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Title 43, Public LandsRelease 119-102

§13 Original Papers on File as Evidence

Title 43 › CHAPTER 1 — BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT › § 13

Last updated Aug 21, 2026|Official source

Summary

A land office officer must immediately tell the Secretary of the Interior if served with a subpoena or other legal order to produce original Bureau of Land Management papers used to issue a land patent, and must say which papers are requested. The Secretary must then quickly send the original papers to the land office and attach an official certificate with the office seal confirming they are the originals. Courts in the United States and in the states must accept those sealed originals as evidence. The Secretary must make rules so the documents are returned to the Bureau of Land Management after use, and this return must not cost the United States.

Full Legal Text

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.

Legislative History

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.

Reference

Citations & Metadata

Citation

43 U.S.C. § 13

Title 43, Public Lands

Last Updated

Aug 21, 2026

Release point: 119-102