James Farrell v. James Lockhart

• Decision Date: 18 May 1908
• Docket Number: No. 170,170
• Citation: 28 S.Ct. 681,210 U.S. 142,52 L.Ed. 994
• Parties: JAMES FARRELL, Plff. in Err., v. JAMES M. LOCKHART, Administrator of the Estate of John G. Rhodin, Deceased
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

210 U.S. 142

28 S.Ct. 681

52 L.Ed. 994

JAMES FARRELL, Plff. in Err.,

v JAMES M. LOCKHART, Administrator of the Estate of John G. Rhodin, Deceased.

No. 170.

Submitted March 9, 1908.

Decided May 18, 1908.

Messrs. Charles C. Dey and A. L. Hoppaugh for plaintiff in error.

Messrs. Wilson I. Snyder, Bismarck Snyder, and George Sutherland for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice White delivered the opinion of the court:

In the month of February, 1905, James Farrell, plaintiff in error, as owner of the Cliff lode mining claim, situated in the Uintah mining district, Summit county, Utah, made application in the United States land office at Salt Lake City for a patent, and published the notice required by law. The defendant in error, as the administrator of the estate of John G. Rhodin, filed an adverse claim based upon the location by Rhodin of the ground as the Divide lode mining claim. There- after, pursuant to Rev. Stat. § 2326, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 1430, this action was brought in a court of the state of Utah by the administrator of Rhodin, in support of said adverse claim.

In the complaint filed by the administrator the right of Rhodin to the Divide was asserted to have been initiated by a location duly made on January 2, 1903. Farrell in his answer asserted a paramount right by reason of his ownership of the Cliff claim, averring that it had been initiated by a location made on August 1, 1901, seventeen months prior to the location of the Divide by Rhodin. To the affirmative matter pleaded in the answer of Farrell a general denial was interposed, and it was also averred as follows: Plaintiff 'alleges that at the time and date of the attempted location of the said Cliff patented mining claim the ground therein contained was not any part of the open and unclaimed mineral land of the United States, but, on the contrary, the whole thereof, including the point and place of discovery of said alleged Cliff mining claim, was then embraced and included and contained in a valid and subsisting mining claim, called the South Mountain, then and there the property and in the possession of the predecessors of this plaintiff's intestate; and for the reason that the discovery of said alleged Cliff mining claim was not placed upon unoccupied and unclaimed land of the United States, the alleged location based thereon became absolutely void.'

The case was tried by the court, and it was specifically found that the Cliff, the Divide, and the South Mountain claims, as located, covered substantially the same ground, and that the place of discovery of the Cliff was within the boundaries of the alleged South Mountain mining claim. It was further specifically found by the court that, upon the trial of the action, 'plaintiff offered evidence (subject to the objection of the defendant that the same was incompetent, immaterial, and irrelevant, and that no adverse claim was filed on behalf of the South Mountain lode mining claim) tending to show that, during the month of August, 1900, the ground in controversy herein was located by W. I. Snyder and Thomas Roscamp, respectively, citizens of the United States, under the name of the South Mountain lode mining claim. That a discovery of a vein was made and notice of location posted, and the boundaries of said claim marked so that the same could readily be traced, and that said notice was in due form, and was duly recorded in the office of the county recorder of Summit county, state of Utah. That no work was ever done upon said South Mountain claim, and that said South Mountain claim lapsed and became forfeited for want of work done thereon, on December 31, 1901. That no adverse claim was filed on behalf of said South Mountain lode against the application for patent for said Cliff lode mining claim. That on or about the 13th day of October, 1902, said Snyder and Roscamp made a deed purporting to convey said alleged South Mountain lode mining claim to said John G. Rhodin.'

When it decided the case, the court found that Farrell initiated his ownership of the Cliff claim on August 1, 1901, and performed all the acts required by law in addition to the annual labor required by statute, and that Rhodin initiated on January 2, 1903, his Divide claim. The court decided in favor of the defendant Farrell, and entered a decree adjudging that he was the owner, in possession of the premises in controversy, and entitled to the possession, except as against the paramount title of the United States. The court treated the proof offered on behalf of the plaintiff as to the location of the Sough Mountain claim for the same ground embraced in the Cliff, made a year prior to the location of the latter claim, as immaterial and irrelevant. Plaintiff duly excepted and appealed to the supreme court of the state. The court, in disposing of the appeal, considered solely what it termed the 'decisive question' presented by therecord, viz., 'whether the appellant, as owner of the Divide claim, who, as such, adversed the application for patent, is in position to show and assert that, at the time of the location of the Cliff claim, the ground located was covered by the South Mountain, a then valid and subsisting claim; that the discovery point of the Cliff was within the boundaries of the South Mountain; and that, therefore, the locator of the Cliff did not discover a vein or lode on, or make a valid location of, unappropriated and unoccupied mineral lands of the United States, and because thereof his location is and was void, not only against the locators of the South Mountain, but all the world.' In deciding this question the court deemed that it was called upon to consider and apply the ruling in Lavagnino v. Uhlig, 198 U. S. 443, 49 L. ed. 1119, 25 Sup. Ct. Rep. 716. Doing so it was recognized that the reasoning in the opinion in that case was broad enough to maintain where, on an adverse claim, the first or senior locator did not...