William Blackburn v. Portland Gold Mining Company

• Decision Date: 08 January 1900
• Docket Number: No. 54,54
• Citation: 20 S.Ct. 222,44 L.Ed. 276,175 U.S. 571
• Parties: WILLIAM H. BLACKBURN, Plff. in Err. , v. PORTLAND GOLD MINING COMPANY and W. S. Stratton
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

175 U.S. 571

20 S.Ct. 222

44 L.Ed. 276

WILLIAM H. BLACKBURN, Plff. in Err.,

v PORTLAND GOLD MINING COMPANY and W. S. Stratton.

No. 54.

Argued and submitted October 18, 1899.

Decided January 8, 1900.

This was an action brought on August 27, 1897, in the circuit court of the United States for the District of Colorado, by William H. Blackburn, a citizen of the state of Colorado, against the Portland Gold Mining Company, a corporation of the state of Iowa, and W. S. Stratton, a citizen of the state of Colorado.

It was alleged in the complaint that the amount in dispute in the cause exceeded, exclusive of interest and costs, the sum of $2,000; that the suit was of a civil nature at common law, and arose under the laws of the United States; that it was an adverse suit, and a suit arising under the provisions of §§ 2325 and 2326, Revised Statutes of the United States, and is what is known as a suit in support of an adverse claim; that the defendant, W. S. Stratton, had applied for a patent for a portion of the Fairplay Lode mining claim, survey lot No. 9331, under and by virtue of the provisions of § 2325, and that the plaintiff Blackburn, under and by virtue of § 2326, had filed his adverse claim and protest against the entry of said portion of said Fairplay claim, upon the ground that a part thereof was held and owned by the plaintiff as a part and parcel of the Eacho Lode mining claim; that said W. S. Stratton, on or about the 4th day of February, 1897, had made application in the United States land office at Pueblo, Colorado, for patent on said portion of said Fairplay Lode mining claim under said § 2325, and that at the time he made his said application he was not the real owner of said portion of Fairplay Lode mining claim, neither did he have any interest or title whatsoever therein; that long prior to said time the said Stratton had by good and sufficient deed conveyed all his right, title, and interest in and to said claim to the Portland Gold Mining Company, defendant, and for that reason the plaintiff brought this action against the said the Portland Gold Mining Company jointly with said Stratton; that on February 1, 1897, and ever since, the plaintiff was and is the owner of and in actual possession of the Eacho Lode mining claim, 1,500 by 300 feet, situate in the Cripple Creek mining district, ElPaso county, state of Colorado, and that plaintiff has the legal right to occupy and possess the same by virtue of a full compliance with the local rules and regulations of miners in said mining district and of the laws of the United States and of the state of Colorado, and by pre-emption, discovery, and location thereof as a lode mining claim located on the public domain of the United States; that on February 4, 1897, the defendant wrongfully and unlawfully entered into and upon a parcel of the said Eacho Lode mining claim described as follows, to wit: All that part of said claim which is intersected by the exterior lines of survey No. 9331, known as the Fairplay Lode mining claim, as shown by plat marked B, filed on July 28, 1899, in the land office of the United States at Pueblo, Colorado, with the adverse claim of plaintiff against the entry of said survey lot for patent; that the defendant has ever since wrongfully withheld possession of said parcel of Eacho Lode mining claim from the plaintiff, to his damage in the sum of $1,000; that this suit is brought in support of said adverse claim within thirty days after the filing of said adverse claim, and that plaintiff has necessarily disbursed and expended the sum of $1,000 for plats, abstracts, and copies of papers filed in said land office with said adverse claim, and also a reasonable counsel fee, to wit, $200 for the expense of preparing his said adverse claim.

The plaintiff prayed for a judgment that he is the owner and entitled to the possession of and patent to the above-described parcel of said Eacho Lode mining claim, and for the recovery of the same; for the sum of $1,000 damages: for the sum of $300 expended in behalf of said adverse claim, and for costs of suit.

On November 8, 1897, the defendants, the Portland Gold Mining Company and W. S. Stratton, moved the court to dismiss the cause for the following alleged reasons:

1st. That the court has no jurisdiction either of the parties or the subject-matter of said suit.

2d. That both the plaintiff and defendants in said suit are citizens of the state of Colorado, and the same is not one wholly between citizens of different states.

3d. That it does not appear in said complaint that the amount in controversy in said suit is $2,000.

