Kansas City Milling & Milling Co. v. Clay

• Decision Date: 16 January 1892
• Docket Number: Civil 312
• Citation: 29 P. 9,3 Ariz. 326
• Parties: KANSAS CITY MINING AND MILLING COMPANY, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. JAMES W. CLAY, Defendant and Appellee
• Court: Arizona Supreme Court

29 P. 9

3 Ariz. 326

KANSAS CITY MINING AND MILLING COMPANY, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. JAMES W. CLAY, Defendant and Appellee

Civil No. 312

Supreme Court of Arizona

January 16, 1892

APPEAL from a judgment of the District Court of the Third Judicial District in and for the County of Yavapai. James H. Wright Judge.

Reversed.

Herndon & Hawkins, Wilson & Norris, and E. M. Sanford, for Appellant.

E Burgess, and Baldwin & Johnston, for Appellee.

Sloan J. Gooding, C. J., and Kibbey, J., concur.

OPINION

The facts are stated in the opinion.

SLOAN, J.--

James W. Clay, the appellee herein, brought suit against the Kansas City Mining and Milling Company, appellant, for the recovery of land described as the south 1/2 of northwest 1/4, of section 26, township 13 north, range 2 west, Gila and Salt River meridian, and for damages for the value of certain ores taken from said land by appellant, and for an injunction to restrain the working of certain mineral-bearing veins or ledges thereon, and taking ores therefrom by appellant. Appellant, answering the complaint, set up these several matters in defense of the action: (1) That, as to so much of said land sued for as is covered by two mining locations known, respectively, as the "Silver King" and "Western Extension of Silver King," appellant pleaded "Not guilty." As to the remainder, he entered a disclaimer. (2) That, as to so much of said land as is contained within the boundaries of said mining location he alleged that the same was not agricultural land, but was more valuable for its minerals than for other purposes; that at the time plaintiff and his grantors entered the same under the pre-emption laws of the United States, and before patent issued to the same, said land was known to contain valuable minerals, and had in fact been located under the mineral laws of the United States, and opened up, and shown to contain ores of great value. (3) That appellant holds said land covered by said locations by virtue of a compliance with the mining laws of the United States. The case having been tried in the court below by a jury, a verdict for plaintiff (appellee herein) was returned, and judgment entered in accordance therewith. At the trial, appellee, to establish his right to recover, put in evidence certain deeds, by which he deraigned title to the land described in his complaint from one Blackburn, who, in 1879, obtained a patent from the United States to the same, under a pre-emption entry, and also put in evidence this patent. Appellant then offered to prove that at the time of the pre-emption entry by Blackburn, and the issuance of said patent, there was upon said land a well-defined gold and silver bearing quartz-vein of ore, and that the same was then known to exist, and had been prior thereto located and worked for its minerals. The exclusion of this evidence by the trial court is relied upon by appellant as the principal assignment of error.

The first question suggested by this assignment is, when and under what state of facts may a patent of the United States to land obtained under the pre-emption laws be collaterally impeached in an action at law? The general rule, as laid down by the authorities, as to the conclusiveness of a patent in such a case seems to be that all persons whatsoever, in an action at law, are concluded by the patent upon all matters and things over which the land-officers of the government have jurisdiction, and are authorized to exercise their judicial functions. "The judgment of the land department of the government upon all matters properly determinable by them is conclusive, when brought to notice in a collateral proceeding, and can be assailed only by a direct proceeding for its correction and annulment." Smelting Co. v. Kemp, 104 U.S. 636; Steel v. Smelting Co., 106 U.S. 447, 1 S.Ct. 389. In the case last cited, Justice Miller, delivering the opinion of the court, quotes with approval the general doctrine as expressed in Johnson v. Towsley, 13 Wall. 72: "That, when the law has confided to a special tribunal the authority to hear and determine certain matters arising in the course of its duties, the decision of that tribunal, within the scope of its authority, is conclusive upon all others, and that the action of the land-office in issuing a patent for any of the public land subject to sale, by pre-emption or otherwise, is conclusive of the legal title, must be admitted, under the principle above stated; and in all courts, and in all forms of judicial proceedings, when this title must control, either by reason of the limited powers of the court or the essential character of the proceedings, no inquiry can be permitted into the circumstances under which it was obtained." This unassailable character of a patent of the United States applies only in so far as the land department has jurisdiction and authority to act. It is well settled, in repeated decisions of the supreme court of the United States, that, if the land department exceeds its jurisdiction in issuing a patent to land not the subject by it of sale or disposal, this may be shown in an action at law to defeat its operation and annul its character as a conveyance. In Steel v. Smelting Co., cited above, this language is used: "It need hardly be said that we are speaking of a patent issued in a case where the land department had jurisdiction to act; the lands forming part of the public domain, and the law having provided for their sale. If they never were the property of the United States, or if no legislation authorized their sale, or if they had previously been disposed of, or if they had been reserved from sale, the patent would be inoperative to pass the title, and objections to it could be taken on these grounds at any time and in any form of action."

It is readily apparent from these general principles just stated that the difficulty is in applying them to particular cases and in formulating such a rule as will make clear whether any given state of facts brings the case within the general doctrine as to the conclusiveness of a patent, or brings it within one of the exceptions stated above; and this brings us to the next question suggested by the assignment: Was the patent to Blackburn, obtained under the pre-emption laws, open to attack in this suit by proof that, at the time of its issuance, there were, within the land which it covered, "known mines," valuable for their minerals, and thus to avoid its effect as a conveyance of the legal title of the government to so much of the land as was included within the mining locations claimed by the appellant? The position taken by the counsel for appellant is that the effect of the exemption of "known salines or mines" in the pre-emption act is to wholly reserve such lands from sale, and thus to limit the power of the land department to pass title to the same under the provisions of the pre-emption act. On the other hand, it is contended by the counsel for appellee that the effect of the exemption is simply to require the land department, by proof, in its judicial character, before issuing a patent, to ascertain whether mines are known to exist within the boundaries of the claim, and that the action of the department in issuing a patent is as conclusive upon that point as upon other questions of fact upon which the department is required to pass in issuing a patent. None of the cases cited by appellant are directly in point upon the questions presented by these opposing views of the law, in that they were either cases of patents issued by the government where the title to the lands was not in the government at the date of issuance, or where the lands had been reserved from sale, and therefore the land department had no jurisdiction over them, or cases involving the construction to be given to the reservation of known mines under town-site acts, and in some instances under placer locations. These cases, however, particularly those in reference to the effect of town-site patents, and also of patents to placer mines, are instructive, in so far as they illustrate and indicate the general policy of the government in reserving valuable mineral lands, known to be such at the date of patent, from the operation of a patent issued in any other method than that specifically provided by Congress for the disposal of its minerals; and we may gather from them, as well as from an examination of the various acts of Congress relative to the disposal of the public lands, to what extent the land department is empowered to act in passing upon the nature and character of land containing minerals, so as to conclude by its action all persons not...