Bush v. Pioneer Mining Co.

3 Alaska 610
CourtDistrict Court, D. Alaska
DecidedDecember 9, 1908
StatusPublished

This text of 3 Alaska 610 (Bush v. Pioneer Mining Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Alaska primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bush v. Pioneer Mining Co., 3 Alaska 610 (D. Alaska 1908).

Opinion

MOORE, District Judge.

The ground of the motion for the new trial upon which the plaintiff mainly relies is embodied in the reason No. 6 in support of the motion, phrased in this language:

“Error in law occurring at the trial, and excepted to by the plaintiff, namely, error in rejecting proof of the Alexander location of January 1, 1901; error in granting a nonsuit as to the Pioneer Mining Company; error in the instructions given and excepted to hy the plaintiff; and error in refusing to give instructions requested by the plaintiff and excepted to by the said plaintiff.”

These propositions will now be considered in the order given above.

Did the court err in rejecting proof of the Alexander location of January 1, 1901 ? The determination of this question will depend on the pleadings of the plaintiff as they stood at the time of the trial. On September 24, 1906, the complaint proper was filed. The plaintiff therein deraigned his title to the premises in controversy, the Big Clid fractional claim, from a location made by F. F. Bowers on, August 1, 1900, and an amended location thereof of subsequent date under the name of the Daisy placer mining claim, alleging mesne conveyances whereby plaintiff became the owner of an undivided one-fourth interest in the said Daisy claim.

On August 14, 1907, an amended complaint was filed by leave of the court. The plaintiff in that pleading omits the detailed recital of the two several locations hereinabove mentioned, and in section 3 alleges:

“That the said plaintiff is the owner in fee of an undivided one-fourth interest in the premises hereinafter described and entitled to the immediate possession thereof, under and hy virtue of valid and subsisting mining locations, made by his predecessors in interest under the mineral land laws of the United States on and subsequent to August 1, 1900, who thereafter conveyed to said plaintiff hy certain mesne conveyances an undivided one-fourth interest of, in, and to said premises.”

[612]*612Nowhere in tliis amended complaint is the claim in controversy given a name, but a description of it by metes and bounds does appear. . On September 4, 1907, a motion was filed to make this amended complaint more definite and certain, by setting forth therein under what mining locations plaintiff claims to have an undivided one-fourth interest in the premises described in the complaint, and when and by whom said locations were made. Subsequently, after argument, the motion was overruled by the court. The plaintiff in this second complaint describes it as an amended complaint.

On September 16, 1908, the plaintiff filed a third complaint, to which he also gave the title “amended complaint.” The apparent object of the pleader in filing the first amended complaint was to allege either the location of the Big Clid, coupled with the location of the Daisy as an amendment of the Big Clid, or to allege these with another location made subsequent to August 1, 1900. There is nothing in the second pleading suggestive of an intent to open the way for the introduction of evidence of a title accruing to the plaintiff after the institution of the action. Under the provisions of the Civil Code of Alaska it is the peculiar function of a supplemental complaint to give notice of such design of the pleader.

Section 98 of the Code (chapter 11) authorizes a supplemental complaint, and prescribes the characteristic distinguishing it from both an original and an amended complaint. The language of the section is :

“The plaintiff and defendant respectively may be allowed on motion to make a supplemental complaint, answer or reply, alleging facts material to the case occurring after the former complaint, answer or reply. Copies of all pleadings subsequent to the complaint must be served upon the adverse party or his attorney.”

The feature on the face of a complaint, or other pleading, which marks it as supplemental, is seen in its allegation of facts material to the case expressed to have accrued after the former [613]*613complaint or other pleading. It will not suffice to veil the nature of the pleading by means of misleading or uncertain language. The legislative intent manifested by the language of section 98 is that the court and adverse party shall be enabled thereby readily to take notice, by reading- the pleading, of its true meaning and purpose.

The first amended complaint of August 14, 1907, discloses no intent to introduce at the trial evidence of a title acquired' later than the filing pf the original complaint in the action. Nor does the third complaint, also labeled “amended complaint,” notify of such intent; for it was filed to give a more accurate description of the ground which was the subject of the controversy than the first amended complaint furnished, and for that purpose only. The counsel for the plaintiff have urged that the pleader’s intent to allege facts occurring subsequent to the filing of the original complaint is shown by the motion which accompanied the complaint of August. 14, 1907, and was attached to it. The motion reads:

“Comes now the plaintiff in the above-entitled action and moves the court for leave to file an amended complaint in said action. This motion is based on the records and files in the above-entitled action, and facts occurring subsequent to the filing of the original complaint therein.”

This language is not useful to establish the plaintiff’s right to introduce evidence of the Alexander location of 1901, for the reason that the proof introduced must correspond with the allegations written in' the pleadings. Any other rule would cause uncertainty and confusion in determining what evidence is admissible upon the trial of cases.

That the true test of a supplemental complaint is to be found only in its own allegations is affirmed in 21 Ency. Pleading and Practice, p. 67, par. 3. That paragraph states:

“A supplemental pleading should in strictness purport to be such; but the true nature of the pleading will be' determined solely by its [614]*614allegations, and not by the mere name given to it by the pleader.” Hospes v. Northwestern Mfg. Co. (C. C.) 22 Fed. 565.

So the preceding paragraph 2, p. 67, of 21 Ency. Pleading and Practice, supra, lends its aid to clear the matter of haze. It reads as follows

“The supplemental pleading must be such a one as was described when leave was asked, and such as was contemplated by the order-granting leave, and the pleader must not attempt to. do, inferentialiy, though not directly, what the order of the court forbids.”

When the court in the present case granted leave to plain-, tiff to file an amended complaint, which asserted his title in brief form and in terms general, rather than specific, omitting the details employed by him in deraigning title in the original complaint, he gave the court, neither in the words of the proposed amendment nor in the language of his motion, any information that he alleged a title acquired since the pendency of the action. The motion informed the court that it was—

“based on the records and files in the above-entitled action, the facts ■accruing subsequent to the filing of the original complaint therein.”

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Bluebook (online)
3 Alaska 610, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bush-v-pioneer-mining-co-akd-1908.