Curran v. Campion

• Decision Date: 14 February 1898
• Docket Number: 871.
• Citation: 85 F. 67
• Parties: CURRAN et al. v. CAMPION et al. [1]
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

85 F. 67

CURRAN et al. v. CAMPION et al. ^[1]

No. 871.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

February 14, 1898

E. B Green and Amos Green, for appellants.

Charles J. Hughes, Jr., and Charles Cavender, for appellees.

Before SANBORN and THAYER, Circuit Judges, and PHILLIPS, District judge.

SANBORN Circuit Judge.

This suit involves a one-sixth interest in the same mine and products in question in the case of Kelley v Boettcher, 85 F. 55. It is here upon an appeal from a decree sustaining demurrers to the amended bill, and dismissing the suit. The questions it presents are very similar to those raised by the demurrer in Kelley v Boettcher, and the two cases were argued and submitted at the same time. The purpose of the suit was to obtain the cancellation of a deed of 11/72 of the mine, and to recover 1/6 of the mine and of its products. The original bill was filed on September 16, 1895. On November 5, 1895, a demurrer to this bill was sustained, and leave was given to the appellants to amend. The bill was amended; the appellees interposed demurrers to the amended bill; and on July 7 1896, the decree sustaining the demurrers and dismissing the suit, which is challenged by this appeal, was rendered. The amended bill discloses these facts: Prior to August 19, 1890 John Curran was the owner of the undivided one-sixth of the Little Johnny lode mining claim, which is situated near Leadville, in the state of Colorado. On that day he died, intestate, and his interest in this mine descended to his father, Michael Curran, who died, intestate, on April 19, 1891; and this interest descended to the appellants, so that the appellant Bridget Curran owned one-half and each of the appellants Michael Curran, the son of the deceased Michael, and Margaret Curran, Katie Curran, Sarah Horan, Mary Walsh, and Bridget Folley, his daughters, owned one-twelfth, of that interest. In the summer of the year 1893, all of the appellants except Michael Curran gave to Thomas J. Horan a power of attorney to sell and convey their interest in this mine. Horan lived at Grand Island, in the state of Nebraska, and none of the appellants lived nearer the mine than the state of Wisconsin. None of them knew anything about the history, condition, or value of the mine, or anything about the business of mining for gold and silver, and Horan was equally ignorant. The appellees A. V. Hunter, and John F. Campion had been profitably working this mine for several years prior to March 5, 1891, when they organized the appellee the Ibex Mining Company, a corporation, the majority of the stock of which they have always held, and conveyed their interests to it. Since that time they have operated the mine in the name of this corporation. In 1893 these appellees conspired together to obtain from all the appellants except Michael Curran a conveyance of their interest in this mine, by false representations and concealments. For this purpose they employed suitable agents to induce Horan, their attorney in fact, to make this conveyance, and represented to him that they were working other mines through a shaft which they had on the Little Johnny lode mining claim, but that the Little Johnny was not doing anything at all, and that it had become entirely worthless because of the fall in the price of silver. Horan was persuaded by these representations that the mine was of little value, and was induced to convey the interest of all the appellants except that of Michael Curran to the appellee Hunter for $3,500, and Hunter conveyed this interest to the mining company. This deed to Hunter was made on September 7, 1893. On September 20, 1893, in answer to a suggestion of Horan that he had heard that the mine was producing ore, one of the agents of the appellees wrote to him that there had been no ore taken out of this mine for more than four months; that there had been considerable prospecting work, in the hope of finding some ore, but without success; and that everything indicated that the mine had been entirely worked out to the present depth. The facts were, however, that, at and before the time the deed was made, the Little Johnny was a valuable gold mine, and the ores raised from it were worth thousands of dollars per ton for their gold, and were of little value for their silver; that it had developed into a valuable mine in 1883; that the appellees Campion and Hunter had derived several millions of dollars from it prior to March 5, 1891; that it had produced before, and was producing when the deed was obtained, ore of the value of $300,000 to $500,000 monthly above the expenses of operating it; and that it was worth $10,000,000 at that time. The appellants first discovered these facts about two weeks before they filed their original bill. The appellees,...