Chapter 320.
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/statutes-at-large/vol-20/chapter-320-697594·A research copy — for the controlling text, always check the official state or federal source. Not legal advice.
CHAP. 320.— AN ACT to authorize the claimants to certain lands in Santa Barbara County, California, to submit their claim to the United States district court for that State for adjudication.June 19, 1878. *Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled*,Rancho Las Cruces.Claimants may proceed in district court of California. That the claimants to lauds situated in Santa Barbara County, California, known as the Rancho Las Cruces, who reraign title through the original Mexican grantee of said rancho, are hereby permitted and authorized to present their claim to said lands to the district court of the United States for the district of California for examination; and if, upon the hearing of said case, it shall appear to said court Limits of confirmation.that the claim of the original grantee was good and valid under Mexican laws relating to such cases, the said court shall by decree confirm said claim: *Provided*, That no lands shall be confirmed to said claimants by said decree exceeding in area eight thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight acres, nor any la ds to which there are any valid claims existing under the preemption or homestead laws of the United States at the date of the passage of this act; nor shall any decree of confirmation affect any valid adverse right of any other person or persons, or give to the confirmees, or any of them, any claim upon the United States for compensation for any land such confirmees may lose by reason of preemption or homestead claims or adverse rights Preliminary releases.as aforesaid: *Provided further*, that said claimants, before filing their claim shall execute releases to any persons who may be in possession of any portion of said lands under valid claims under the preemption, homestead, or other laws of the United States at the date of the passage of this act, to the portions of said lands so held respectively; and before rendering a decree of confirmation, the said court shall ascertain that said releases have been duly executed.
Sec. 2. That in case said claim is rejected by said court then saidAppeal. claimants are hereby granted the right of appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, within the time and in the manner now provided by Law governing case.1851, ch.41,9 Stat., 631.law in like cases. The said courts in the examination of the claims presented by any person under this act, shall be governed, so far as applicable, by the provisions of the act passed March third anno Domini eighteen hundred and fifty one, entitled “An act to ascertain and settle private land claims in the State of California.
” Sec. 3. That the United States surveyor-general for California is herebySurvey on filing final decree. directed, upon the filing in his office by said claimants of a certified copy of a final decree of confirmation, under the provisions of this act, to cause said claim to be surveyed as other claims of like nature are 173 FORTY-FIFTH CONGRESS. Sess. 11. CH. 320, 321, 322, 323. 1878. now surveyed under existing laws; and upon the approval of said surveyPatent by the Commissioner of the General Land Office a patent shall issue to said claimants in the usual form.
Approved, June 19, 1878.