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.
MR. JUSTICE FIELD delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is an action to quiet the title of the plaintiff below to
certain placer mining ground, forty acres in extent, situated
Page 132 U. S. 261
in Silver Bow County, Montana, of which he claims to be the
owner and in a portion of which the defendant claims to have some
right and interest, and for which portion he has applied for a
patent. The plaintiff asserts title under a location of the ground
as a placer claim on the 22d of February, 1880, by parties from
whom he purchased.
The defendant asserts title to a portion of that ground, being
Three acres and a fraction of an acre in extent, as a lode claim
under a location by the name of the "Betsy Dahl Lode," made
subsequently to the location of the premises as placer mining
ground, and subsequently to the application by the plaintiff for a
patent therefor. That application was made on the 16th of July,
1881, and the register of the local land office caused notice of it
to be published as required for the period of sixty days. All the
other provisions of the law on the subject were also complied with.
See Smelting Company v. Kemp, 104 U.
S. 636,
104 U. S. 653.
To this application no adverse claim to any portion of the ground
was filed by the defendant or any other person, and the statute
provides that in such case it shall be assumed that the applicant
is entitled to a patent upon certain prescribed payments, and that
no adverse claim exists. The statute also declares that thereafter
no objection of third parties to the issue of a patent shall be
heard except it be shown that the applicant has failed to comply
with the requirements of the law. No such failure was shown by the
defendant. He is therefore precluded from calling in question the
location of the claim, or its character as placer ground.
The only position on which the defendant can resist the
pretensions of the plaintiff is that the placer ground, for a
patent of which he applied, does not embrace the lode claim. The
effect to be given to that position depends upon the answer to the
question whether, at the time of his application, any vein or lode
was known to exist within the boundaries of the placer claim which
was not included in his application. Section 2333 of the Revised
Statutes provides that when one applies for a placer patent who is
at the time in the possession of a vein or lode included within its
boundaries, he must state that fact, and then, on payment of the
sum required for a vein or lode
Page 132 U. S. 262
and twenty-five feet on each side of it at five dollars an acre,
and two dollars and a half an acre for the placer claim, a patent
will issue to him covering both the placer claim and the lode. But
it also provides that where a vein or lode is known to exist at the
time within the boundaries of a placer claim, the application for a
patent, which does not also include an application for the vein or
lode, will be construed as a conclusive declaration that the
claimant of the placer claim has no right of possession to the vein
or lode, and also that where the existence of a vein or lode in a
placer claim is not known at the time of the application for a
patent, that instrument will convey all valuable mineral and other
deposits within its boundaries.
It does not appear in the present case that a patent of the
United States has been issued to the plaintiff, but it appears that
he has complied with all the proceedings essential for the issue of
such a patent. He is therefore the equitable owner of the mining
ground, and the government holds the premises in trust for him, to
be delivered upon the payments specified. We accordingly treat him,
insofar as the questions involved in this case are concerned, as
though the patent had been delivered to him. Being entitled to it,
he has a right to ask a determination of any claim asserted against
his possession which may throw doubt upon his title.
When it can be said that a lode or vein is known to exist in a
placer mining claim within the meaning of section 2333 of the
Revised Statutes was considered to some extent in
Reynolds v.
Iron Silver Mining Co., 116 U. S. 687, and
Iron Silver Mining Co. v. Reynolds, 124 U.
S. 374, and also in
Noyes v. Mantle,
127 U. S. 348,
127 U. S. 353,
and some of the difficulties in giving an answer that would be
applicable to all cases were there stated. In the present case no
difficulty arises, for the question was left to the jury and
decided by them. The court instructed them to the effect that if
they believed 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
Page 132 U. S. 263
up to the time of his application for a patent therefor, and at
the time of such application there was no known lode or vein within
the boundaries of the premises claimed, their verdict should be for
the plaintiff.
The jury, having found a general verdict for the plaintiff, must
be deemed to have found that no such lode as claimed by the
defendant existed when the application of the plaintiff for a
patent was filed. We may also add to what is thus concluded by the
verdict that there was no evidence of any lode existing within the
boundaries of his claim, either when the plaintiff made his
application, or at any time before. The discovery by the defendant
of the Dahl lode two or three hundred feet outside of those
boundaries does not, as observed by the court below, create any
presumption of the possession of a vein or lode within those
boundaries, nor, we may add, that a vein or lode existed within
them.
It is earnestly objected to the title of the plaintiff that he
did not present any proof that the mining ground claimed by him was
placer ground. It appeared that the ground had been surveyed and
returned by the Surveyor General of Montana to the local land
office as mineral land, and the defendant, in asserting the
possession of a lode upon it, admits its mineral character. That it
was placer ground is conclusively established in this controversy
against the defendant by the fact that no adverse claim was
asserted by him to the plaintiff's application for a patent of the
premises as such ground. That question is not now open to
litigation by private parties seeking to avoid the effect of the
plaintiff's proceedings.
Several questions presented by the plaintiff in error in his
brief we do not notice because they arise only upon the motion made
by him for a new trial. The rulings upon such a motion are not open
to consideration in this Court.
Judgment affirmed.