Rawhide Balloon Fraction Mining Co. v. Rawhide Coalition Mines Co.

• Decision Date: 01 October 1910
• Docket Number: 1,883.
• Citation: 111 P. 30,33 Nev. 307
• Parties: RAWHIDE BALLOON FRACTION MINING CO. v. RAWHIDE COALITION MINES CO.
• Court: Nevada Supreme Court

111 P. 30

33 Nev. 307

RAWHIDE BALLOON FRACTION MINING CO. v. RAWHIDE COALITION MINES CO.

No. 1,883.

Supreme Court of Nevada

October 1, 1910

Appeal from District Court, Esmeralda County.

Action by the Rawhide Balloon Fraction Mining Company against the Rawhide Coalition Mines Company. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Alfred R. Needles, for appellant. Stevens, Shelton & Van Pelt and Walter Shelton, for respondent.

PER CURIAM.

This is an adverse suit, prosecuted by the appellant against respondent for the purpose of determining the right to the possession of the ground included in what is known as the "Rawhide Fraction lode mining claim," to the extent that the same is in conflict with the Happy Day lode mining claim. The error in conflict is 1.09 acres, which is claimed by the respondent to be a part of the Happy Day claim. From the judgment, and from an order denying a motion for new trial, the plaintiff has appealed.

The case was tried by the court sitting without a jury, a jury having been expressly waived. At the outset of the trial, it was stipulated that each of the parties to the suit made a discovery which would be sufficient to sustain a claim of unoccupied public domain, and each did the proper amount of location work and monumented its boundaries in the manner prescribed by law; but as to the location of the monuments on each claim, in controversy, it was left a question for the court to decide. It was also conceded that the Happy Day was a prior location, and the only point at issue was whether the respondent and its grantors had done all the necessary acts to constitute a valid location of the ground in conflict. The only material question in controversy was as to the location of certain monuments of the Happy Day lode mining claim at the time appellant undertook to institute his right to the Balloon Fraction lode. Upon this point there is a material conflict in the testimony, and under the rule repeatedly affirmed by this court the decision of the lower court upon such conflict will be deemed conclusive.

It is contended, however, that the trial court erred in the admission in evidence of the location certificate and two amended location certificates of the said Happy Day claim. We need not determine, we think, whether or not there was merit in the objections interposed to the certificate of location and amended certificates of the Happy Day claim, for the...