equality of the selected lands, and hence the validity of the selection, must be determined according to the conditions existing at the time the selection was made. 259 U.S. at 200
- Administrative Law — Judicial Review The Secretary of the Interior's discretion to determine whether selected lieu lands are of equal quality to relinquished lands goes only to the quality of the lands and is not arbitrary; where he undertakes to cancel selections because of higher values of the selected lands revealed by investigations made long after the selections, he abuses that discretion, and the cancellation will be restrained by the courts. 259 U.S. at 199
SANTA FE PAC. R.R. CO.v. FALL,259 U.S. 197(1922)
42 S.Ct. 466
SANTA FE PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANYv. FALL, SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR.
APPEALS FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.
Nos. 108, 109.
Argued January 24, 1922.
Decided May 29, 1922.
APPEALS from decrees of the Court of Appeals of the District
of Columbia which affirmed decrees of the Supreme Court of the
District, dismissing appellant's bills to enjoin the Secretary of
the Interior from canceling selections of public land.
The Government argues that there was no jurisdiction over the bills because the question whether the lands selected were of the same quality as those relinquished rested wholly in the judgment of the Secretary. But thePage 199position of the Railroad Company is that the Secretary went beyond the powers conferred upon him by the statute when he took into account facts not known at the time of the selection, and we are of opinion that the Company is entitled to bring that question into court.
We are of opinion also that the Company's position is right. At first sight the words of the statute entitling the Company to have patented other sections of equal quality "as may be agreed upon with the Secretary of the Interior" might be taken to sustain the decision below, but upon consideration they seem to us not to have that effect. The moment that lands were relinquished at the request of the Secretary a contract was made and the Government was bound to convey to the Company such vacant lands within the Territory as the Company should select provided only that they were of equal quality. In theory of law the obligation was immediate when the selection was made, if it complied with the condition. It is true that the Secretary had to be satisfied upon that point, but his discretion was not arbitrary; it went only to the quality of the lands. If, as Chief Justice Shaw put it, a piepoudre Court could have been summoned and the matter determined forthwith, the Secretary would have been bound to act on the facts as they then appeared and could not have elected to wait for better days. At that time, May 1, 1911, the only relevant classification in the statutes, we believe, was of coal lands within fifteen miles of a railroad, valued at not less than twenty dollars per acre, and those more than fifteen miles from one, valued at not less than ten dollars per acre. Rev. Stats., § 2347. The Department through the Geological Survey had classified further and had valued the products in all the lands concerned at not less than twenty dollars per acre. These were all the elements for decision when the selection was made and if the Secretary had been required to proceed at once, as the statute evidently contemplatedPage 200that he would, § 2, he would have been bound to agree to the Company's choice. Indeed in the first case he did agree to it, and did not attempt to revoke his decision until more than two years later on the ground of subsequently discovered facts. It is established in the parallel cases ofPaynev.Central PacificRy. Co.,255 U.S. 228;Paynev.New Mexico,255 U.S. 367, andWyomingv.United States,255 U.S. 489,496, that the validity of the selection must be determined according to the conditions existing at the time when it was made. These decisions were later than that in the Court below and show without the need of further argument that the decrees must be reversed.Decrees reversed.