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Show LOUISIANA 355 though such grants included parts of navigable waters or their beds. However, if pre-1910 grants were clouded in any way by the above statute, it would seem that they obtained any necessary security as a result of a 1912 act which provided :40 Actions, Including those by the State of Louisiana, to annul any patent issued by the State, duly signed by the Governor and the register of the State land office, and of record in the State land office, are prescribed by 6 years, reckoning from the day of the issuance of the patent. [Emphasis added.] It would thus seem that by August 12, 1916 (if not before), all grants prior to August 12, 1910, would be secure from any effort to annul or void them, because the 6-year limitation would have run. But that apparently is not so. Legislation enacted in 1954 is most interesting. The legislature in that year construed its own 1912 act, then advised the court as to how the statutes were to be construed, and, finally, repealed the 1912 act to the extent that it might be con- strued to be inconsistent with the 1954 act. The 1954 statute first con- cludes that the public policy of the State has always opposed sale or disposition of navigable waters and their beds, and then explains the meaning of the 1912 act :41 It has been the public policy of the State of Louisiana at all times since its admission into the Union that all navigable waters and the beds of same within its boundaries are common or public things and insusceptible of private owner- ship ; that no act of the Legislature of Louisiana has been enacted in contra- vention of said policy, and that the intent of the Legislature of this State at the time of the enactment of Act No. 62 of the year 1912, now appearing as R.S. 9:5661, and continuously thereafter was and is at this present time to ratify and confirm only those patents which conveyed or purported to convey public lands susceptible of private ownership of the nature and character, the alienation or transfer of which was authorized by law but not patents or transfers which purported to convey or transfer navigable waters and the beds of same. [Emphasis added.] The legislative rationale quite clearly is that any transfer by the State of navigable waters and their beds was always contrary to the public policy of the State, and was never authorized by law, and so any such patents would have been void from their inception. The next section of the statute says as much :42 Any patent or transfer heretofore or hereafter issued or made is null and void, so far as same purports to include such navigable waters and the beds thereof, as having been issued or made in contravention of the public policy of this State and without any prior authorization by law. . . . Then, in the following section of the act, the legislature supplies the courts with a guide to statutory construction :43 No statute enacted by the legislature of Louisiana shall be construed as to validate by reason of prescription or peremption [sic] any patent or transfer issued by the State or any levee district thereof, so far as the same purports to include navigable or tide waters or the beds of same. Just in case the court might construe section 9:5661 contrary to the legislative construction, the legislature declared :44 All laws or parts of laws, and especially and provisions of section 5661 of title 9 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes of 1950, insofar as same may conflict with the provisions of this act, are hereby repealed. *> Sec. 9 :5661. « Sec. 9 :1107. *3 Sec. 9 :1108. *» Sec. 9 :1109. « Acts 1954, No. 727, sec. 5. 499-242-73------24 |