DocketNumber: No. 4001
Citation Numbers: 5 Alaska Fed. 206, 295 F. 45
Judges: Gilbert, Hunt, Rudkin
Filed Date: 1/7/1924
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 1/13/2023
This case presents a contest between two quartz lode claim locators claiming the same premises, their locations being within the surface lines of a placer claim theretofore located by one of them. William Grant, now deceased, brought ejectment against the plaintiffs in error to recover possession of a placer mining claim, alleging also in the complaint his ownership and right of possession of the quartz location known as the Hillside lode claim, located partly upon and running through the said placer claim. The answer alleged title and possession of the Silver King lode mining claim, based upon a location alleged to have been made by the defendants on June 6, 1921, and prior to the location of said Hillside lode claim; both lode claims covering the same vein or lode. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff in the action, and judgment was thereupon rendered.
It is contended that it was error to refuse certain instructions requested by the plaintiffs in error. The answer is that by the instructions which were given the court covered all that was properly required for the protection of the defendants’ rights. The court said to the jury that, if they found that the plaintiff had a valid placer location at the time when the defendants entered upon the same .and discovered a lode or vein theretofore not known to exist within the boundaries of the placer claim, their acts were unlawful and they could not in that manner initiate any title
Error is assigned to the instruction to the jury that the locator of a placer claim may, with the consent of the owner of an adjoining claim, adopt any of such adjoining owner’s stakes which may answer his purpose, and that it was for the jury to say whether or not such adopted stakes substantially answered the requirements of the law. The mining laws of the United States require no more than that the mining location “must be distinctly marked on the ground, so that its boundaries can be readily traced.” The details of the manner of marking are left to be settled by the regulations of local mining districts, Del Monte Min. Co. v. Last Chance Min. Co, 171 U.S. 55, 75, 18 S.Ct. 895, 43 L.Ed. 72, and it has generally been held that any marking on the ground, whether by monuments, mounds, or stakes, if sufficient to permit the boundaries of the claim to be readily traced, is a sufficient compliance with the requirements of the federal statutes. Charlton v. Kelly, 156 F. 433, 84 C.C.A. 295, 13 Ann.Cas. 518; Haws v. Victoria Copper Min. Co, 160 U.S. 303, 16 S.Ct. 282, 40 L.Ed. 436. In Alaska those requirements have been added to by the territorial Legislature. The local statute
For instructing the jury as the court did we do not think the judgment should be reversed. Courts have been liberal in construing the provisions of such statutes and mining regulations, having reference to the circumstances under which and the character of the persons by whom they are to be complied with. Talmadge v. St. John, 129 Cal. 430, 62 Pac. 79; Book v. Justice Min. Co. (C.C.) 58 F. 106. The governing principle in all such cases seems to be that the claim must be marked in substantial compliance with the local regulations. We see no reason why the corner posts of an adjoining well-known placer claim may not, with the consent of the owner of such adjoining claim, be adopted as corner posts by the locator. Such adoption does not in any way tend to create confusion as to the boundaries of the claim so located. It is not unlike the case of the adoption of the stakes of a prior location which has been abandoned, as in Conway v. Hart, 129 Cal. 480, 62 P. 44, and Brockbank v. Albion Min. Co., 29 Utah, 367, 81 P. 863. In Eaton v. Norris, 131 Cal. 561, 63 P. 856, the court sustained claims where two adjoining locations were each marked by stakes set at the four corners, two thereof being stakes upon the dividing line and common to both claims.
Under proper instructions the court submitted to the jury the question whether the vein or lode claimed by the defendants was or was not known to exist within the boundaries of the plaintiff’s placer claim at the time when the defendants entered the same. In that connection the court adverted to the fact that the plaintiff admitted that a true lode or vein had been discovered by Quigley within the limits of the placer claim as originally staked, and instructed the jury that if Quigley’s location was made with the plain
It is contended that there was inconsistency between the instructions as to the Quigley location and the instructions as to the defendants’ location. There can be no question, however, but that the court properly instructed the jury that there was no controversy between the plaintiff and Quigley, and that the plaintiff had acquiesced in the Quigley location and thereby had cast off the excess of the acreage in his placer claim. And if, indeed, there was inconsistency between what was said by the court in reference to the Quigley location and what was said with reference to- the law applicable to, the defendants’ location, it is immaterial to the present case, for it is clear that the jury were properly instructed as to the law pertaining to the defendants’ location.
We find no error. The judgment is affirmed.