Mexico seized the Jesuit mission fund for California in 1842, and the claim ran 125 years through the first case at The Hague

In 1697 donors in Mexico began giving money and land to the Jesuits to support missions in California. Spain allowed it on condition that the royal treasury paid nothing. The Crown took over the fund when the Jesuits were expelled in 1767 and 1768, and independent Mexico held it from 1821. In 1840 the Californias became a diocese and the fund went to its bishop. In April 1842 the properties were surrendered to the government. A decree of 24 October 1842 ordered them sold and the proceeds put in the national treasury, with a promise of 6 percent a year for religious purposes in California. In 1848 Mexico ceded Upper California to the United States. Its bishops claimed their share. On 11 November 1875 the umpire Sir Edward Thornton valued the fund at $1,435,033 and awarded $904,070.79 for 1848 to 1869. Mexico paid that in gold over 13 years, the last payment on 20 January 1890, and then paid nothing more. On 14 October 1902, in the first case decided by the Permanent Court of Arbitration, Mexico was ordered to pay $1,420,682.67 and a perpetual annuity of $43,050.99. Mexico paid until it defaulted in the Revolution. In 1967 it settled with a single payment of $719,546 to the archdioceses of San Francisco and Los Angeles.