Buena Vista Petroleum Co. v. Tulare Oil & Mining Co.

• Decision Date: 08 April 1895
• Docket Number: 559.
• Citation: 67 F. 226
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of California
• Parties: BUENA VISTA PETROLEUM CO. v. TULARE OIL & MINING CO. et al.

67 F. 226

BUENA VISTA PETROLEUM CO. v. TULARE OIL & MINING CO. et al.

No. 559.

United States Circuit Court, S.D. California.

April 8, 1895

William Grant, for complainant.

Samuel Minor and Houghton, Silent & Campbell, for defendants.

ROSS District Judge.

This is a suit in equity brought to quiet the complainant's alleged title to certain subdivisions of what were public lands of the United States, as against the adverse claims of the defendants. In the bill is set out a deraignment of the title claimed by the complainant. It is therein averred that by the act of July 2, 1862, entitled 'An act donating public lands to the several states and territories which may provide colleges to the several states and territories which may provide colleges for the benefit of agricultural and mechanic arts' (12 Stat. 503), congress granted to the state of California 150,000 acres of the public lands of the United States, and that under and by virtue of that act of congress, and pursuant to state legislation enacted to take the benefit of the grant, the agent of the state of California selected, with the approval of the officers of the land department of the United States, the lands in controversy, as a part of the 150,000 acres so granted to California by the general government, and that the lands so selected were certified and listed to the state on the 3d day of January 1878, by the secretary of the interior in part satisfaction of the congressional grant, and that thereafter, and on the 25th day of September, 1886, all of the state title thereto was conveyed by its patent to the complainant, and ever since has been vested in it. The bill alleges that at various named dates thereafter the respective individual defendants entered upon the lands in controversy, and located thereon certain placer mining claims, marking the boundaries thereof upon the ground, so that they could be readily traced, and posted notices thereon, and filed the same for record, in accordance with the mining laws of the United States. The bill avers that the defendants, and each of them, claim that, at the time the lands in controversy were listed and certified to the state of California in part satisfaction of the congressional grant, all of the lands were, and ever since have been, mineral in character, and subject to be located and patented pursuant to the mining laws of the United States, and, therefore, that all of the steps taken and acts done in respect to such lands under and by virtue of the congressional grant to the state were void, and that the individual defendants, and each of them, claim to have conformed to the provisions of the statutes of the United States in respect to the location of mining ground, and that they will be entitled to receive patents from the government for their respective mining claims. The bill further alleges that the lands so listed and certified to the state, and patented to complainant by the state, are, and have been at all times, agricultural lands, and subject to be certified listed, and patented as such in part satisfaction of the congressional grant to California, and never have been at any time mineral lands, or subject to be located or patented as such.

In the answer of the individual defendants, to which exceptions have been filed by the complainant, and which are now for disposition, no question is made in respect to the regularity of the proceedings had under the state law subsequent to the listing and certification of the lands in controversy to the state; but the answer puts in issue the averments of the bill in respect to the character of the lands in controversy, and affirmatively alleges that they are, and were at all times mineral lands, and never were agricultural in character, and therefore never came within the terms of the grant by congress to California, but were in terms excluded therefrom, and were subject to location under the laws of the United States in relation to mineral lands, with which laws the answer sets up in detail a compliance on the part of the individual defendants regarding their respective locations.

The act of congress making the grant to the state expressly excluded therefrom all mineral lands; and both sides to the controversy submit, as the controlling, and indeed the only, question for decision, whether the listing and certification of the lands in question to the state is a conclusive determination that the character of the lands was such as brought them within the terms of the grant, or whether the defendants are, in this suit, entitled to show that the lands in controversy were, at the time they were so listed and certified, and since have been, mineral in character, and therefore excluded from the grant to the state.

The act of congress making the grant does not provide for the issuance of a patent to the state for the lands granted thereby, nor is there any other act, to which attention is called, or which I have been...