Ickes v. VIRGINIA-COLORADO DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION, 5956.

• Decision Date: 22 January 1934
• Docket Number: No. 5956.,5956.
• Parties: ICKES, Secretary of the Interior, v. VIRGINIA-COLORADO DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

69 F.2d 123 (1934)

ICKES, Secretary of the Interior, v. VIRGINIA-COLORADO DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION.

No. 5956.

Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia.

Argued November 6, 1933.

Decided January 22, 1934.

Nathan R. Margold, Charles Fahy, and Victor H. Wallace, all of Washington, D. C., for appellant.

Louis Titus and Charles L. Frailey, both of Washington, D. C., for appellee.

Before MARTIN, Chief Justice, and ROBB, HITZ, and GRONER, Associate Justices.

MARTIN, Chief Justice.

This is an appeal of the Secretary of the Interior from a decree of mandatory injunction requiring him to vacate a decision promulgated by him whereby certain oil shale placer claims of the appellee were declared to be null and void.

The appellee, the Virginia-Colorado Development Corporation, as plaintiff below and hereinafter called the plaintiff, filed its bill below praying for an injunction against the appellant upon allegations in substance as follows:

That in June, 1917, the plaintiff, under the mining laws then in force, located certain oil shale placer claims in Colorado known as the Mt. Mamm, Nos. 12 to 17. It was required by the statutes (Rev. St. §§ 2324, 2325, 30 USCA §§ 28, 29) that until a patent was issued for the claims, "not less than $100 worth of labor shall be performed or improvements made during each year; * * * and upon a failure to comply with these conditions, the claim or mine upon which such failure occurred shall be open to relocation in the same manner as if no location of the same had ever been made, provided that the original locators, their heirs, assigns, or legal representatives, have not resumed work upon the claim after failure and before such location."

That plaintiff from the time of the location of the claims in 1917, up to and including the year ending July 31, 1930, performed the assessment work of not less than $100 annually as required by the statute, but failed to perform such labor during the year ending July 31, 1931. That this default continued throughout the months of July, August, and part of September, 1931; but plaintiff intended on and prior to September 4, 1931, to resume work upon the claims, and had made arrangements to do so, and would have done so, had it not been prevented from performing such labor by the action of the Secretary of the Interior complained of in this case. That the plaintiff never at any time abandoned nor had any intention of abandoning the claims.

That on September 4, 1931, certain adverse proceedings were initiated by the Department of the Interior, through the General Land Office, against plaintiff's claims by the filing in the Land Office and posting on the claims of a challenge to the plaintiff's right and title thereto. This challenge was based solely upon the ground that plaintiff had failed to perform the assessment labor for the year ending July 31, 1931, and had not resumed such labor before the challenge was filed and posted. The challenge stated that the United States had therefore resumed possession of the land within the claims. It was not charged that the plaintiff's right or title to the claims was otherwise invalid, or ever had been so, or that plaintiff had abandoned the claims. It was based upon the sole ground that plaintiff's failure to perform assessment work for the year ending July 31, 1931, and before the filing of the challenge on September 4, 1931, had entitled the Secretary to declare a forfeiture of plaintiff's right and title to the claims and made them subject to cancellation by the government. No relocation of the claims had been made or attempted by any other person or company during this period, nor had anyone made application to lease the lands from the government.

That plaintiff contested the proceedings in the General Land Office, but the Commissioner held that plaintiff's claims were null and void, and upon appeal this decision was affirmed by the Secretary of the Interior. That on July 15, 1932, the Department's decision was promulgated declaring the plaintiff's claims to be null...