Bradley v. Lee

Citations

• 38 Cal. 362

Syllabus

<p>Instruction to the Jury.—It is not necessary that a single instruction, given for the purpose of presenting the law upon a point arising upon more than one fact, should contain all the qualifications and provisions that would be necessary if no other instructions were given; and if, in other instructions, the jury are charged with the inquiry concerning those qualifications and provisions, in other portions of the charge, it is sufficient.</p> <p>Idem. —An assumption m instructions to the jury which, from admissions and in the condition of the evidence in the case, Was not productive of any injury to the appellant, furnish no ground of error.</p> <p>Idem. — On the trial of a mining Case, the language of an instruction to the jury, “open and subject to appropriation under the local usages of the district,” does not necessarily imply that a mining claim in the actual possession of a person may be re-located by another person, if the person in possession has not taken the necessary steps to give him the constructive possession of the claim.</p> <p>Local Mining Law. —The true interpretation of the mining usage in the County of Nevada, is, that work to the value of one hundred dollars, or twenty days of faithful labor performed on a claim, or on anyone of a set of adjoining and contiguous claims, owned by the same party, is sufficient to hold the same for one year.</p> <p>Per Sprague, J., dissenting:</p> <p>Instructions to a Jury. — An instruction which assumes as a fact established one of the issues tendered by the pleadings, or which assumes that an outstanding title or right of possession in a third person will defeat the plaintiffs’ right of recovery against the defendant, in a mining suit, is error.</p> <p>Action for Mining Claims.—The rule in actions of ejectment, where the strict legal title is litigated, that proof by the defendant of an outstanding titlo in a stranger will defeat recovery by plaintiff, does not prevail in actions to recover mining claims.</p>