Doe v. Waterloo Min. Co.

55 F. 11, 1893 U.S. App. LEXIS 2524
U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Southern California·Decided April 3, 1893·No. Nos. 160, 161·Published·Cited by 4 cases

Opinion

BOSS, District Judge.

These cases were argued and submitted together. Case Bo. 160 originated out of an application made by the Waterloo Mining Company in the United States land office at Los Angeles for a patent for a certain mining claim called the “Josephine,” situate in the Calico mining district, in San Bernardino county, of this state, and a protest against such issuance, filed by the complainant, Doe; and case Bo. 161 had a similar origin in respect to an application by the same company for a patent for a mining claim called the “Bed Jacket,” situate in the same mining district. Contests having thus arisen between the respective parties in the land office, these suits were commenced by the contestant in one of the superior courts of the state, to determine the rights of the parties respecting the disputed premises, and the suits were, on motion of defendant, transferred to this court. Here the court was ‘called upon to determine the precise nature of the suits in an opinion reported in 43 Fed. Rep. 219. The suits were subsequently brought to issue, evidence on behalf of the respective parties taken, and, after argument, submitted to the court for decision.

[13]*13It appears that o-n the 26th of Starch, 1883, a man named Yewbill discovered a vein of metal-bearing rock in the mountains of Calico, which, he claimed, and named the “Red Jacket,” on which he on the same day erected a monument, and posted a written notice on a stick placed therein, substantially as follows:

“I have tills day located and claimed fifteen hundred feet on tills load or lode running one thousand feet northwesterly and live hundred feet southeasterly, with three hundred feet on each side, for running [mining] purposes 1 also claim the legal time of twenty days to complete my boundary monuments.”

On the 6th day of April following T. 0. Warden and Q. W. Yager went prospecting in the same vicinity, and on that day they located a claim called the “Mammoth,” so marking its boundaries that they could be readily traced on the ground. The notice posted by Yew-Mil was placed in a conspicuous place, and was in fact seen by Warden and Yager, although Warden’s testimony is to the effect that they did not fake the trouble to go to read it, though it was within 100 or 150 feet of where they stood when making- the location of the Mammoth claim. The latter claim was so located by Warden and Yager as to take in a part of the ground that would be included by embracing within the boundaries of the Red Jacket 1,000 feet along the vein northwesterly and 500 feet southeasterly from, the discovery monument and notice erected by Yewbill, with 800 feet on each side thereof. Those boundaries were established by Parks, Wallace, and Parrel] on April 12, 18.81, in pursuance of the notice posted by Yewbill, and for and on behalf of Yewbill and themselves; Yewbill, by reason of sickness, having given them an interest in the Red Jacket claim in consideration of their services in completing Ms location. The boundaries tiras established by Parks, Wallace, and Farrell were, as a matter of course, in part within those of the Mammoth as established by Warden and Yager on the 6th of April. The complainant, Doe, is the successor in interest of ’Warden and Yager, and the defendant, Waterloo Mining Company, the successor in interest of Yewbill and' Ms associates. Which of these parties has the better right to the piece of ground ■covered by both locations, is the question for decision in cas® Yo. 161. The question, I think, is of easy solution.

Yewbill was the first discoverer of ihe ground in question. True, upon the day of its discovery — March 26, 3881 — he did not establish monuments around the exterior boundaries of the claim, and those monuments were not marked at the time Warden and Yager located the Mammoth claim, on the 6th of April, 1881. But the notice on the stake placed by Yewbill at the point of his discovery notified Warden and Yager, and every one else, that Yewbil] had located and claimed the vein for 3,000 feet in a northwesterly direction and for 500 feet in a southeasterly direction from the discovery stake, .with 300 feet on each side thereof. A less definite notice was held sufficient to protect the locator against the acts of subsequent locators by the supreme court in the case of Erhardt, v. Boaro, 113 U. S. 527, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 560. There the discoverer on the day of discovery designated the vein or lode as the “Hawk [14]*14Lode,” and posted at the place of the discovery a notice in writing as follows:

“Hawk Lode.
“We, the undersigned, claim fifteen hundred feet on this mineral-bearing lode, vein, or deposit.
“Dated June 17, 18S0.
“Joel B. Brhardt, four fifths.
“Thomas Carroll, one fifth.”

The supreme court, in reviewing the action of the court below, said:

“As seen by the statement of the case, the court below, iu its charge, assumed that the notice on the stake, placed by Carroll at the point of his discovery, contained no specification or description of the ground claimed by the locators, because if did not designate the number of feet claimed on each side of that point, or in any direction from it. The court accordingly instructed the jury that the notice was deficient, and under it the locators could not claim any more than the very place in which the stake was planted, and that elsewhere on the same lode beyond the point of discovery any other citizen 20uld make a valid location. In this instruction we think the court erred-The statute allows the discoverer of a lode or vein to locate a claim thereof to the extent of fifteen hundred feet. The written notice posted on the stake at the point of discovery of the lode or vein in controversy designated by the locators as ‘Hawk Lode,’ declares that they claim fifteen hundred feet on the ‘lode, vein, or deposit.’ It thus informed all persons subsequently seeking to excavate and open the lode or vein that the locators claimed the whole extent along its course which the law permitted them to take. It is, indeed, indefinite in not stating the number of feet claimed on each side of the discovery point, aDd must, therefore, he limited to an equal number on each side; that is, to seven hundred and fifty feet on the course of the lode or vein in each direction from that point. To that extent, as a notice of discovery and original location, it is sufficient. Greater particularity of description of a location of a mining claim on a lode or vein could seldom be given until subsequent excavations have disclosed the course of the latter. These excavations are to be made within sixty days after the discovery. Then the location must be distinctly marked on the ground, so that its boundaries can be readily traced; and within one month thereafter — that is, within three months from the discovery — a certificate of the location must be filed for record in the county in which the lode is situated, containing the designation of the lode, the names of the locators, the date of the location, the number of feet claimed on each side of the center of the discovery shaft, the general course of the lode, and such a description of the claim, by reference to some natural object or permanent monument, as will identify it with reasonable certainty. Kev. St. § 2824; Gen. Laws Colo. §§ 1S13, 1814.

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Doe v. Waterloo Min. Co., 55 F. 11, 1893 U.S. App. LEXIS 2524 (circtsdca 1893).

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