Chamberlain v. Raymond

• Decision Date: 11 February 1882
• Citation: 3 Utah 117,1 P. 850
• Court: Utah Supreme Court
• Parties: CHAMBERLAIN ET AL. v. RAYMOND ET AL

1 P. 850

3 Utah 117

CHAMBERLAIN ET AL. v. RAYMOND ET AL

Supreme Court of Utah

February 11, 1882

APPEAL from the third district court. The plaintiffs had judgment the defendants appealed. The appellants applied for a government title to a mining claim called the I X L. The respondents filed an adverse claim to a portion of the premises under a mining location called the Azure Queen, and thereupon brought this action to determine the title and right of possession of the premises in conflict between them.

The complaint alleges that the plaintiff's own the ground in dispute as part of the Azure Queen mining claim, and sets forth the location May 6, 1870, and subsequent holding of the claim in compliance with the mining laws. It also alleges that the I X L was forfeited and abandoned prior to the location of the Azure Queen.

The answer traverses the material allegations of the complaint and affirmatively sets up title to the disputed ground, as part of the I X L mining claim, setting forth the location in August, 1864, and subsequent holding of said claim in compliance with the mining laws.

Reversed.

Bennett & Harkness, and W. C. Hall, for the appellants, argued that the findings were manifestly contrary to the evidence that this court could not hesitate to so determine upon an examination of the evidence.

The evidence offered by appellants, that no stake marked "I X L" stood at the place testified to by respondents' witnesses, was surrebutting and admissible. The court below rejected it is immaterial, and yet found a fact for respondents upon rebuttal testimony offered by them, to contradict which this testimony was offered.

The court below having erred in the finding as to the place of location of the I X L, further findings were necessary, and a new trial should be ordered: Foote v. Beecher, 78 N.Y. 155.

Tilford & Hagan, and J. S. Boreman, for the respondents, argued that the findings of the court below were fully sustained by the evidence.

EMERSON, J. TWISS, J., concurred. HUNTER, C. J., dissented.

OPINION

EMERSON, J.:

This is an appeal from an order refusing a new trial.

The judgment of the court below will have to be reversed and a new trial ordered, on two grounds, viz., the insufficiency of the evidence to support the findings, and the rejection of proper and material evidence offered by the appellants.

The statement on the motion for a new trial and on this appeal contains all the testimony introduced on the trial.

Among the main and important facts controverted was the place where the I X L was located, and whether work was done on it, in compliance with the local laws and customs. Various exceptions to the findings of fact and conclusions of law are taken, but they are all based on or are corollaries to the exceptions to the following portion of the fifth finding: "That the I X L was located at a point at least five hundred feet southerly from the point from which it is surveyed; that soon after the location it was abandoned; that from the date of the location no work was done on it as required by mining laws."

The evidence upon this point is too voluminous to undertake to give an abstract of it, or to analyze it in detail. It is sufficient to say that the evidence upon the part of the appellants directed to this point is direct and affirmative and of that positive character, and attended by so many corroborating circumstances, that it carries conviction with it. Among other strong items of proof was the admission of the locators, which there was no attempt to contradict or deny, that the Azure Queen was a relocation of the I X L. This could not have been the fact if the I X L was located at the point stated in the finding. The point of discovery of the I X L, as claimed by the appellants and as fixed by their testimony, was not to exceed ...