Opinion of the Court.

Among the points raised upon the demurrer and necessarily presented upon the final hearing, were these: first, whether the United States had such an interest in the subject matter of the controversy as warranted their filing the bill; second, whether the claim set up was not barred by laches and limitations.

The bill averred that the United States had granted the land to the railroad company; that the railroad company was entitled to a patent; that the lands had been wrongfully listed to the State, and for that reason the United States refused to grant a patent for the same; and therefore the bill was filed to enable the government to issue the patent. But it was also alleged that the Western Pacific Railroad Company and its successor, the Central Pacific Railroad Company, did within three years of the completion of the road, sell and dispose of the land hereinbefore described to persons other than defendants. The road was completed December 29, 1869, so that the sale of the land by the railroad company to others than the defendants must have been before January, 1873, or nine and one-half years before the original bill was filed.

The rule in relation to the institution of suit by the Attorney General of the United States to vacate a patent is thus stated by Mr. Justice Miller in United States v. San Jacinto Tin Company, 125 U. S. 273, 285:

"But we are of opinion that since the right of the government of the United States to institute such a suit depends upon the same general principles which would authorize a private citizen to apply to a court of justice for relief against an instrument obtained from him by fraud or deceit, or any of those other practices which are admitted to justify a court in granting relief, the government must show that, like the pri vate individual, it has such an interest in the relief sought as entitles it to move in the matter. If it be a question of property, a case must be made in which the court can afford a remedy in regard to that property; if it be a question of fraud which would render the instrument void, the fraud must operate to the prejudice of the United States; and if it is

Opinion of the Court.

apparent that the suit is brought for the benefit of some third party, and that the United States has no pecuniary interest in the remedy sought, and is under no obligation to the party who will be benefited to sustain an action for his use; in short, if there does not appear any obligation on the part of the United States to the public, or to any individual, or any interest of its own, it can no more sustain such an action than any private person could under similar circumstances.

"In all the decisions to which we have just referred it is either expressed or implied that this interest or duty of the United States must exist as the foundation of the right of action. Of course this interest must be made to appear in the progress of the proceedings, either by pleading or evidence, and if there is a want of it, and the fact is manifest that the suit has actually been brought for the benefit of some third person, and that no obligation to the general public exists which requires the United States to bring it, then the suit must fail. In the case before us the bill itself leaves a fair implication that if this patent is set aside the title to the property will revert to the United States, together with the beneficial interest in it."

And in United States v. Beebe, 127 U. S. 338, 342, it was said by Mr. Justice Lamar, delivering the opinion of the court: "If a patent is wrongfully issued to one individual which should have been issued to another, or if two patents for the same land have been issued to two different individuals, it may properly be left to the individuals to settle, by personal litigation, the question of right in which they alone are interested. But if it should come to the knowledge of the government that a patent has been fraudently obtained, and that such fraudulent patent, if allowed to stand, would work prejudice to the interests or rights of the United States, or would prevent the government from fulfilling an obligation incurred by it, either to the public or to an individual, which personal litigation could not remedy, there would be an occasion which would make it the duty of the government to institute judicial proceedings to vacate such patent."

In the case before us, the State of California and its grantees

Opinion of the Court.

claimed title under the United States, as did the railroad company and its grantees. Either the grantees of the State or the grantees of the railroad had, when the bill was filed, the title to the land. No fraud or imposition or wrong as against the United States was charged, and no case made upon which the United States sought relief for themselves. Nor was the case one of mistake, in the sense that the action of the United States and the State would not have been what it was but for ignorance of particular facts or of the law. If the State acquired the legal title by the listings, that legal title. passed to its grantees, and if the railroad company and its grantees acquired an equitable title, no reason is perceived why the real parties in interest could not litigate their claims as between each other. And this was equally true if the State's selections and the listings were wholly void. No wrong was chargeable to the State, and if the State and railroad company each claimed the land in good faith upon mere questions of law and fact, without any element of wrong or fraud, it does not appear to us that the bill should be regarded as accomplishing anything more than raising a controversy between the parties actually in interest.

