United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Dahl v. Raunheim, 132 U.S. 260 (1889)

Dahl v. Raunheim

No. 85

Submitted November 7, 1889

Decided November 25, 1889

132 U.S. 260

Syllabus

An applicant for a placer patent, who has complied with all the proceedings essential for the issue of a patent for his location but whose patent has not issued may maintain an action to quiet title against a person asserting title to a portion of the placer location under a subsequent location of a lode claim.

If, on the trial of such an action, the court instruct the jury that if they believe that the premises were located by the grantors and predecessors in interest of the plaintiff as a placer mining claim in accordance with law and they continued to hold the premises until conveyed to the plaintiff, and the plaintiff continued to hold them up to the time of the application of a patent therefor, and at the time of the application there was no known lode or vein within the boundaries of the premises claimed, and there is a general verdict for the plaintiff, the jury must be deemed to have found that the lode claimed by the defendant did not exist when the plaintiff's application for a patent was filed.

When a person applies for a placer patent in the manner prescribed by law, and all the proceedings in regard to publication and otherwise are had thereunder which are required by the statutes of the United States, and no adverse claims are filed or set up, and it appears that the ground has been surveyed and returned by the Surveyor General to the local land office as mineral land, the question whether it is placer ground is conclusively established, and is not open to litigation by private parties seeking to avoid the effect of the proceedings.

The rulings upon a motion for a new trial are not open to consideration in this Court.

At law to quiet title. Verdict for the plaintiff and judgment on the verdict. The defendant sued out this writ of error. The case is stated in the opinion.