Respondent's intestate brought suit in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia for a mandatory injunction compelling the Secretary of the Interior to vacate his decision rejecting an application under R. S. § 2347 (30 USCA § 71) for the purchase of certain coal land included in the school-land grant to Utah, and directing that a patent issue. The case was heard on bill and answer, from which it appears that the land in question is part of section 32 in a particular township in Utah. Section 32 of each township was included in the school-land grant to the state of Utah under the Enabling Act of July 16, 1894, c. 138, 28 Stat. 107, 109, which became effective on the admission of Utah into the Union, January 4, 1896. But the grant did not include any land that was known to be mineral. United States v. Sweet, 245 U.S. 563, 38 S.C.t. 193, 62 L. Ed. 473. In the official government survey the land in question was reported by the surveyor as nonmineral. In May, 1902, the state sold the lands, and the purchaser later conveyed them to the Pleasant Valley Coal Company, which has since appeared as the record owner and paid taxes on them. On February 4, 1918, Braffet, respondent's intestate, filed in the local land office at Salt Lake City his application to purchase the lands as coal lands. At this time, and for many years before, the settled practice of the Land Office, under Rule 1 of the Regulations of March 6, 1903, 32 L. D. 39, had been to treat applications for purchase, under the mining laws, of parts of a section designated in the school-land grant, where made after the date when the grant would attach if the land was nonmineral, as a contest of the state's right.
Braffet's application was so treated. The state was cited and answered, protesting the application, and setting up that the lands were not known coal lands on the date of the grant to it. The coal company intervened and made like answer. Braffet assumed the burden of the contest and offered evidence. At the conclusion of his case motions of the state and the coal company to dismiss were granted without the submission of testimony in their behalf. Braffet appealed to the Commissioner of the General Land Office, who reversed the action of the local land office, and, without affording the state or the coal company opportunity to offer evidence, directed that Braffet's contest be sustained and the protest of the state dismissed. The state and the coal company appealed to the Secretary, who, July 31, 1922, held that the local office had erred in dismissing the contest for insufficiency of evidence, and that the Commissioner had also erred in disposing of the case without affording the state and the coal company an opportunity to offer evidence. He remanded the cause to the local office to proceed with the contest. 49 L. D. 212.
In the meantime the Leasing Act of February 25, 1920, c. 85, 41 Stat. 437, 438, 451 (30 USCA § 181 et. seq.), had been enacted, authorizing the disposition of certain classes of mineral lands including coal lands of the United States only by lease by the Secretary of the Interior. Acting under this statute the Secretary, on June 4, 1923, executed a lease of the land to the coal company which, in contemplation of this action, had waived its claim under the state grant, expressly stipulating that its waiver was on condition that the lease be granted. The state in the meantime had withdrawn its protest to Braffet's application, without prejudice to the claim of the company, setting up that it had no benefical interest in the land by reason of its own conveyance to the coal company's grantor.
Braffet's contest was dismissed January 8, 1924, and his application to reopen it was denied on March 24, 1924. Later, the present suit was brought. The decree of the Supreme Court of the District directed the Secretary to vacate his decision remanding the proceedings to the local office, and to issue a patent on payment of the purchase price. The Court of Appeals modified the judgment in respects not now material, but held that Braffet's application was valid and that the Secretary should be directed to issue a patent. 57 App. D. C. 192, 19 F. (2d) 666.