43 U.S.C. § 859
Section 859 · Fee simple to pass in all grants
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 2 court decisions — leading case 229 Ill. App. 3d 503 - City of Maroa v. Illinois Central Railroad (1992)
Most recently applied in Taylor v. Grubbs (July 2019)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Where lands have been or may hereafter be granted by any law of Congress to any one of the several States and Territories, and where such law does not convey the fee-simple title of the lands, or require patents to be issued therefor, the list of such lands which have been or may hereafter be certified by the Secretary of the Interior or such officer as he may designate, under the seal of his office, either as originals or copies of the originals or records shall be regarded as conveying the fee simple of all the lands embraced in such lists that are of the character contemplated by such Act of Congress, and intended to be granted thereby, but where lands embraced in such lists are not of the character embraced by such Acts of Congress, and are not intended to be granted thereby, the lists, so far as these lands are concerned, shall be perfectly null and void, and no right, title, claim, or interest shall be conveyed thereby.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Codification
R.S. §2449 derived from acts Aug. 3, 1854, ch. 201, 10 Stat. 346; Mar. 3, 1875, ch. 139, §8, 18 Stat. 475.
Transfer of Functions
For transfer of functions of other officers, employees, and agencies of Department of the Interior, with certain exceptions, to Secretary of the Interior, with power to delegate, see Reorg. Plan No. 3 of 1950, §§1, 2, eff. May 24, 1950, 15 F.R. 3174, 64 Stat. 1262, set out under section 1451 of this title.
“Secretary of the Interior or such officer as he may designate” substituted for “Commissioner of the General Land Office” on authority of section 403 of Reorg. Plan No. 3 of 1946. See note set out under section 1 of this title.