Opinion of the Court. part of a conspiracy to defraud the United States and the holders under said New Madrid locations, and that in furtherance of said conspiracy said Beebe entered into a so-called bond to convey to the original holders and claimants of said lands the title which he was to and did acquire by the issue of said patents on said float claims, which he afterwards fraudulently failed and refused to do, all of which was a fraud on the United States, and other claimants to, and settlers upon, said lands; that all defects of the said New Madrid act and of the locations thereunder had been cured by subsequent acts of Congress and the opinions of the Attorney General, and decisions of the Department, and by decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States construing the same, and that said locations of said floats and the issuance of said Beebe patents were allowed under a misconception of the law, procured by undue means and in violation of the law, and the same were null and void, and ought in equity and good conscience to be cancelled. The defences relied on in the court below, by way of demurrers and pleas, were (1) the want of authority in the Attorney General to file a bill for the annulment of a patent in a case like the present; (2) that the claim is barred by the statute of limitations; (3) that the claim sued upon is stale; (4) that the plaintiff has no equity to maintain this suit; and that all this appears upon the face of the bill itself. The demurrer to the bill was sustained and the bill dismissed, from which decree of dismissal an appeal on behalf of the United States brought the case here. Mr. Henry M. Baker for appellant. Mr. U. M. Rose for appellee. Mr. S: A. Williams was with him on the brief. MR. JUSTICE LAMAR, after stating the case as above reported, delivered the opinion of the court. The points involved in the pleadings and made before the court below have been presented and urged with much earnestness, both in the brief and in the oral argument of counsel. Opinion of the Court. First. As to the right of the Attorney General to bring this suit. The authority of the Attorney General under the Constitution and laws of the United States to institute a suit in the name of the United States to set aside a patent alleged to have been obtained by fraud or other mistake, whenever denied by a specific pleading before this court, has been uniformly maintained. And it may now be accepted as settled that the United States can properly proceed by bill in equity to have a judicial decree of nullity and an order of cancellation of a patent issued in mistake, or obtained by fraud, where the Government has a direct interest, or is under an obligation respecting the relief invoked. (See the opinion of the court delivered by Mr. Justice Miller in San Jacinto Tin Company v. The United States, 125 U. S. 273, decided this term of the court.) Even if it had not been thus authoritatively settled, it would have been difficult, upon principle, to reach any other conclusion. The public domain is held by the Government as part of its trust. The Government is charged with the duty and clothed with the power to protect it from trespass and unlawful appropriation, and under certain circumstances, to invest the individual citizen with the sole possession of the title which had till then been common to all the people as the beneficiaries of the trust. 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 fraudulently 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. Opinion of the Court. In the case before us the bill avers that the patents whose cancellation is asked for were obtained by fraud and imposition on the part of the patentee, Beebe. It asserts that there exists, on the part of the United States, an obligation to issue patents to the rightful owners of the lands described in the bill; that they cannot perform this obligation until these fraudulent patents are annulled, and that they therefore bring this suit to annul these fraudulent instruments whose existence renders the United States incapable of fulfilling their said prior obligation. The court below held that the bill in this case having been filed on the recommendation of the Secretary of the Interior, for the declared purpose of having the questions which were being pressed upon the Land Department, in connection with the claims of the Philbrook heirs against the Government, determined by the judicial department, which claims were unsettled and important, the appeal to the court was proper. In this we think the learned judge is in full accord with the principle laid down by Mr. Justice Miller in the San Jacinto case, and within the following language of the court in Hughes v. The United States, 4 Wall. 232, 236, which was a suit brought in the name of the United States to set aside a patent for the benefit of a private citizen entitled to the land covered by said patent. Mr. Justice Field, who delivered the opinion of the court, speaking of the patent to Hughes, said: "Whether regarded in that aspect or as a void instrument, issued without authority, it primâ facie passed the title, and