Home/Nevada Supreme Court/Golden Fleece G. & S. M. Co. v. Cable Consolidated G. & S. M. Co.

Golden Fleece G. & S. M. Co. v. Cable Consolidated G. & S. M. Co.

12 Nev. 312
CourtNevada Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 15, 1877
DocketNo. 795
StatusPublished
Cited by38 cases

This text of 12 Nev. 312 (Golden Fleece G. & S. M. Co. v. Cable Consolidated G. & S. M. 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
Golden Fleece G. & S. M. Co. v. Cable Consolidated G. & S. M. Co., 12 Nev. 312 (Neb. 1877).

Opinions

By the Court,

Beatty, J.:

The defendant herein having made application for the government title to certain mining ground, the plaintiff filed an adverse claim to a portion of the premises, and thereupon commenced this action to determine the right of possession of the ground in controversy. The trial of the case in the district court resulted in a verdict and judgment for the plaintiff, and the defendant appeals from the judgment, [319]*319ancl also from an order denying its motion for a new trial. The assignments of error are very numerous, but only a few of the questions involved have been fairly argued, and we shall confine ourselves to those questions.

The substance of the complaint is: That the plaintiff is the owner and in the actual possession of a claim of fifteen hundred linear feet of a lode called the Golden Fleece, and of a surface claim of three hundred feet on each side thereof; that the defendant claims some estate or interest in the said premises adverse to the plaintiff, and has applied for a United States patent for a portion thereof; that the plaintiff has protested and filed an adverse claim, and that the proceedings in the land-office have been suspended until the rights of the parties can be determined in a court of competent jurisdiction. It is further alleged, on information and belief, that defendant’s claim to the ground is based upon certain pretended mining locations (describing them) which are said to be invalid by reason of the failure of the locators to comply with the law in making and recording them. Wherefore the plaintiff prays to be adjudged the owner and entitled to the possession of the disputed ground.

The answer admits an adverse claim to the ground described in the complaint, denies plaintiff’s possession and right to the possession, and sets up a valid title to the ground described in defendant’s application for a patent.

The testimony adduced at the trial showed that the two claims described in the complaint and answer, respectively, lie across each other. The plaintiff’s claim extends from north-east to south-west fifteen hundred feet in length by six hundred in breadth, and the south-west end covers the middle of the defendant’s claim, which extends from north to south fifteen hundred feet in length by six hundred feet in width.

At the trial the plaintiff introduced evidence which, if true, established the following facts, among others: The plaintiff is a Nevada corporation; at and before the commencement of this action it was mining upon a well-defined lode of silver-bearing quartz, the croppings of which were exposed within the clearly-marked boundaries of its surface [320]*320claim; that said boundaries embraced a portion of the ground claimed by the defendant, and that it had done some work within the lines of the disputed ground.

At the close of plaintiff’s testimony the defendant moved for a nonsuit, and the ruling of the court denying the motion is assigned as error. The specifications under this head correspond to the grounds of the motion. The first of these, to which our attention is particularly invited, was stated as follows: “That the title of defendant, as pleaded by plaintiff, is not proven, or proven invalid.”

The appellant contends that in an action of this sort the plaintiff, to escape a nonsuit, must not only prove affirmatively a prima facie right to the disputed premises, but must also plead and prove the particulars of defendant’s claim, and prove that it is invalid. This is the doctrine of Blasdel v. Williams (9 Nev., 167), which was overruled in Scorpion Company v. Marsano, (10 Nev., 379.) We are asked to again review the question and to restore the rule of the former case upon the authority of a recent decision in Wisconsin. (38 Wis. 320.) That case, on examination, will be found to give only a partial support to Blasdel v. Williams, and we are very confident that, taking it into account, our last decision will be found to be supported as well by the number of decided cases as by the reason of the thing. A review of the question is, however, w’kolly unnecessary in this ease, which is governed by the provisions of section 1674 of the compiled laws, passed February 10, 1873, and evidently designed to supplement section 2326 of the revised statutes of the United States, passed May 10, 1872. Under these laws the pendency of a contest in the laud-office, with respect to a mining claim, gives our district courts jurisdiction to determine the right of possession as between the adverse claimants. The contestant, whether he is in or out of possession, must commence his action to determine the right within thirty days after filing his adverse claim. It would be absurd to hold that, if he happens to be the party in possession, and therefore presumably entitled to the possession,'judgment must go against him, in favor of a party out of possession, unless he not only proves his own

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Bluebook (online)
12 Nev. 312, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/golden-fleece-g-s-m-co-v-cable-consolidated-g-s-m-co-nev-1877.