Lockhart v. Leeds

10 N.M. 568, 10 Gild. 568
CourtNew Mexico Supreme Court
DecidedAugust 24, 1900
Docket868
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 10 N.M. 568 (Lockhart v. Leeds) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New Mexico Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lockhart v. Leeds, 10 N.M. 568, 10 Gild. 568 (N.M. 1900).

Opinion

PARKER, J.

Mining lanas: Spanish grant: location ol mines. 1. The question to be determined is whether the appellant has by his bill stated a case which entitles him to any relief in a court of equity. A suit in ejectment involving the same mining claim, which is the subject of this litigation, was before this court, and the opinion deciding it will be found reported under the title of Lock-hart v. Wills, 54 Pac. Rep. 336. The appellees contend that upon the allegations of the bill, the remedy of the appellant is at law, and not in equity. We think this contention is well founded, and that the action of the court in sustaining the demurrer was correct. In the case of Lock-hart v. Wills, supra, we held that the ground in controversy was subject to location under the mining laws of the United States. In that case it was stipulated by the parties that the decree of the Court of Private Land Claims, confirming the private land claim within which it was alleged the ground in controversy was located, eliminated the mine from the gra'nt. We held, however, that although that decree had not been rendered at the time the attempted locations of the “Sampson” and “Washington” mines were made, nevertheless, the ground was subject to exploration, location and entry under the mining laws of the United States. After fully discussing the contention of the parties and the law applicable to the facts, we said: “We conclude that they” (lands within unconfirmed Mexican or Spanish grants) “are not reserved lands and are 'lands belonging to the United States’ within the meaning of section 2319 of the Revised Statutes of the United States.” We deem it unnecessary to again discuss this question and refer to our opinion in that case.

Equity: pleading: demurer. The demurrer admits the truth of all the allegations in the bill which are well pleaded. If any of the allegations in the bill, however, are ambiguous, they are to be construed more strongly against the appellant. “A demurrer only admits facts well pleaded: it does not admit matters of inference and argument, however clearly stated.” Dillon v. Barnard, 21 Wall. 430. There must be sufficient equity on the facts of the bill to warrant the relief prayed for, and the material facts on which the plaintiff relies must be so distinctly alleged as to put them in issue. Harding v. Handy, 11 Wheat. 103. “The rule is familiar that the court will refuse to decree unless the substantial ground work of the case on which the relief is sought is distinctly alleged in the bill.” Pelham v. Edlmyer, 15 Fed. Rep. 262. “It may be affirmed as an elementary rule of the most extensive influence, that the bill should state the right, title or claim of the plaintiff with accuracy, and clearness, and that it should in like manner, state the injury or grievance of which he complains, and the relief which he asks of the court:” Story on Equity Plead., Sec. 241. Applying these principles to the allegations of the bill, we find that the bill alleges that the defendant Pillcey under the contract between him and the appellant and Ben Johnson, located the “Sampson Mine,” and performed all the acts necessary to complete a valid location, except the filing of the location notice in the county recorder’s office within ninety days after the making of the location, on July 10, 1893. It alleges that the defendants caused and procured the defendant Pilkey “to fail and neglect to record the said location notice so by him posted thereon as aforesaid, and the said defendants or some of them wrongfully removed the said location notice from-said claim, and after the removal of the said location notice * * * a copy thereof was procured by your orator * * * and the same was filed in the office of the recorder on December 9, 1893." It fails to allege when the posted copy was removed, or when the copy filed for record was procured by the appellant. So far as the allegations of the bill are concerned, the copy may have been in possession of the appellant long before the expiration of the ninety days within which the law required it to be filed. It was certainly within the powe'r of the defendant to have definitely alleged when he procured this copy, and thereby show, if such was the fact, that he did not file it sooner because he could not obtain it. He does not allege how or from whom he obtained it.

The failure to file a location notice for record works a forfeiture of a mining location, and leaves the claim open to relocation. Lockhart v. Wills, supra. There is no allegation in the bill showing that the appellant could not himself have filed this location notice for record within the ninety days. It contains no allegation that appellant relied upon the defendant Pilkey to file it. It is true that there is an allegation that the defendants caused and procured the defendant Pilkey to fail and neglect to record it, but this in the absence of an allegation that the appellant was relying upon the defendant to file it, does not account for the delay in doing so until December 9, following. The bill alleges “that on or about the first of October, 1893, the precise date thereof being unknown” to appellant, “an agreement was .made and entered into by some of the defendants with Pilkey who was then in possession of the mine, that he should transfer and deliver possession of the said mine to the last named defendant without the knowledge or consent of the defendant and Ben Johnson and by an instrument in writing, the precise terms of which he can not set up, because it is in possession of the defendants, Pilkey conveyed an undivided four-fifths interest in said Sampson mine to the defendants, retaining one-fifth conveyed to defendant Walker to be held in secret trust by Walker for said Pilkey, and that in pursuance of said agreement they procured the defendant Pilkey to withhold said location notice from record.” This allegation does not, however, excuse the absence of the allegations in the bill as to delay in filing the notice already pointed out.

The bill alleges that' the defendants entered into the possession of the mine under this agreement, but it does not allege when the defendants so entered into possession of said mine. This is an important allegation. Appellant’s counsel insists that possession was so taken after the expiration of the loth day of October, within ninety days from the location of the “Sampson,” There is no’ allegation in the bill upon which to base this contention. Counsel appeals to the first ground stated in defendant’s demurrer as establishing this fact. We do not know of any principle of pleading by which defective allegations in a bill can be aided by a demurrer filed to it.

2. Under the allegations of the bill, if the defendants, by collusion with Pilkey or otherwise, intruded upon the possession of the appellant, which the bill alleges was actually held by Pilkey under the terms of the contract, up to the time of the actual entry and exclusion of the appellant and his co-tenant, Johnson, by the defendants, the appellant could recover possession in an action at law. This action could be sustained both against Pilkey and the defendants entering under him. If Pilkey made the agreement alleged in the bill, the defendants became co-tenants with the appellant. Pilkey could by the conveyance alleged in the bill only convey his undivided third interest, and ejectment lies against a co-tenant, or a grantee of a co-tenant attempting to hold adversely to his co-tenants. Prior possession under such circumstances is sufficient to maintain ejectment. Freeman on Co-tenancy and Part., Sec. 290; Cristy v. Scott, 14 How. 282; Burt v.

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Bluebook (online)
10 N.M. 568, 10 Gild. 568, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lockhart-v-leeds-nm-1900.