therefore it was the plain duty of the United States to seek to vacate and annul the instrument to the end that their previous engagement be fulfilled by the transfer of a clear title, the one intended for the purchaser by the act of Congress." Unless, therefore, it appears on the face of the bill that the claim set up has no equity, or that there are valid defences to the suit, the jurisdiction of the court to entertain it cannot be denied. Next, as to the defence of the statute of limitations, laches, and lapse of time. The grounds on which the court below sustained the demurrer were, (1) that distinct from and inde Opinion of the Court. pendent of the statute of limitations and the laches of the public officers of the Government, the lapse of time constitutes a good defence to this suit, upon those principles of equity which would be administered as between two citizens litigating in this tribunal; and (2) that the United States is bound by the same law. The counsel for the complainant maintain that this conclusion, upon which the decree of dismissal rests, is erroneous and contrary to the decisions of this court and of every Circuit and District Court in the United States. The principle that the United States are not bound by any statute of limitations, nor barred by any laches of their officers, however gross, in a suit brought by them as a sovereign Government to enforce a public right, or to assert a public interest, is established past all controversy or doubt. United States v. Nashville &c. Railway Company, 118 U. S. 120, 125, and cases there cited. But this case stands upon a different footing, and presents a different question. The question is, Are these defences available to the defendant in a case where the Government, although a nominal complainant party, has no real interest in the litigation, but has allowed its name to be used therein for the sole benefit of a private person? It has been not unusual for this court, for the purposes of justice, to determine the real parties to a suit by reference, not merely to the names in which it is brought, but to the facts of the case as they appear on the record. Thus, in the case decided at this term, In re Ayers, 123 U. S. 443, 492, 493, the court held that the State of Virginia, though not named as a party defendant, was the actual party in the controversy. Mr. Justice Matthews, who delivered the opinion, said: "It is, therefore, not conclusive of the principal question in this case, that the State of Virginia is not named as a party defendant. Whether it is the actual party must be determined by a consideration of the nature of the case as presented on the whole record." So in the cases of New Hampshire v. Louisiana and New York v. Louisiana, 108 U. S. 76, 80, the court looked behind and through the nominal parties on the record to ascertain who were the real parties to the suit. Chief Opinion of the Court. Justice Waite, in delivering the opinion of the court, used the following language: "No one can look at the pleadings and testimony in these cases without being satisfied, beyond all doubt, that they were in legal effect commenced, and are now prosecuted, solely by the owners of the bonds and coupons. The bill, although signed by the Attorney General, is also signed, and was evidently drawn, by the same counsel who prosecuted the suits for the bondholders in Louisiana, and it is manifested in many ways that both the State and the Attorney General are only nominal actors in the proceeding. The bond-owner, whoever he may be, was the promoter and is the manager of the suit. And while the suits are in the names of the States, they are under the actual control of individual citizens, and are prosecuted and carried on altogether by and for them." In the case of The United States v. Nashville &c. Railway Company, supra, in which it was decided that the statute of limitations of the State of Tennessee was no defence to an action of the United States upon certain negotiable bonds held by them for public use, Mr. Justice Gray is careful to say, "This case does not present the question, what effect the statute of limitations may have in an action on a contract in which the United States have nothing but the formal title, and the whole interest belongs to others;" and cites Maryland v. Baldwin, 112 U. S. 490; Miller v. State, 38 Alabama, 600. In the former case it was held that a suit in the name of a State for the benefit of parties interested is to be regarded as a suit in the name of the party for whose benefit it is brought. Mr. Justice Field, delivering the opinion of the court, said: "The name of the State is used from necessity when a suit on the bond is prosecuted for the benefit of a person interested, and, in such cases, the real controversy is between him and the obligors on the bond;" and the case was decided upon a consideration of the merits as if the party interested was alone named as plaintiff. And he cited, approvingly, the following language in McNutt v. Bland, 2 How. 9: "As the instrument of the state law his (the Governor's) name is in the bond and to the suit upon it, but in no just view can he be con . |