Botiller v. Dominguez

Botiller v. Dominguez
Supreme Court of the United States
Decided April 1, 1889
Full case name	Brigido Botiller, et al. v. Dominga Dominguez
Citations	130 U.S. 238 (more) 9 S.Ct. 525; 32 L.Ed. 926
Prior history	Writ of error to the Supreme Court of the State of California
Holding
No title to land in California dependent upon Spanish or Mexican land grants can be of any validity unless presented to and confirmed by the board of land commissioners within the time prescribed by Congress.
Court membership
Chief Justice Melville Fuller Associate Justices Samuel F. Miller · Stephen J. Field Joseph P. Bradley · John M. Harlan T. Stanley Matthews · Horace Gray Samuel Blatchford · Lucius Q.C. Lamar II
Case opinions
Majority	Miller, joined by unanimous court

Botiller v. Dominguez, 130 U.S. 238 (1889), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court dealing with the validity of Spanish or Mexican land grants in the Mexican Cession, the region of the present day southwestern United States that was ceded to the U.S. by Mexico in 1848 under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

The action was in the nature of ejectment, brought in the Superior Court of the Los Angeles County by Dominga Dominguez against Brigido Botiller and others, to recover possession of a tract of land situated in said county, known as 'Rancho Las Virgenes'. The title of the plaintiff was a grant claimed to have been made by the government of Mexico to Nemecio Dominguez and Domingo Carrillo, on October 1, 1834, but no claim under this grant had ever been presented for confirmation to the board of land commissioners, appointed under the California Land Act of 1851 (9 St. 631,) 'to ascertain and settle the private land claims in the state of California,' and no patent had ever issued from the United States to any one for the land, or for any part of it.

The Court held that no title to land in California dependent upon Spanish or Mexican land grants can be of any validity unless presented to and confirmed by the board of land commissioners within the time prescribed by the United States Congress.

See also

• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 130
• Alta California
• Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
• Aboriginal title in California

Further reading

• Clay, Karen B. (1999). "Property Rights and Institutions: Congress and the California Land Act of 1851". Journal of Economic History 59 (1): 122–142. doi:10.1017/S0022050700022312. JSTOR 2566499.
• Hornbeck, David (1979). "The Patenting of California's Private Land Claims, 1851–1885". Geographical Review 69 (4): 434–448. doi:10.2307/214806. JSTOR 214806.
• Soltero, Carlos R. (2006). "Botiller v. Dominguez (1889), Mexican land grants, and the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo". Latinos and American Law: Landmark Supreme Court Cases. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. pp. 9–16. ISBN 0-292-71411-4.
• Tolley, H. B. (1983). "The Domestic Applicability of International Treaties in the United States". Revista Jurídica de la Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico 17: 403. ISSN 0041-851X.

External links

• Full text opinion from Findlaw.com