Chicago, M. & St. P. Ry. Co. v. United States

218 F. 288, 134 C.C.A. 84, 1914 U.S. App. LEXIS 1527
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedNovember 2, 1914
DocketNo. 2351
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 218 F. 288 (Chicago, M. & St. P. Ry. Co. v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Chicago, M. & St. P. Ry. Co. v. United States, 218 F. 288, 134 C.C.A. 84, 1914 U.S. App. LEXIS 1527 (9th Cir. 1914).

Opinion

WOEVERTON, District Judge

(after stating the facts as above).

[1] The primary contention hinges largely upon the purposes and in-tendment of the act of March 3, 1875 (18 Stat. 482), and later acts respecting forest reserves. By the first section of the act of 1875 a right of way through the public lands of the United States is granted [292]*292to any railroad company, organized under the laws of any state, which shall have filed with the Secretary of the Interior a copy of its articles of incorporation and due proofs of its organization under the same, to the extent of 100 feet on each side of the center line of said railroad; also the rigid: to take from the public lands adjacent to the line of road material, earth, stone, and timber necessary for the construction of the road; also ground adjacent to such right of way for station buildings, depots, machine shops, side tracks, turnouts, and water stations, not to exceed in amount 20 acres for each station, to the extent of one station for each 10 miles of road. Section 4 provides :

“That any railroad company desiring to secure the benefits of this act shall, within twelve months after the location of any section of twenty miles of its road, if the same be upon surveyed lands, and, if upon unsurveyed lands, within twelve months after the survey thereof by the United States, file with the register of the land office for the district where such land is located a profile of its road; and upon approval thereof by the_Secretary of the Interior the same shall be noted upon the plats in said office; and thereafter all such lands over which such right of way shall pass shall be disposed of subject to such right of way.”

And section 5:

“That this act shall not apply to any lands within the limits of any military, park, or Indian reservation, or other lands specially reserved from sale, unless such right of way shall be provided for by treaty stipulation or by act of Congress heretofore passed.”

Under an act entitled “An act to repeal timber culture laws, and for other purposes,” adopted March 3, 1891, the President of the United States was authorized to set apart and reserve, from time to time, in any state or territory having public land bearing forests, any part of the public lands wholly or in part covered with.timber or undergrowth, whether of commercial value or not, as public reservations ; the same to be by public proclamation declaring the establishment of such reservations and the limits thereof. 26 Stat. 1103. By a clause contained in an act -making appropriations for sundry civil expenses of the government for the year 1897, adopted June 4, 1897, the Secretary of the Interior is authorized to make provision for protection against destruction by fire and depredations upon the public forests and forest reservations which may have been set aside, or which might thereafter be set aside under the act of March 3, 1891, and to make such rules and regulations and establish such service as will insure the objects of such reservations, namely, to regulate their occupancy and use and to preserve the forests thereon from destruction. By the same act the Secretary of the Interior is authorized and empowered, under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe, to sell and dispose of the dead timber and matured and large growth trees found upon such reservation (30 Stat. 35); and the President is authorized to modify executive orders establishing forest reserves, and to vacate the same altogether (30 Stat. 36).

By another act making appropriations to provide for deficiencies, adopted March 3, 1899, this clause was inserted, namely:

[293]*293“That in the form provided by existing law the Secretary of the Interior may file and approve surveys and plats of any right of way for a wagon road, railroad, or other highway over and across any forest reservation or reservoir site when in his judgment the public interests will not be injuriously affected thereby.” 30 Stat. 1233.

For some time prior to the adoption of the act of March 3, 1875, it had been the policy of the general government to grant by special acts rights of way for railroads over the public lands, and these carried their own terms and conditions. No doubt believing the purpose could as well be subserved by a general act, Congress adopted the act of 1875.

Much discussion is indulged in respecting t>he meaning and legislative significance of the words “public lands,” as contained in section 1 of the act; but we are not impressed that it is necessary to enter at all upon that inquiry, as we believe that section 5 affords a sufficiently clear interpretation of the statute for the purposes of this case. That section makes the act inapplicable to any lands within the limits of any military, park, or Indian reservation, or other lands specifically reserved from sale. It is the cardinal oolicy and purpose of Congress and the general government that the lands comprised within forest reservations shall be specially reserved from sale and disposal to settlers and other persons, except as more recently expressly provided by law, while such reservations remain unrevoked by direction or order, of the President. As said in Shannon v. United States, 160 Fed. 870, 873, 88 C. C. A. 52, 55:

“The creation of such a reservation severs the reserved land from the public domain, disposes of the same, and appropriates it to a public use.”

Nor does it seem to us that the rule ejusdem generis helps the respondent, for national forest reserves are set apart for a definite, permanent, and public use, the same as are military, park, and Indian reservations, only that the use is different. So is the use of a military reserve different from that of a park reserve or an Indian reservation, and an Indian reservation from that of a park, but all are created and set apart' for special governmental use. And a forest reserve, under the conservation policy of the government, is just as essential and vital to the effectuation of the government’s purposes in that direction as a military reserve, a park, or an Indian reservation for the purposes of the government to the ends for which they are respectively established.

“Congress establishes a forest reserve for what it decides to be national and public purposes.” Light v. United States, 220 U. S. 523, 537, 31 Sup. Ct. 485, 488 (55 L. Ed. 570).

Congress by later enactments has so interpreted the act. This is evidenced by an act of July 8, 1898, c. 645 (30 Stat. 729, c. 645), and another of January 10, 1899 (30 Stat. 783, c. 44). The first of these acts grants a right of way to the Cripple Creek Short Tine Railway Company through the Pikes Peak Timber Tand Reserve, “subject to the rules and restrictions and carrying all the rights and privileges” of the act of March 3, 1875, but providing “that no timber shall be cut by said railroad company for any purpose outside of the rights [294]*294of way,” thus impliedly recognizing that the act of March 3, 1875, was without application to a forest reserve. Otherwise it would seem that Congress would not have specially made applicable the rules and restrictions of said act, and declared that all the rights and privileges thereof should be read into the act then adopted. Again, the provision touching the cutting of timber outside of the right of way was a restriction upon the act of 1875.

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Bluebook (online)
218 F. 288, 134 C.C.A. 84, 1914 U.S. App. LEXIS 1527, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/chicago-m-st-p-ry-co-v-united-states-ca9-1914.