4th. That it appears from said complaint that said suit is one which cannot under the Constitution and statutes of the United States be brought into this court.

On December 20, 1897, the court entered judgment dismissing the cause for want of jurisdiction, and signed a bill of exceptions at the request of the plaintiff, and also certified that the said question of jurisdiction of the circuit court of the United States was the only one involved in the said cause, and was the sole question upon which said cause was dismissed, and also allowed the present writ of error.

Mr. Charles J. Hughes, Jr., submitted the case for plaintiff in error.

Messrs. W. H. Bryant,C. S. Thomas, and H. H. Lee for defendants in error.

Mr. Justice Shiras delivered the opinion of the court:

As the court below filed no opinion, we are not distinctly informed upon which of the several grounds alleged the court proceeded in dismissing the cause for want of jurisdiction, and therefore it will be necessary for this court to consider each and all of them.

First, then, Does the record disclose that the matter in dispute exceeds, exclusive of interest and costs, the sum or value of $2,000? The allegation in the complaint is 'that the amount in dispute in this cause exceeds, exclusive of interest and costs, the sum of $2,000;' and it is also made to appear that the matter in dispute is the title to a mining claim, for which, and for damages and expenses amounting to $1,300, the plaintiff demands judgment. The defendants did not think fit to traverse these allegations, but moved to dismiss on the face of the complaint. Upon such a motion, as upon a demurrer, a court will not incline to dismiss for want of jurisdiction unless the facts appearing of record create a legal certainty of that conclusion. Barry v. Edmunds, 116 U. S. 550, 29 L. ed. 729, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 501; Wetmore v. Rymer, 169 U. S. 115, 42 L. ed. 682, 18 Sup. Ct. Rep. 293. We are not impressed by the criticism that the amount, instead of the matter, in dispute, is alleged to have exceeded $2,000. The meaning of such an allegation is clear, and in the absence of any traverse thereof, and of any pretense that, in point of fact, the matter in dispute did not exceed the sum or value of $2,000, we think that the record fairly imports the necessary jurisdictional amount.

The next contention, that the circuit court could not take jurisdiction because the record did not disclose that the controversy was between citizens of different states, seems to us to have been well founded. The complaint alleged that Stratton, one of the defendants, was a citizen of the same state as the plaintiff. Not only was Stratton named as a party defendant in the complaint, but a summons was sued out against him as such; and the motion to dismiss the complaint was made in behalf of Stratton as well as of the Portland Gold Mining Company.

It is, however, argued that, as it is alleged in the complaint that Stratton had conveyed by deed his interest in the mining claim to the Portland Gold Mining Company, Stratton was a nominal party only, whose presence on the record would not defeat the jurisdiction of the court as between the other parties; and cases are cited in which it has been held that the jurisdiction of the Federal courts will not be defeated by the mere joinder or nonjoinder of formal parties. Wormley v. Wormley, 8 Wheat. 421, 5 L. ed. 651; Wood v. Davis, 18 How. 467, 15 L. ed. 460; Walden v. Skinner, 101 U. S. 577, 25 L. ed. 963.

But considering the nature of the suit and the relief sought thereby, we are not prepared to hold that Stratton was a purely formal and unnecessary party. It is clear, from the provisions of §§ 2325 and 2326, Revised Statutes, that they contemplate a controversy between an applicant for a patent and an adverse claimant. Under the first of these sections Stratton, as the complaint shows, made personal application in the United States land office at Pueblo for a patent.

In order, therefore, that a controversy could arise under these sections, Stratton must have complied with the provisions of § 2325 by having located a piece of land and by having filed in the land office an application under oath for a patent, showing compliance, together with a plat and field notes of the claim, made by or under the direction of the United States surveyor general, showing accurately the boundaries of the claim, which shall be distinctly marked by monuments on the ground, and by having posted a copy of such plat, together with a notice of such application for a patent, in a conspicuous place on the land embraced in such plat previous to the filing of the application for a patent, and by filing an affidavit of at least two persons that such notice has been duly posted, and by filing a copy of the notice in the land office.

It is quite evident under these provisions and the allegations of the complaint, that, when Blackburn desired to file an adverse claim, he was informed by the proceedings in the land office that Stratton was the applicant for the patent and was asserting his compliance with the statute, and was therefore a proper and necessary party to make defendant. Why he included the Portland Gold Mining Company as a party defendant is not quite evident, but it may be conjectured that he wished to raise some question as to the...