Creede Cripple Creek Mining Milling Company v. Uinta Tunnel Mining Transportation Company 15, 18 1904

• Decision Date: 31 October 1904
• Docket Number: No. 18,18
• Citation: Creede Cripple Creek Mining Milling Company v. Uinta Tunnel Mining Transportation Company 15, 18 1904, 196 U.S. 337, 25 S.Ct. 266, 49 L.Ed. 501 (1904)
• Parties: CREEDE & CRIPPLE CREEK MINING & MILLING COMPANY, Petitioner , v. UINTA TUNNEL MINING & TRANSPORTATION COMPANY. Argued April 15, 18, 1904. Ordered for reargument
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

196 U.S. 337

25 S.Ct. 266

49 L.Ed. 501

CREEDE & CRIPPLE CREEK MINING & MILLING COMPANY, Petitioner,

v UINTA TUNNEL MINING & TRANSPORTATION COMPANY.

No. 18.

Argued April 15, 18, 1904.

Ordered for reargument October 31, 1904.

Reargued January 10, 11, 1905.

Decided January 30, 1905.

Messrs.Charles S. Thomas, A. T. Gunnell, William H. Bryant, H. H. Lee, T. M. Patterson, E. F. Richardson, and H. N. Hawkins for petitioner.

Messrs. Charles J. Hughes, Jr., Scott Ashton, and Gerald Hughes for respondent.

Mr. J. C. Helm as Amicus curioe, by special leave.

Mr. Justice Brewer delivered the opinion of the court:

Certiorari to review a judgment of the United States circuit court of appeals for the eighth circuit (57 C. C. A. 200, 119 Fed. 164), reversing a judgment of the circuit court of the United States, rendered upon a verdict of a jury, directed by the court.

The action was originally brought by the Creede & Cripple Creek Mining & Milling Company, as plaintiff, against the Uinta Tunnel Mining & Transportation Company, as defendant, in the district court of the county of El Paso, Colorado, for the possession of certain mining claims, and for damages. Equitable relief was also prayed. On motion of the defendant the action was removed to the United States circuit court for the district of Colorado, where, also on its motion, the pleadings were reformed, and the action made one for the possession of the property, and damages.

The plaintiff filed an amended complaint, alleging in substance that it was the owner in fee and in possession, and entitled to the possession, of the Ocean Wave and Little Mary lode mining claims, being survey lot No. 8192, evidenced by mineral certificate No. 338, the patent of the United States to said plaintiff for said claims bearing date December 21, 1893; that said claims were duly located and discovered on the 2d of January, 1892, and that the patent related back and took effect of that date for all purposes given and provided by the laws of the United States and the state of Colorado concerning mining claims.

Entry upon the claims and ouster of plaintiff by defendant by means of its tunnel were also alleged.

Thereafter the defendant filed its answer. Upon motion of plaintiff certain portions thereof were stricken out, and on the trial testimony offered by the defendant in support of the portions stricken out was rejected.

The matter to be determined is the sufficiency of the defenses pleaded and stricken out. To appreciate them fully it is well to state some facts about which there is no dispute, and it is sufficient to state the facts in reference to one of the lode mining claims, as the proceedings in respect to the two were alike. On February 1, 1892, J. B. Winchell and E. W. McNeal filed in the office of the county clerk of El Paso county (the county in which the mining claim was situated) a certificate of location which, not verified by affidavit or other testimony, stated that they had, on January 2, 1892, located and claimed, in compliance with the mining acts of Congress, 1,500 linear feet on the Ocean Wave lode, and gave the boundaries of the claim. By several mesne conveyances the title of Winchell and McNeal passed to the plaintiff. On August 5, 1893, the plaintiff made an entry of the claim in the proper land office of the United States, and, no proceedings in adverse being instituted, a patent therefor was issued to it on December 21, 1893. There is no reference in the patent to the discovery or the filing of the location certificate. The first appearance of the claim on the records of any office of the United States is the entry in the local land office of August 5, 1893, and the only prior record in any state office is the location certificate, unsworn to, filed February 1, in which the parties filing the certificate stated that they had discovered the lode on January 2, 1892. On February 25, 1892, a location certificate of the defendant's tunnel was filed in the office of the county clerk of El Paso county, which, verified by the oath of one of the locators, stated that on January 13, 1892, they had located the tunnel site by posting in a conspicuous place and at the entrance to the tunnel a notice of their intent to claim and work the tunnel; that they had performed work therein to the value of $270 in driving said tunnel, and $80 in furnishing and putting in timbers, and that it was their bona fide intent to prosecute the work with diligence and dispatch for the discovery of lodes and for mining purposes. The certificate also contained a full description of the boundaries of the tunnel site as claimed.

