§13 — Title 43 Public Lands | U.S. Code

Summary

When a U.S. land office officer gets a subpoena or other court order asking for original land-entry papers, final proof of residence and cultivation, or other original Bureau of Land Management records used to issue a land patent, the officer must immediately notify the Secretary of the Interior (or the person the Secretary names) and say exactly which papers are requested. The Secretary (or that designee) must then send those original files to the land office and attach an official sealed certificate saying they are the originals used to issue the patent. Those certified originals must be accepted as evidence in U.S. and state courts. The Secretary must make rules so the documents are returned to the BLM after use, at no cost to the United States.

Title 43, §13

Public Lands — Source: USLM XML via OLRC

Whenever the officer, as the Secretary of the Interior may designate, of any United States land office shall be served with a subpoena duces tecum or other valid legal process requiring him to produce, in any United States court or in any court of record of any State, the original application for entry of public lands or the final proof of residence and cultivation or any other original papers on file in the Bureau of Land Management of the United States on which a patent to land has been issued or which furnish the basis for such patent, it shall be the duty of such officer to at once notify the Secretary of the Interior, or such officer as he may designate, of the service of such process, specifying the particular papers he is required to produce, and upon receipt of such notice from any such officer of a United States land office the Secretary or such officer designated by him shall at once transmit to the officer of such land office the original papers specified in such notice, and which such officer is required to produce, and to attach to such papers a certificate, under seal of his office, properly authenticating them as the original papers upon which patent was issued; and such papers so authenticated shall be received in evidence in all courts of the United States and in the several State courts of the States of the Union: Provided, That the Secretary of the Interior shall make rules and regulations to secure the return of such documents to the Bureau of Land Management, after use in evidence, without cost to the United States.

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Executive Documents

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. References to Commissioner of General Land Office and registers of United States Land Offices changed to Secretary of the Interior or such officer as he may designate and “Bureau of Land Management” substituted for “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.

§13 Original papers on file as evidence

Summary

Title 43, §13

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Executive Documents

Transfer of Functions

Transfer of Functions

Citations & Metadata