Olivia Hopkins v. Frank Walker

• Decision Date: 11 June 1917
• Docket Number: No. 234,234
• Citation: Olivia Hopkins v. Frank Walker, 244 U.S. 486, 37 S.Ct. 711, 61 L.Ed. 1270 (1917)
• Parties: OLIVIA H. HOPKINS et al., Appts., v. FRANK WALKER et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

244 U.S. 486

37 S.Ct. 711

61 L.Ed. 1270

OLIVIA H. HOPKINS et al., Appts.,

v FRANK WALKER et al.

No. 234.

Submitted October 18, 1915.

Decided June 11, 1917.

Messrs. L. O. Evans, W. B. Rodgers, D. M. Kelly, and D. Gay Stivers for the Anaconda Copper Mining Company.

Messrs. John A. Shelton and H. C. Hopkins for Olivia H. Hopkins.

Messrs. John A. Shelton and J. L. Templeman for the Washington-Butte Mining Company.

Mr. Thomas J. Walsh for appellees.

Mr. Justice Van Devanterdelivered the opinion of the court:

This is a direct appeal under § 238, Judicial Code[36 Stat. at L. 1157, chap. 231, Comp. Stat. 1916, § 1215], from a decree dismissing a suit in equity for want of jurisdiction, the question for decision now being whether the case presented by the bill is one arising under the laws of the United States.

With considerable detail the bill alleges that the plaintiffs are the owners of a placer mining claim in Montana for which a United States patent was issued to their predecessors in interest in 1895; that they and their predecessors have been the owners and in actual possession for more than twenty years; that at the time of the application for the patent no mineral-bearing vein or lode was known to exist within the boundaries of this placer claim; that prior to its location two lode locations were made or attempted to be made, covering part of it, and while the application for the patent was pending the lode claimants conformed to the mining laws of the United States by filing adverse claims in the local land office and bringing suits to establish them in a court of competent jurisdiction; that the placer claimants prevailed in those suits and certified copies of the judgments were duly filed in the local land office; that further proceedings were then had in the Land Department, resulting in the issue of a patent to the placer claimants according to those judgments; and that under the mining laws this passed to the plaintiffs' predecessors a full title to all land and all minerals within the boundaries of the placer claim.

The bill further alleges that, notwithstanding the absence of any known vein or lode within the boundaries of the placer claim at the time of the application for the patent, notwithstanding the judgments in favor of the placer claimants in the two adverse suits, and notwithstanding the issue of the patent, several persons claim to have made lode locations at different times from 1900 to 1913 upon part of the placer claim, the part covered by the two earlier lode locations which were unsuccessfully asserted in the adverse suits,—and have caused certificates of the location of these later lode claims to be recorded in the office of the clerk of the county wherein the land lies; that these certificates contain declarations and recitals tending to support the lode claims to which they refer,—there are nine,—and give the length of each claim as 1,500 feet and its width as 600 feet; that these lode claims and the certificates were made upon the mistaken theory that, under the mining laws, the placer patent is wholly invalid as to the ground covered by the two earlier lode claims, and, if this be not so, that the ground in controversy was known at the time of the application for the patent to contain valuable mineral-bearing veins or lodes, and therefore, under the mining laws, was excepted from the patent and remained subject to location as lode claims; that, even if there were known mineral-bearing veins or lodes within the placer claim at the time of the application for the patent, no subsequent location of any such vein or lode could be made, under the mining laws, to embrace more than 25 feet of the surface on each side of it; that the defendants are claiming the ground in controversy under the later lode claims and the certificates before described; that for the reasons indicated these locations and certificates are invalid and the certificates, as recorded, constitute clouds upon the plaintiffs' title and reduce its market value; and that the determination of the plaintiffs' rights requires a construction of the mining laws under which the proceedings resulting in the patent were had and a decision of what, according to those laws, passed by the patent, and what, if anything, was excepted and remained open to location.

There is also an allegation that the suit is one arising under the laws of the United States, and the matter in dispute exceeds, exclusive of interets and costs, the sum or value of $3,000, but there is no allegation of diverse citizenship.The prayer is that the cloud caused by the recording of the certificates of location be removed and the title of the plaintiffs quieted.

It is conceded that the plaintiffs, being in possession, have no remedy at law, and that their remedy, if any, is in equity.Our concern is not with this, but with the question whether the case is one arising under the laws of the United States.A case does so arise where an appropriate statement of the plaintiff's cause of action, unaided by any anticipation or avoidance of defenses, discloses that it really and substantially involves a dispute or controversy respecting the validity, construction, or effect of a law of Congress.Boston & M. Consol. Copper & S. Min. Co. v....