In a general way it may be said that the defenses which were stricken out were a priority of right and an estoppel. We quote these paragraphs from the answer:

'It further avers that the patent of the United States issued for said Ocean Wave and Little Mary lodes and lode mining claims was issued subject to the act of Congress in reference to tunnel rights, and subject to the laws of the state of Colorado in reference to the right to run tunnels through ground that may be patented, for the purpose of reaching territory that belongs to tunnel owners beyond such patented claims, and subject to the rights which the defendant, The Uinta Tunnel Mining & Transportation Company and its grantors, had acquired by reason of the location of said Uinta tunnel, and in and to any and all lodes, veins, and mining claims that it might cut or discover in driving said tunnel, as is guaranteed to the locator of said tunnel under and by virtue of § 2323 of the Revised Statutes of the United States (U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 1426); that the pretended discovery alleged and pretended to have been made in and upon said pretended Ocean Wave and Little Mary lodes and lode mining claims, and by virtue of which the plaintiff claims the right to patent the same under the laws of the United States, was not made until long after the location of said Uinta tunnel, and at the time said pretended locations were made said locators thereof were advised and knew that said tunnel had been located and had been and was being prosecuted with due diligence and in strict compliance with the terms and conditions of the statutes of the United States and of the state of Colorado, which authorize and provide for the location and prosecution of such tunnels, and which define and determine the rights pertaining thereto; and that said pretended Ocean Wave and Little Mary lode mining claims, so far as the same may be now claimed and possessed by said plaintiff, were taken and held subject to the rights of this defendant as owner of said Uinta tunnel, located in accordance with § 2323 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, and also subject to the rights of this defendant to cross said claims, and to drive drifts therein, and to follow said lode claims as located by this defendant, and to reach lode claims so owned by this defendant, as hereinbefore and hereinafter stated.

'It alleges that it and its grantors have expended in and upon said tunnel the sum of more than one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars ($125,000), and in addition to said expenditures have also expended upon surface work, in improvements and expenses, the further sum of not less than ten thousand dollars ($10,000).

'It alleges that its work and the work of its said grantors in and upon said tunnel has been done openly and without concealment; that the same has been at all times prosecuted under the claim of the defendant and its grantors of the right so to do by virtue of the location of said tunnel and tunnel site location, under and by virtue of the laws of the United States, and under the provisions of § 2323 of the Revised Statutes of the United States; and that the expenditures thereof and the developments made thereon have been made in compliance with the terms and provisions of, and in reliance upon, said statute.

'That the plaintiff, by permitting and allowing this defendant to expend more than the sum of one hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars ($135,000) as aforesaid in reaching, uncovering, and discovering said ore body, has no right to interfere with the defendant in operating its tunnel over, through, and along said pretended Ocean Wave and Little Mary lodes and lode mining claims, but that, on the contrary, the plaintiff by its conduct and actions in the premises as hereinabove recited and set forth, has permitted and allowed the defendant to expend said sum of one hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars ($135,000), and has permitted and allowed the defendant so to proceed with said tunnel through and across said pretended Ocean Wave and Little Mary lodes and lode mining claims until the same has ripened into such a license and permission as entitled the defendant to use its said tunnel as it penetrates said pretended Ocean Wave and Little Mary lodes and lode mining claims, and that said license and permission is such that the defendant cannot be disturbed therein.'

It was also alleged that the tunnel had been driven some 2,200 feet; that it entered the ground of the plaintiff at about 550 feet from its portal, and in running through that ground the tunnel was driven 625 feet, leaving the plaintiff's ground at about 1,175 feet from the portal; that after passing it the defendant discovered in the tunnel three or four blind lodes, which it duly located; and it was not until after the discovery and location of these lodes that the plaintiff commenced this action.

Was there error in striking out these defenses? By § 2319, Rev. Stat. (U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 1424), 'all valuable mineral deposits in lands belonging to the United States, both surveyed and unsurveyed, are hereby declared to be free and open to exploration and purchase.' Until, therefore, the title to the land passes from the government, the minerals therein are 'free and open to exploration and purchase.' A lode locator acquires a vested...