Peralta v. United States/Opinion of the Court

This claim cannot be sustained, according to the rules of evidence which this court has established to determine the validity of Mexican titles in California. We are asked to relax the severity of those rules in this case, because it is alleged to be meritorious. Courts administer justice by fixed rules, which experience and wisdom have demonstrated are necessary in the investigation of truth. There will sometimes, in applying those rules to the various affairs of life, be cases of individual hardship; but this does not prove that the rules are unwise, or not the best that can be adopted for the purposes of judicial investigation. The right of property, as every other valuable right, depends in a great measure for its security on the stability of judicial decisions.

The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo imposed the obligation on this government to protect titles to land in California acquired under Mexican rule. The country was new, and rich in mineral wealth, and attracted settlers, whose industry and enterprise produced an unparalleled state of prosperity. The enhanced value given to the whole surface of the country by the discovery of gold, made it necessary to ascertain and settle all private land claims, so that the real estate belonging to individuals could be separated from the public domain. Yielding to this necessity, and in obedience to the obligations of the treaty, Congress passed an act on the 3d of March, 1851, to accomplish this purpose. The laws and usages of the Mexican government, as administered in California before the conquest of the country, and the principles of equity, were prescribed as rules which should govern the courts in adjudicating the questions of title. Very many claims were tested by these rules, and found to be valid, and were confirmed; others were imperfect and could not be recognized. Then commenced a struggle, which has never been abandoned, to induce the courts to fritter away the act of Congress, and substitute parol proof for record evidence. The history of the cases in this court from California, show the extent of the struggle and the result. We have refused to allow oral testimony to prevail when archive evidence was necessary.

The colonization regulations of 1828 constitute the 'laws and usages' by which the validity of a Mexican title is to be determined. It is not important to restate the nature and extent of those regulations, for they have been so often commented on that they are familiar to the profession. The Mexican nation attached a great deal of form to the disposition of its lands, and required many things to be done before the proceedings could ripen into a grant. But the important fact to be noticed is, that a record was required to be kept of whatever was done. This record was a guard against fraud and imposition, and enabled the government to ascertain with accuracy what portions of the public lands had been alienated. The record was the grant, and without it the title was not divested. The governor was required to give a document to the party interested, which was evidence of title, and enabled him to get possession; but this 'titulo' did not divest the title, unless record was made in conformity with law.

Written documentary evidence, no matter how formal and complete, or how well supported by the testimony of witnesses, will not suffice if it is obtained from private hands and there is nothing in the public records of the country to show that such evidence ever existed. But it may be said that the archives of the country may be lost or destroyed, and if so, that the party in interest should not suffer. This is true; and if the claimant can show, to the satisfaction of the court, that the grant was made in conformity to law and recorded, and that the record of it has been lost or destroyed, he will then be permitted to introduce secondary evidence of it. But the absence of record evidence is necessarily fatal, unless that absence can be accounted for. Testing the case in hand by these principles of law, it cannot be confirmed. There is neither a grant nor archive evidence. If there had been a grant according to law, the expediente would have remained in the archives; but there is no trace of it there, and it is produced from private hands, which tends strongly to show that the governor never saw it. If the grant had been made, and recorded in the proper office, possession would have been given to the grantee of the lands which were conveyed. This was not done, and no reason is assigned for the omission. There are circumstances in proof which are calculated to cast suspicion on this claim, but we forbear to notice them.

It is said that an equity arises on account of possession. But the bare possession is too limited to raise any substantial equity, because the claimant only occupied the place about a year before the conquest of the country.

DECREE AFFIRMED.