Under the railroad grant acts themselves, nothing contained therein was to impair or defeat any valid claim existing at the time the line of the road was definitely fixed; and upon the face of this record there can be no question that the claim of the State of California, based upon its making selections of the lands and presenting the same for approval, was a claim in good faith, and the obligation of the United States to the State was as much to be considered as the obligation to the railroad company, and its liability to make good the loss was to that one of the parties upon whom the loss might finally fall.

We are of opinion that upon the case made, the same principles must be applied as if the litigation were between private parties.

In this regard, the case of United States v. Beebe, 127 U. S. 338, is exactly in point and of controlling weight. There a bona fide claimant had made a location under a New

VOL. CXLIX-43

Opinion of the Court.

Madrid certificate, perfected his claim, and received a certificate upon which he had become entitled to a patent for the land. Afterwards, and while the matter was pending, Beebe and others, as was alleged, by some imposition or fraud procured a patent to be issued to them for the same land. Suit was permitted to be brought in the name of the United States to cancel the Beebe patent, and the defences relied on in the court below were (1) the want of authority in the Attorney General to file a bill for an annulment of a patent in a case like that; (2) that the claim was barred by the statute of limitations; (3) that the claim sued on was stale; (4) that the complainant had no equity to maintain the suit. It was held by this court that the United States could properly proceed by bill in equity to have a judicial decree of annulment and an order of cancellation of a patent issued by mistake, or procured by fraud, where the government had a direct interest or was under an obligation respecting the relief sought; but that, in the language of Mr. Justice Lamar, "when the government is a mere formal complainant in a suit, not for the purpose of asserting any public right or protecting any public interest, title, or property, but merely to form a conduit through which one private person can conduct litigation against another private person, a court of equity will not be restrained from administering the equities existing between the real parties by any exemption of the government designed for the protection of the rights of the United States alone. The mere use of its name in a suit for the benefit of a private suitor cannot extend its immunity as a sovereign government to said private suitor, whereby he can avoid and escape the scrutiny of a court of equity into the matters pleaded against him by the other party; nor stop the court from examining into and deciding the case according to the principles governing courts of equity in like cases between private litigants. These principles, so far as they relate to general statutes of limitation, the laches of a party, and the lapse of time, have been rendered familiar to the legal mind by the oft-repeated enunciation and enforcement of them in the decisions of this court. According to these decisions, courts of equity in gen

Opinion of the Court.

eral recognize and give effect to the statute of limitations as a defence to an equitable right, when at law it would have been properly pleaded as a bar to a legal right.”

The decision of the Circuit Court in that case dismissing the bill on the ground of laches was sustained, because, although Beebe had procured his patent by fraud and imposition upon the government or its officers, and the superior right to the land was originally in others, yet it was apparent that the suit was prosecuted in the name of the United States only on behalf of private persons, and therefore should be barred if they were.

Tested by this rule, it is clear that the claim of the railroad company and its grantees cannot be sustained.

The grant was in præsenti, and attached upon the filing of a map of definite location. When the identification of a granted section became so far complete as to authorize the grantee to take possession, the legal title of the granted land passed, and an action for possession could be maintained by the company or its grantees before the issue of a patent. The patent would have been evidence that the land named was granted, that the grantee had complied with the conditions of the grant, and that the grant was to that extent relieved from the possibility of forfeiture for breach of its conditions, but was not essential to transfer the legal right. Deseret Salt Company v. Tarpey, 142 U. S. 241; Sioux City Company v. Griffey, 143 U. S. 32.

The company had, on February 1, 1870, whatever title it could obtain, and whatever rights belonged to it, and its cause of action then accrued. The land had already been certified to the State by the Commissioner of the General Land Office and the Secretary of the Interior, and their action in that regard was in law the same as if patents had been issued to the State. Frasher v. O'Connor, 115 U. S. 102.

If that action was wholly void, then it was open to collateral attack, and the railroad company and its grantees could have brought suit to test the legal title at once. Doolan v. Carr, 125 U. S. 618.

If that action was not void, but the Interior Department. had taken mistaken views of the law, or drawn erroneous con