Opinion of the Court.

ecutive, (1 Cranch, 170, 171,) legislative, (4 Wheat. 423; 2 Pet. 412; 4 Pet. 563,) judicial, (11 Mass. 227; 11 S. & R. 429; adopted in 2 Pet. 167, 168,) or special, (20 Johns. 739, 740; 2 Dow P. C. 521, etc.,) unless an appeal is provided for, or other revision, by some appellate or supervisory tribunal, is prescribed by law." See also the following cases: Foley v. Harrison, 15 How. 433, 448; Johnson v. Towsley, 13 Wall. 72, 83; Smelting Company v. Kemp, 104 U. S. 636, 640; Shepley v. Cowan, 91 U. S. 330, 340; Moore v. Robbins, 96 U. S, 530, 535; Quinby v. Conlan, 104 U. S. 420, 426; Steel v. Smelting Co., 106 U. S. 447, 450; Leev. Johnson, 116 U. S. 48, 51; Wright v. Roseberry, 121 U. S. 488, 509.

It is true that the bill alleges that these certificates were procured by the Road Company by and through the false and fraudulent representations of its officers, agents, etc., and also true that the averment in the first plea, that the certificates were made honestly and in good faith, was stricken out, and testimony offered to show the way in which the certificates were obtained was rejected. Therefore, as the inquiry is now presented, it must be in the light of the uncontested allegation that the certificates were obtained through the fraudulent acts of the Road Company. It may be that, in view of this situation of affairs, the Road Company could not avail itself of such determinations by the governors as decisive of its title, and it may also be that the purchasers are likewise precluded from claiming that these determinations are in and of themselves conclusive in their favor, but at the same time they are significant with respect to that element of good faith, which consists in diligence. The testimony shows that the purchasers knew of nothing wrong in respect to the title, or the proceedings of the Road Company, or any officials connected with the transfer of title. They knew that determination of the question as to the completion of the road was committed by the statute to the governor of the State. They saw his adjudication upon that question, and it may well be held that they took all the active measures which under the circumstances they could be required to take when they ascertained that the authorized official, and that official the chief executive

Opinion of the Court.

of the State, the grantee named in the Congressional act, had officially determined that the road was completed, there being. nothing in any of the circumstances surrounding the parties to suggest a suspicion of wrong. Can it be that they must be adjudged derelict in diligence because they did not make a personal examination of the road, and determine for themselves whether it was in its entire length completed so as to satisfy all of the terms of the grant? If a patent from the government be presented, surely a purchaser from the patentee is not derelict, and does not fail in such diligence and care as are required to make him a bona fide purchaser, because he relies upon the determination made by the land officers of the government in executing the patent, and does not institute a personal inquiry into all the anterior transactions upon which the patent rested.

As against these evidences and conclusions of good faith but a single proposition is raised, one upon which the dissenting judge in the Circuit Court of Appeals rested his opinion, and that is the proposition that the conveyances from the Road Company were only quitclaim deeds, and that a purchaser, holding under such a deed cannot be a bona fide purchaser, and in support of this proposition reference is made to the following cases in this court: Oliver v. Piatt, 3 How. 333, 410; Van Rensselaer v. Kearney, 11 How. 297; May v. Le Claire, 11 Wall. 217, 232; Villa v. Rodriguez, 12 Wall. 323, 339; Dickerson v. Colgrove, 100 U. S. 578; Baker v. Humphrey, 101 U. S. 494; Hanrick v. Patrick, 119 U. S. 156. The argument, briefly stated, is that he who will give only a quitclaim deed in effect notifies his vendee that there is some defect in his title, and the latter, taking with such notice, takes. at his peril. It must be confessed that there are expressions in the opinions in the cases referred to which go to the full length of this proposition. Thus, in Baker v. Humphrey, 101 U. S. 494, 499, Mr. Justice Swayne, in delivering the opinion of the court, uses this language: "Neither of them was in any sense a bona fide purchaser. No one taking a quitclaim deed. can stand in that relation." Yet it may be remarked that in none of these cases was it necessary to go to the full extent of

Opinion of the Court.

denying absolutely that a party taking a quitclaim deed could be a bona fide purchaser; and in the later case of McDonald v. Belding, 145 U. S. 492, it was held, in a case coming from Arkansas, and in harmony with the rulings of the Supreme Court of that State, that while ordinarily a person holding under a quitclaim deed may be presumed to have had knowledge of imperfections in his vendor's title, yet that the rule was not universal, and that one might become a bona fide purchaser for value although holding under a deed of that kind; and in that case the grantee so holding was protected as a bona fide purchaser: while in the case of Moelle v. Sherwood, just decided, ante, 21, the general question was examined, and it was held that the receipt of a quitclaim deed does not of itself prevent a party from becoming a bona fide holder, and the expressions to the contrary, in previous opinions, were distinctly disaffirmed.

