Independence Placer Mining Company, Ltd. v. Hellman

• Decision Date: 14 January 1941
• Docket Number: 6808
• Citation: 109 P.2d 1038,62 Idaho 180
• Parties: INDEPENDENCE PLACER MINING COMPANY, LTD., a Corporation, Respondent, v. HENRY HELLMAN, ROBERT R. JOHNSON, LAURA HELLMAN and HENRY HELLMAN, Jr., Appellants
• Court: Idaho Supreme Court

109 P.2d 1038

62 Idaho 180

INDEPENDENCE PLACER MINING COMPANY, LTD., a Corporation, Respondent, v. HENRY HELLMAN, ROBERT R. JOHNSON, LAURA HELLMAN and HENRY HELLMAN, Jr., Appellants

No. 6808

Supreme Court of Idaho

January 14, 1941

Rehearing denied February 24, 1941.

MINES AND MINERALS-ACTION TO QUIET TITLE-LOCATION AND RELOCATION-EVIDENCE.

1. In action to quiet title to placer mining claims, where there was positive, affirmative testimony that defendants actually went on the ground each year and worked and panned out gold negative testimony of persons who passed over ground or along nearby trail in course of years that they did not see any of the defendants on the ground or in that vicinity or doing any work there was not sufficient to refute positive proof of facts involved.

2. The mere fact that one defendant outfitted and left each summer and returned in the fall with gold did not prove that he worked on particular property or that he obtained gold from claims involved in action to quiet title, but the further fact that from time to time during those years, defendants were seen on the property mining and prospecting and that they made and filed affidavits of having done annual assessment work raised a presumption in support of contention that annual trips were made to the particular property and that the gold dust they had on each return trip came from their mining operations on those claims. (I. C. A., sec 46-606.)

3. The fact that defendants in action to quiet title to placer mining claims made affidavits of having done annual assessment work on the property from year to year for many years before any controversy arose over their title and right of possession showed that they had been actually on the ground and had at least done some work, and was evidence that they were laying some claim to the property and that they did not mean to abandon it. (I. C. A., sec. 46-606.)

4. Plaintiff in action to quiet title to placer mining claims could not successfully contend that one defendant abandoned his claim to the property by seeking and receiving a lease or permission to prospect the ground in 1933 or 1934 from plaintiff's employee, where contention was denied and disproved by attendant and surrounding circumstances of occupation and working the ground, and plaintiff's locations were made in 1925, some nine years before alleged abandonment, at a time when the ground was not open to location.

5. In action to quiet title to placer mining claims, evidence showed that defendants were in possession of and did work on the property involved in 1925 and had done so continuously for more than 10 years previously, that at the time of the location of plaintiff's claims in 1925, the ground was not open to location, and hence that plaintiff's attempted location was void.

6. A valid location or relocation cannot be made on a mining claim until the rights of the former locator have been finally forfeited or abandoned, and an attempted location made while previous location or segregation of the ground is still in force, is void.

7. One who has actual notice that a prior locator is claiming a tract of mining ground and has done location work thereon and continued to do prospecting and assessment work on the property cannot make a valid location on that property, since he has notice that so much of the ground as is claimed and occupied is no longer "public domain" subject to location, and he may not question the sufficiency of the original location or the character of the original occupant's title.

8. In an action to quiet title, plaintiff must recover on the strength of his own title which must be established by satisfactory, affirmative proofs, and he cannot recover on the weakness of his adversary's title.

9. In action to quiet title to placer mining claims, defendants were not required to show that they had paid all taxes assessed against property during period they had held it adversely to sustain their claim of adverse possession, where plaintiff proved and the court found that no taxes had been levied against the property during the period plaintiff asserted ownership of the claims, and locations claimed by plaintiff and defendants covered the identical ground.

10. In action to quiet title to placer mining claims, the validity or invalidity of forfeiture notice given to one defendant's former co-owners neither strengthened nor weakened plaintiff's title, since that was a question between defendant and his former co-owners.

APPEAL from the District Court of the Second Judicial District, for Clearwater County. Hon. A. L. Morgan, Judge.

Action to quiet title to placer mining claims. Judgment for plaintiff. Reversed and remanded.

Reversed and remanded. Costs to appellants.

