Nevada Sierra Oil Co. v. Miller

• Decision Date: 06 November 1899
• Docket Number: 858.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of California
• Parties: NEVADA SIERRA OIL CO. v. MILLER et al.

97 F. 681

NEVADA SIERRA OIL CO. v. MILLER et al.

No. 858.

United States Circuit Court, S.D. California.

November 6, 1899

Joseph H. Call, W. J. Hunsaker, and Anderson & Anderson, for complainant.

C. C Wright, Wm. H. H. Hart, L. L. Cory, J. A. Hannah, Stephen M White, and Bicknell, Gibson & Trask, for defendants.

ROSS Circuit Judge.

Since the decision of this court on the demurrer to the original bill in this cause, reported in (C.C.) 96 F. 1, the complainant therein conveyed its interest in the property involved in the suit to the Nevada Sierra Oil Company, a corporation of the state of Nevada, by which an amended and supplemental bill has been filed, and to which the defendants thereto filed demurrers upon three grounds, the first of which is that the suit is not one arising under the laws of the United States, and hence that this court has no jurisdiction over it; secondly, for want of equity in the bill; and, thirdly, on the ground that the bill is multifarious, and that there is a misjoinder of parties defendant thereto.

The case being one in which the original jurisdiction of the court is invoked, such jurisdiction depends upon the facts as they existed at the commencement of the suit, and must be shown by the complainant's statement of its own cause of action. This has been so frequently decided that a citation of the cases is not necessary. If, however, it appears from the bill that the complainant asserts a right under and by virtue of some law of the United States, and that such right constitutes, in whole or in part, its alleged cause of action, and demands for its determination the construction or proper application of a law of the United States, it is equally clear that jurisdiction is shown, the property in controversy being alleged to be of the requisite statutory value.

The subject of the suit is a piece of land belonging to the government of the United States, which the complainant on the one side, and the defendants on the other, seek to acquire. The bill shows that the present complainant is the successor in interest of the Dewey Mining Company, a corporation organized under the laws of the territory of Arizona and the original complainant in the suit, having succeeded to all of that company's rights in the property involved in the suit by deed executed April 11, 1899; and that the Dewey Mining Company was the successor in interest, prior to the commencement of the suit, of certain named parties who first located the land in controversy, on the 1st day of January 1893, as a consolidated placer mining claim, under and by virtue of the mining laws of the United States. The bill alleges that at the time of that location the land in question was free public land of the United States, subject to exploration, entry, and purchase under its mining laws and had theretofore been surveyed and subdivided in accordance with law, and its boundaries and corners marked by proper monuments, and that it was then within a certain mining district which had been regularly organized and established in Fresno county, Cal., where the land is situated, under the name of 'Coalinga Mining District,' which district, from its organization, prior to May 2, 1890, to the passage of the act of the legislature of California approved March 9, 1897, continued to exist and be maintained as a mining district, and to be authorized and recognized by the laws of the United States. It is alleged that on January 1, 1893, certain named persons, each of lawful age and a citizen of the United States, associated themselves together for the purpose of locating, claiming, holding, and working in common the N.E. 1/4 of section 20, township 19 S., range 15 W., M.D.M., in Fresno county, Cal., as a placer mining claim, and did on that day, as an association of persons, distinctly mark the said claim on the ground with monuments of stone placed one at each of the four corners of the location, with monuments between the corners at points of prominence, and in such manner that the boundaries of the claim were distinctly marked on the ground, and could be readily traced, both with reference to the monuments so erected by the locators as well as by the permanent monuments established by the government in its survey of the land, and that on the same day the locators posted upon the claim a notice of its location, signed by them, and which contained the date of location, a description of the claim by reference to the monuments and by reference to its legal government subdivision, and designated it as the 'Arnold Placer Mining Claim,' which notice was on the same day duly recorded in the records of the mining district. It is alleged that, prior to the making of the location mentioned, the said locators discovered valuable deposits of petroleum and mineral oils upon the claim, which discovery consisted of the finding of seepages of oil, and of the residuum of oil, upon the claim, and upon land adjoining the said described tract, upon different sides, and discovering upon the said claim shale and oil-bearing sand rock of a character similar to that in which petroleum in large and paying quantities had been found and developed in the vicinity, and also from the discovery of shale and veins of sand rock similar in character to that upon land known to be valuable for petroleum, which veins and strata extended upon and across the said mining claim; that those discoveries of the said locators clearly indicated the existence of petroleum in the land in controversy in paying quantities, and such as would and did justify the said locators, and the complainant, as their successor in interest, in working the said claim, and in making expenditures thereon, and in protecting their rights thereto, in the expectation that oil in valuable quantities would be found in the said land. The bill alleges that, prior to the making of the location of January 1, 1893, the locators thereof discovered mineral deposits in the land so located; and alleges that the facts above stated, under a proper and true construction of the provisions of sections 2320 and 2329 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, constituted a discovery of mineral deposits within the said land, and that those sections, properly construed, do not mean that prior to location a locator of mining ground thereunder shall actually see or have personal knowledge of the existence of mineral deposits in paying quantities in or upon the claim, but that all that they require is that the locator shall discover sufficient evidences of the mineral character of such land as to justify further expense and exploration; which contentions on the part of the complainant, the bill alleges, are disputed by the defendants, who contend, according to its averments, that the laws of congress contemplate and require, before a valid location of a placer mining claim can be made, that the locator shall actually discover mineral upon the claim in paying quantities, and upon that theory contend that the predecessors of the complainant never made a discovery of mineral upon the land in question. The bill further alleges that on December 29, 1894, in accordance with the requirements of the act of congress of July 18, 1894, providing for the suspension of the assessment work upon mining claims for that year, the locators of the said claim of January 1, 1893, filed and caused to be recorded in the mining records of the Coalinga mining district a notice stating that the said locators claimed the said N.E. 1/4 or said section 20 as a mining claim, and that they intended in good faith to hold and work the same; that since the year 1894 said locators of the said claim and their successors in interest have continued to claim the same as a placer mining claim, but did not perform sufficient labor thereon to constitute the annual labor required upon placer mining claims, under the mining laws of the United States, for the year 1895; that the said locators of said Arnold mining claim, in the year 1898 and prior to the commencement of this suit, conveyed their interest therein to the aforesaid Dewey Mining Company. The bill further alleges that on January 1, 1896, the said mentioned quarter section of land was free public land of the United States, subject to exploration, location, purchase, and claim under the mining laws of the United States, and that on that day certain named persons, each of lawful age and a citizen of the United States, discovered valuable deposits of petroleum upon the said land, which discovery, it is alleged, consisted of the facts hereinbefore stated, and that after such discovery (the sufficiency of which it is alleged the defendants controvert), and on the said 1st day of January, 1896, the said named persons, being eight in number, associated themselves together for the purpose of locating, claiming, holding, and working in common the said quarter section of land as a placer mining claim, and did on that day, as such association of persons, distinctly mark the said claim on the ground with monuments of stone, placed one at each of the four corners of the location, with stakes or monuments between the corners at points of prominence, and in such manner that the boundaries of the claim were distinctly marked on the ground, and could be readily traced, both with reference to the monuments erected by the locators, as well as by reference to the permanent monuments established by the government in its survey of the land; and that on the same day the said locators posted upon the claim a notice of its location, signed by them, and which contained the date of location, a description of the claim by reference to the monuments and by reference to the legal government subdivision of the land, and designated the claim the 'Mars Placer...