Albion Consolidated Mining Co. v. Richmond Mining Co.

19 Nev. 225
CourtNevada Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 15, 1885
DocketNo. 1216
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 19 Nev. 225 (Albion Consolidated Mining Co. v. Richmond Mining Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Nevada Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Albion Consolidated Mining Co. v. Richmond Mining Co., 19 Nev. 225 (Neb. 1885).

Opinion

By the Court,

Hawley, J.:—

On the twenty-first day of October, 1873, E. H. Rose and others commenced an action in the district court of Eureka County against the Richmond Company (appellant herein), to determine the right of possession to certain mining ground. A trial of that case in 1881 in the district court resulted in a judgment for the Richmond Company, from which Rose took an appeal to this court. The real controversy in that action depended aipon the question of the validity of the Uncle Sam location, owned by Rose and others, and of the St. George and Victoria .locations, and patents therefor from the United States, owned by the Richmond Company. This court declared the St. George .and Victoria patents to be “absolutely null and void,” and directed the district court to render a proper judgment in favor of Rose and others for the mining ground westerly of the line “.A C,” as designated upon the diagram in evidence in that case. (Rose v. Richmond M. Co. of Nevada, 17 Nev. 25.) An appeal was taken from this decision to the supreme court of the United States, and that court, on the 4th of May, 1885, affirmed the decision of this court. (Richmond M. Co. v. Rose, 114 U. S. 576.)

The present action was brought to recover damages for the value of ore alleged to have been taken by the Richmond Company from the mining ground west of the»line “A C.” The complaintallegesthat ninethousand two hundred and eighttons of ore were extracted and removed by the Richmond Company, of the value of-sixty-five dollars per ton, amounting to the sum of five hundred and ninety-eight thousand five hundred and twenty dollars. It is further averred that by the working of [227]*227the mine plaintiff was damaged in the sum of ten thousand dollars, making a total of six hundred and eight thousand five hundred and twenty dollars. The jury before whom this cause was tried found a verdict in favor of platntiff for thirteen thousand two hundred and fifty dollars. The plaintiff, being dissatisfied with this verdict, moved the district court for a new trial, which was granted upon two grounds, viz.: “ (1) Insufficiency of evidence to justify the verdict. (2) Irregularity of the defendant, by which plaintiff was prevented from having a fair trial.” This appeal is taken by defendant from the order of the district court granting a new trial.

1. The question whether there was any irregularity upon the part of appellant was, upon motion of appellant, eliminated from the case. It was presented upon affidavits which were not indorsed by the judge or clerk “ at the time as having been read or referred to on the hearing” of the motion for new trial (Stat. 1869, 227, sec. 197), and upon the authority of Dean v. Pritchard, 9 Nev. 232, the affidavits were stricken from the statement on appeal.

2. Appellant contends that the question whether the court erred in granting a new trial upon the ground of insufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict cannot be considered,because the statement, notwithstanding the recital therein that “the above and foregoing testimony was all the evidence offered and received in said action,” affirmatively shows that it does not contain all the evidence. This contention is based upon the fact that the statement shows that a glass model of the mining ground was used at the trial in the district court to illustrate the testimony of the witnesses, and that certain maps and diagrams were referred to by the witnesses, which are not made a part of the statement on appeal. It is argued that, without the model, maps, and diagrams, a portion of the testimony will be unintelligible to this court. It does not appear from the statement that the model, maps, or diagrams, or either of them, were offered in evidence, hence they were properly excluded from the record on appeal. Upon the trial of important mining cases it is quite frequently the custom of litigants to exhibit a model of the mine to be used in the court-room, instead of asking for an order to have the jury take a “ view of the premises,” the models being constructed in such a manner as to show the various levels, drifts, tunnels, excavations, ore-[228]*228bodies, and such other matters as may be in controversy, and to enable the witnesses to illustrate their testimony by a reference thereto, Before these models came in vogue, it was, and if a model is not used, it is still, occasionally the practice to allow the jury to view the premises for the purpose of enabling them the better to comprehend the testimony of the witnesses; but the courts have never held that such a view was a part of the evidence in the case which must be included in the statement on-appeal. It is allowed for the purpose of enabling “the jury, by the view of the premises or place, to better understand and comprehend the testimony of the witnesses respecting the same, and thereby the more intelligently to apply the testimony to the issues on trial before them, and not to make them silent witnesses in the case.” (Close v. Samm, 27 Iowa, 508; Wright v. Carpenter, 49 Cal. 609.) If the model is intended to establish any independent fact, and is introduced in evidence, and used in the court below for that purpose, provision should be made to have it brought before the appellate court. In the present case the model was not intended to establish any fact, and was not used for any such purpose. If the maps and diagrams had been offered in evidence, they should have been embodied in the statement on appeal; but the fact that they, like the model, were only used for the purpose of illustrating the testimony of the witnesses* and as they were not intended to establish any fact in the case, it was unnecessary to offer them in evidence. In People v. Cochran the court said: “A diagram is not a public nor private writing, nor is it made by law primary or secondary or prima facie evidence of any fact or object represented by it. When used on the trial of a case, it is not used as evidence; it does not .prove, nor tend to prove, in the sense of evidence, any fact; it is simply a figure drawn to suggest to the minds of the jurors the relation between objects about which a witness is testifying, and may be drawn on paper or on a stationary blackboard, which cannot be removed. The very construction of the figure itself is defined by the testimony of the witness, and is illustratory of his testimony; it partakes of it in the same way that the clearness of the expression of the witness partakes of his evidence.” (61 Cal. 552.)

The statement recites the fact that “ the defendant offered in evidence, for the purpose of showing its good faith in its entry [229]*229and removal of the ore in controversy, patents from the United States to the Victoria and St. George mining claims, which patents were issued by the government of the United States to the defendant before the ore in controversy was taken out, and were upon the same ledge and lode as the Uncle Sam claim, and covered the ground from which the ore in controversy was taken”; that the “plaintiff introduced in evidence notices of location of Uncle Sam, Albion, Nos. 1, 2, 3, and Albion Consonsolidated, and introduced mesne conveyances to show it was vested with the title of the original locators of said mining claims.” The plaintiff also offered in evidence the judgment roll in Rose v. Richmond M. Co. This judgment roll does not contain the original judgment of the district court, which was reversed by this court, upon appeal.

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Bluebook (online)
19 Nev. 225, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/albion-consolidated-mining-co-v-richmond-mining-co-nev-1885.