But, further, and even if the doctrine were now recognized to be as heretofore stated, this fact would take the case out from the reach of the rule. The title passed from the Road Company to the purchasers by four conveyances: two from the Road Company to one Pengra, its agent and superintendent; and two from Pengra to the purchasers. Now, the deeds from Pengra are not quitclaims; they do not purport to be merely releases of his right, title and interest; but are strictly deeds of bargain and sale. The granting clause is in these words: "The said parties of the first part have aliened, released, granted, bargained, sold, and by these presents they do alien, release, grant, bargain, sell and convey unto the said parties of the second part, their heirs and assigns, in proportions hereafter specified, the equal undivided one-half (3) of all and singular the lands lying and being in the State of Oregon, granted or intended to be granted to the State of Oregon by act of Congress," etc. And the habendum is: "To have and to hold all and singular the lands and premises hereby conveyed, to wit, said undivided one-half of all the above-described grant of lands listed and to be listed, and all the right, title and interest of the party of the first part therein."

Such a deed is clearly something more than one of quit

Opinion of the Court.

claim and release; it is a deed of bargain and sale, and will convey an after-acquired title. Such is the ruling of the Supreme Court of Oregon. Taggart v. Risley, 4 Oregon, 235. Now, even in those courts in which the rule was announced, that one who takes under a quitclaim deed cannot be a bona fide purchaser, it was sometimes limited to the grantee in such a deed, and not extended to those cases in which a quitclaim was only a prior conveyance in the chain of title. Snowden v. Tyler, 21 Nebraska, 199. And this is certainly a most reasonable limitation, because the rule is obviously, at the best, arbitrary and technical; for a party who receives a quitclaim deed may act in the utmost good faith, and in fact be ignorant of any defect in the title, and this, although he has made the most complete and painstaking investigation, and only takes the quitclaim deed because the grantor, for expressed and satisfactory reasons, declines to give a warranty. It would be unfortunate, in view of the fact that in so many chains of title there are found quitclaim deeds, to extend a purely arbitrary rule so as to make the fact of such a deed notice of any prior defect in the title.

It may be said that the real transaction was between the Road Company and the purchasers; that the agent and superintendent of the Road Company was merely a gobetween, a conduit through which the title passed from the Road Company to the purchasers; and that the spirit, if not the letter of the rule, requires that the form of conveyance used by the Road Company should be controlling as to the bona fides of the purchasers. But as it is, wherever enforced, a merely technical and arbitrary rule, justice requires that it should not be carried beyond its express terms, nor used to disprove the good faith which, in this case, all the other testimony shows in fact existed in the purchasers. And in this respect it is well to consider the obvious reason for the unwillingness of the Road Company to itself execute a warranty deed. The original act of 1864 said nothing about patents; it simply granted the lands to the State, and authorized their sale; and only after the arrangement had been made for the purchase of one-half of these lands, and the

Opinion of the Court.

conveyances made therefor, was the act of 1874 passed, providing in terms for patents. The claim of the Road Company was, that their title was a perfect legal title, even without a patent; and yet there being a doubt in respect thereto — a doubt which was solved only by the act of 1874-it was not strange that it preferred to quitclaim its interest in the granted lands rather than to formally convey them by a warranty of the legal title. But it is not to be inferred therefrom, as a matter of law, that the Road Company in any way doubted its full equitable title, or that, by the fact of a quitclaim, it notified the purchasers of any other matter than this omission in the statute. On the contrary, the plain import of the language used in the conveyance from the Road Company to Pendra was that it intended to convey the lands which it had received under the grant, and to which it believed it then had a full equitable, if not legal, title. Our conclusions, therefore, are that the decision of the Circuit Court and the Court of Appeals was correct.

Before closing this opinion, we think it proper to notice one matter which, though of no significance in determining the legal rights of the parties, may throw light upon the transaction, and perhaps relieve the original donee of the grant by the State, the Road Company, from the imputation of wrong cast upon it by the filing of this bill. The grant was made in 1864, and the last certificate of the governor of Oregon was dated the 12th of January, 1870. The memorial of the legislature of the State of Oregon was adopted in 1885, that memorial which induced the act of Congress and this litigation. In other words, the State of Oregon and its citizens, including those living along this road, remained silent for fifteen years after its alleged completion. The terms of the original grant were limited to the construction of the road, and imposed no duty of thereafter keeping it in good condition. Having earned the grant by constructing the road, it may well be that the Road Company took no further interest in it, and an ordinary wagon-road, uncared for during fifteen years, particularly that part of it which runs through mountainous country, would be almost completely destroyed by the