Sullivan v. Iron Silver Mining Co

• Decision Date: 17 December 1883
• Citation: 3 S.Ct. 339,27 L.Ed. 1028,109 U.S. 550
• Parties: SULLIVAN and others v. IRON SILVER MINING CO. 1
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

109 U.S. 550

3 S.Ct. 339

27 L.Ed. 1028

SULLIVAN and others v. IRON SILVER MINING CO.¹

December 17, 1883.

T. M. Patterson, for plaintiff in error.

G. G. Symes and Ashley Pond, for defendants in error.

GRAY, J.

This action was brought by the Iron Silver Mining Company, owning a tract of land or mining claim known as the Wells & Moyer placer claim, described by metes and bounds in the complaint, against Sullivan and others, to recover possession of part of the tract, likewise described, from which it had been ousted by the defendants. The answer originally filed was demurred to, and the demurrer sustained. The defendants thereupon, by leave of the court, filed an amended answer, alleging that on the eleventh of March, 1879, the United States issued to Wells & Moyer, the grantors of the plaintiff, for the premises described in the complaint, and known as No. 281, upon the application for and entry of the premises as the Wells & Moyer placer claim, a placer patent, or patent of and for a placer mining claim, containing the following restrictions and exceptions:

'First. That the grant hereby made is restricted in its exterior limits to the boundaries of the said lot No. 281, as hereinbefore described, and to any veins or lodes of quartz, or other rock in place, bearing gold, silver, cinnabar, lead, tin, copper, or other valuable deposits, which may hereafter be discovered within said limits, and situate, and not claimed or known to exist, at the date hereof.

'Second. That should any vein or lode of quartz, or other rock in place, bearing gold, silver, cinnabar, lead, tin, copper, or other valuable deposits, be claimed or known to exist within the above-described premises at the date hereof, the same is expressly excepted and excluded from these presents.'

The amended answer also alleged 'that at the time of the location of said placer claim, and the survey thereof, and at the time of the application for said patent, and at the time of the entry of said land thereunder, and at the time and date of the issuing and granting of said patent, a lode, vein, or deposit of mineral ore in rock in place, carrying carbonates of lead and silver, and of great value, was known to exist, and was claimed to exist, within the boundaries and underneath the surface of said Wells & Moyer placer claim No. 281; and that the fact that said vein was claimed to exist, and did exist as aforesaid within said premises, was known to the patentees of said claim at all the times hereinbefore mentioned;' and 'that the said application for said patent by said patentees and grantors of said plaintiff did not include any application whatever for a patent of or to said lode or vein within its boundaries aforesaid. Wherefore these defendants aver that the said failure to include said vein or lode in said application amounted to a conclusive declaration by said patentees that they made no claim whatever to said lode or vein, or any part thereof, and that the same was expressly excepted and excluded from, and did not pass with, the grant of said premises in and by said patent for said premises.'

The amended answer further alleged that on the first of January, 1883, the defendants, then and now being citizens of the United States, went upon the premises last described in the complaint, and sunk a shaft thereon, which uncovered and ex- posed said lode, vein, or deposit; and thereupon proceeded to and did locate the same as a lode claim, by erecting a notice containing the name of the lode, the date of the location, and their own names as locators, and marked the surface boundaries by posts; and afterwards caused to be filed a location certificate containing the name of the lode, the names of the locators, the date of the location, the number of feet in length claimed on each side of the center of the discovery shaft, and the general course and direction of said claim as near as might be. 'Wherefore the defendants claim the right to occupy and possess the said premises in full accordance with and by virtue of a full compliance with the requirements of the laws of the United States, and of the state of Colorado, the said vein, lode, or deposit being a part and parcel of the unappropriated public mineral domain of the United States; and that the acts and doings of the defendants as hereinbefore set forth constitute the said supposed trespass complained of by the plaintiff.'

The plaintiff demurred to the amended answer, because neither of its allegations set forth any defense; because it showed that neither the defendants nor their grantors had duly discovered, located, or recorded any lode or vein such as is described in section 2320 of the Revised Statutes, at or before the time of the application for the placer patent, but that the defendants located their lode claim within the boundaries of the patented ground after the issuing of the placer patent; and because the applicants for the placer patent were not required to apply for the vein or lode...