H. J. Hull, for Appellants.

Title to mineral lands on the public domain may be acquired without a formal or statutory location by holding and working the property for a period equal to the time prescribed by the statute of limitations for mining claims in the state where situated, i. e., a period of five years in Idaho. (United States Rev. Stats. 2332; 30 U.S.C. A. 38; Allen v. Laudahn, 59 Idaho 207, 81 P.2d 734; McLean v. Ladewig, 2 Cal.App. (2d) 21, 37 P.2d 502; Humphreys v. Idaho Gold Mines Dev. Co., 21 Idaho 126, 120 P. 823, 40 L. R. A., N. S., 817.)

Where an original location is shown to have been made in good faith the courts will indulge every reasonable presumption to uphold its validity as against an attack by a subsequent locator. (Flynn Group Min. Co. v. Marphy, 18 Idaho 266, 109 P. 851, 138 Am. St. 201; Bismark Mountain Gold Min. Co. v. North Sunbeam Gold Co., 14 Idaho 516, 95 P. 14; Sellers v. Taylor, 48 Idaho 116, 279 P. 617.)

Where a subsequent locator has actual knowledge of the prior location at the time of the second location, he is estopped to question the sufficiency of the original location because of any technical defects therein. (Allen v. Laudahn, supra; National Mill. & Min. Co. v. Piccolo, 54 Wash. 617, 104 P. 128; Ninemire v. Nelson, 140 Wash. 511, 249 P. 990; Lindley on Mines, vol. 2, p. 910, sec. 383.)

Annual assessment work may be performed within the limits of a group of claims in furtherance of a common system of development, but before it can be credited to a claim upon which the work was not performed, it must be shown to have been for the benefit of that claim or in some manner to have reasonably tended to develop that claim. (Lindley on Mines, vol. 2, sec. 630; McCormick v. Baldwin, 104 Cal. 227, 37 P. 903; Jackson v. Roby, 109 U.S. 440, 445, 3 S.Ct. 301, 27 L.Ed. 990; Copper Mountain M. & S. Co. v. Butte & Corbin Consol. C. & S. M. Co., 39 Mont. 487, 104 P. 540, 133 Am. St. 595.)

Walter H. Hanson, for Respondent.

A location to be effective must be good when made and based upon a full and complete compliance with the laws of the United States and of the state of Idaho, and relocation cannot be made before the year in which assessment work must be done has expired. (Morrison's Mining Rights, pp. 34, 40, 42, 129, 144.)

After the location of a mining claim the recorded notice, as well as recorded proofs of labor, are prima facie evidence of its location and the continuation of assessment work thereon, in so far as the same are in such form as to comply with the requirements of law. (Lindley on Mines, vol. 2, sec. 392, p. 918; sec. 636, pp. 1582, 1583; I. C. A., sec. 46-606.)

Where such record (meaning a certificate of location) is authorized, it is prima facie evidence only of such facts as are required by law to be stated therein, provided they are sufficiently stated. The record of the certificate is proof itself of its own performance as one of such steps, and in regular order, generally speaking, the last step in perfecting the location. (Lindley on Mines, vol. 2, sec. 392, p. 918; sec. 636, pp. 1582, 1583; I. C. A., sec. 46-606.)

Where trial court sitting as a court of equity makes findings of fact based upon conflicting evidence and there is evidence to support both theories of the case, and from which reasonable men might draw different conclusions, such findings of fact will not be disturbed on appeal. (Gore et al. v. Richard Allen Min. Co. et al., 61 Idaho 622, 105 P.2d 735; Carrey et al. v. Secesh Dredging M. & M. Co. et al., 55 Idaho 136, 39 P.2d 772.)

AILSHIE, J. Budge, C. J., and Givens and Holden, JJ., concur. Morgan, J., did not participate in this decision.

OPINION

AILSHIE, J.

The respondent instituted this action against appellants to quiet its title to a group of placer mining claims totaling 124 acres. The issues, when fully made up, reduced the litigation to a controversy between the parties over the right of possession of 40 acres of this group covered by two locations claimed by appellants and named the "Lilly No. 1" and "Lilly No. 2"; the same ground being covered by respondent's two locations named "Rags" and "Patshes." The trial court found in favor of respondent as the owner of the latter two claims.

Paragraph VIII of the court's findings covers the crucial and essential facts on which the judgment of the court was resolved against appellants and in favor of respondent and is as follows:

"VIII

That during the years 1924 and to 1933 inclusive, the defendants and each and all of them failed to perform or have performed on the claims designated by them as the 'Lilly' and 'Lilly No. 2' or upon either of them, or on any ground in controversy herein, or on other ground for the benefit of said or either or any of said alleged claims any labor or improvements in mining or otherwise. That during said period of time the said defendants and each of them and all of them failed to keep the boundary lines of said alleged claims plainly marked or marked at all upon the...