Exploration Company v. United States/Opinion of the Court

United States Supreme Court

247 U.S. 435

Exploration Company  v.  United States

 Argued: May 1, 1918. --- Decided: June 10, 1918

The Circuit Court of Appeals found that the evidence fully supported the findings of the trial court. We find no occasion to disturb the findings of fact by two courts. The question presented for our consideration is whether the suit was barred by the statute of limitations under the Act of March 3, 1891, c. 561, 26 Stat. 1099 (Comp. St. 1916, § 5114), which provides:

'That suits by the United States to vacate and annul any patent heretofore issued shall only be brought within five years from the passage of this act, and suits to vacate and annul patents hereafter issued shall only be brought within six years after the date of the issuance of such patents.' As averred in the bill, and found by the courts, the frauds were concealed until after six years had elapsed from the issuance of the patents. 'After it was supposed the statute of limitations had barred any action, the participants in the fraud talked very freely, telling the truth when it was thought it would do no harm.' It is the contention of the appellants that the statute was intended to bar all actions after six years from the date of the issuance of the patent, that if for six years the governmen has failed to discover the fraud, no matter what its diligence in that respect may be, its action against the guilty parties is forever barred, and they may hold in security the lands thus obtained by grant from the United States by means of fraud perpetrated in defiance of its laws enacted for the disposition of the public domain. We are unable to agree with this contention. We think the true rule is established in federal jurisprudence by the decision of this court in Bailey v. Glover, 21 Wall. 342, 22 L. Ed. 636. In that case a question was presented under the Bankruptcy Act of 1867 (Act March 2, 1867, c. 176, 14 Stat. 517), which provided that no suit at law or in equity should be maintained by or against an assignee in bankruptcy, or by or against any person claiming an adverse interest, touching the property or rights of property of the bankrupt, in any court whatever, unless the same should be brought within two years from the time the cause of action accrued for or against the assignee. The action was brought to set aside a conveyance on the ground of fraud. Among other things it was charged that the bankrupt, his wife, son and father-in-law being defendants in the case, kept secret their fraudulent acts and endeavored to conceal them from the knowledge both of the assignee and of Winston & Company, a creditor proving a debt, whereby both were prevented from obtaining any sufficient knowledge or information thereof until within the previous two years, and that even up to the time suit was instituted they had not been able to obtain full and particular information as to the fraudulent disposition made by the bankrupt of a large part of his property. A general demurrer was filed to the bill on the ground that the suit was not brought within two years as required by the statute. It is thus apparent that no attempt was made to prosecute the action within two years from the time the same accrued. It was contended that the statute was imperative, that it made no exceptions, and that the action was consequently barred by limitation. This court, after a full review of decisions English and American, decided that notwithstanding the positive terms of the statute, it did not begin to run until after the discovery of the fraud. In the course of the opinion Mr. Justice Miller said:

'They [statutes of limitation] were enacted to prevent frauds; to prevent parties from asserting rights after the lapse of time had destroyed or impaired the evidence which would show that such rights never existed, or had been satisfied, transferred, or extinguished, if they ever did exist. To hold that by concealing a fraud, or by committing a fraud in a manner that it concealed itself until such time as the party committing the fraud could plead the statute of limitations to protect it, is to make the law which was designed to prevent fraud the means by which it is made successful and secure.'

It will be observed in that statute, as in the one now under consideration, there was no provision that the cause of action should not be deemed to have accrued until the discovery of the fraud. But it was held that for the purpose of such statutes the cause of action did not accrue until the discovery of the fraud; that such was the undisputed doctrine of courts of equity, and that the weight of authority, English and American, applied the same rule to actions at law.

Among other cases cited by Mr. Justice Miller is the decision of Mr. Justice Story at the circuit in Sherwood v. Sutton, 5 Mason, 143, 21 Fed. Cas. p. 1303, No. 12,782. That case involved a statute of the state of New Hampshire which provided that actions for fraud and deceit should be brought within six years. It contained no exception as to actions founded on fraud where the same had been concealed during the period of limitation, and the question was whether such exception was implied. The cases were very fully reviewed by Mr. Justice Story, and in holding that the statute did not begin to run until the disc very of the fraud, he said (21 Fed. Cas. 1307):

'What, then, is the reason, upon which this exception has been established? It is, that every statute is to be expounded reasonably, so as to suppress, and not to extend, the mischiefs, which it was designed to cure. The statute of limitations was mainly intended to suppress fraud, by preventing fraudulent and unjust claims from starting up at great distances of time, when the evidence might no longer be within the reach of the other party, by which they could be repelled. It ought not, then, to be so construed, as to become an instrument to encourage fraud, if it admits of any other reasonable interpretation; and cases of fraud, therefore, form an implied exception, to be acted upon by courts of law and equity, according to the nature of their respective jurisdictions. Such, it seems to me, is the reason on which the exception is built, and not merely that there is an equity binding upon the conscience of the party which the statute does not reach or control.'

Bailey v. Glover has never been overruled nor modified in this court and has been approved and followed. Rosenthal v. Walker, 111 U.S. 185, 190, 4 Sup. Ct. 382, 28 L. Ed. 395; Traer v. Clews, 115 U.S. 528, 537, 538, 6 Sup. Ct. 155, 29 L. Ed. 467; Kirby v. Lake Shore, etc., R. R. Co., 120 U.S. 130, 136, 7 Sup. Ct. 430, 30 L. Ed. 569; Avery v. Cleary, 132 U.S. 604, 609, 10 Sup. Ct. 220, 33 L. Ed. 469. It was also applied in the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in the case of Linn & Lane Timber Co. v. United States, 196 Fed. 593, 116 C. C. A. 267; 203 Fed. 394, 121 C. C. A. 498.

It is true that Mr. Justice Brewer, in delivering the opinion of the court, in United States v. Winona, etc., R. R. Co., 165 U.S. 463, 476, 17 Sup. Ct. 368, 41 L. Ed. 789, said that no matter what the mistake or error of the Land Department was, or what the frauds of the patentee, the patent would become conclusive as a transfer of title after the lapse of six years. But the learned justice said in the same opinion that this limitation could not be availed of because the suit was commenced before the expiration of the time prescribed, and that it was referred to as showing the purpose of Congress to uphold titles arising under certification or patent after the lapse of a certain time. It therefore appears that the question was not involved in that case. Nor does it contain any discussion of the doctrine previously laid down in Bailey v. Glover, supra.

In United States v. Chandler-Dunbar Co., 209 U.S. 447, 28 Sup. Ct. 579, 52 L. Ed. 881, cited by appellants, no question was made as to the effect of concealment of fraud until after the running of the statute. The same is true of Louisiana v. Garfield, 211 U.S. 70, 29 Sup. Ct. 31, 53 L. Ed. 92, also relied upon by appellants.

When Congress passed the act in question the rule of Bailey v. Glover was the established doctrine of this court. It was presumably enacted with the ruling of that case in mind. We cannot believe that Congress intended to give immunity to those who for the period named in the statute might be able to conceal their fraudulent action from the knowledge of the agents of the government. We are aware of no good reason why the rule, now almost universal, that statutes of limitations to set aside fraudulent transactions shall not begin to run until the discovery of the fraud, should not apply in favor of the government as well as a private individual. It is not our belief that Congress intended that the government should be deprived of title to public lands by those who add to the fraud by which they were obtained artifices which enabled them to conceal the fraudulent manner in which they were secured until the action was supposed to be barred by the lapse of six years.

The decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals is affirmed.

Mr. Justice McKENNA and Mr. Justice VAN DEVANTER dissent.

Mr. Justice McREYNOLDS took no part in this decision.

Notes