Hodgson v. Mountain & Gulf Oil Co.

• Decision Date: 08 March 1924
• Docket Number: 1350.
• Parties: HODGSON v. MOUNTAIN & GULF OIL CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Wyoming

297 F. 269

HODGSON v. MOUNTAIN & GULF OIL CO.

No. 1350.

United States District Court, D. Wyoming.

March 8, 1924

J. M Hodgson, of Cheyenne, Wyo., in pro. per.

Dines Dines & Holme, Harold D. Roberts, Paul P. Prosser, and Charles E. Works, all of Denver, Colo., for defendant.

KENNEDY District Judge.

This case presents a similar situation to that heretofore presented in the case of Hodgson v. Federal Oil &amp Development Co., 285 F. 546, decided by this court in December, 1922.

Here as there, the plaintiff in equity seeks to impress a trust in the nature of an undivided one-eighth interest in a lease and the benefits accruing therefrom, granted by the Interior Department to the defendant. In that case, as here, it appears upon the face of the pleading that the plaintiff claims to be the owner of a one-eighth interest in the property rights covered by the lease, by virtue of a purchase and assignment from the heirs of one of the original locators of a mining claim upon which the lease was predicated. In that case the bill of complaint set up the proceedings before the Interior Department, alleging an erroneous decision of that Department based upon the law applicable to the situation. That feature is absent in the case at bar, but generally speaking, with that exception, the facts stated in that memorandum would be a fair statement of the facts in this case.

The defendant has interposed a motion to dismiss, setting forth defenses that the United States is an indispensable party; that the bill of complaint fails to state facts sufficient to constitute a valid cause in equity; that it appears upon the face of the complaint that the plaintiff has been guilty of laches and that he is barred by the limitations contained in the Leasing Act under which the lease was granted, and that there was a final determination of all matters in controversy by the Department of the Interior at the time the lease was granted.

There were matters alleged in the former Hodgson Case which present perhaps stronger grounds for adopting the defense of laches than in the case at bar, and yet the court considers that the allegations here found justify a like conclusion. The decision in that case, and the general underlying principles there adopted, will be here recognized for the purpose of disposing of this suit. Supplementing this finding of laches, and that the claim is a stale one, it appears that it is not being prosecuted in favor of the heirs of the colocator whose interest may be involved, but by a purchaser of that claim at a price which the pleading does not disclose, therefore carrying the inference of speculation on the part of the purchaser. Equity does not look with favor upon claims of this nature. Sturm v. Wiess (C.C.A) 273 F. 457.

Particular stress in oral argument by plaintiff in his own behalf was laid upon the contention concerning his rights under the inuring clause of the Act of February 25, 1920 (41 Stat. 437 (Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1923, Secs. 4640 1/4-4640 1/4ss)), which is the act under which the lease was granted to defendant. This raises one of the most difficult questions in the case. This court has recently decided, in the case of Burke v. Horth, 296 F. 256, that the inuring clause of the Leasing Act did apply in the adjudication of rights as between two separate and distinct lessees of the owner of a mining claim, who as such had been granted a lease upon his claim by the Interior Department. In that case the department had refused to recognize lessees of the owner of the claim in granting a lease thereon, which was in accord with the well-defined rule of the department in this regard.

There, in the opinion of the court, the lessees came clearly within the provision of the Leasing Act, as they each claimed under former and separate leases from the owner of the claim. Here the plaintiff is asserting a claim based upon an alleged right as one of the colocators, not a party to the proceeding for lease before the department, the ownership of the location in which he was a colocator being the basis of the lease granted by the department to the lessee through rights previously secured by that lessee from other locators.

The question is whether such a situation brings the colocator or his assignee in the litigation before the court within the inuring clause of the Leasing Act. The so-called inuring clause is a part of section 19 ...