Clipper Mining Co. v. Eli Mining & Land Co.

Citations

• 194 U.S. 220
• 24 S. Ct. 632
• 48 L. Ed. 944
• 1904 U.S. LEXIS 848

Syllabus

<p>This court has no jurisdiction in an action at law to review the conclusions .of the highest court of a State upon questions of fact.</p> <p>The land department has the power to set aside a mining location and restore the ground to the public domain, but a mere rejection of.an application for a patent does not have that effect. A second or amended application maybe made and further testimony offered to show the applicant’s right to a patent.</p> <p>Although a placer location is not a location of lodes and veins beneath the surface, but simply a claim of a tract of ground for the sake of loose deposits upon or near the surface, and the patent to a placer claim does not convey the title to a known vein or lode within its area unless specifically applied and paid for, the patentee takes title to any lode or vein not known to exist at the time of the patent and subsequently discovered.</p> <p>The owner of a. valid mining location, whether lode or placer, has the right to the exclusive possession and enjoyment of all the surface included within the lines of the location.</p> <p>One going upon a valid placer location to prospect for unknown lodes and veins against the will of the placer owner, is a trespasser and cannot initiate a right maintainable in an action at law to the lode and vein claims within the placer limits which he may discover during such trespass.</p> <p>The owner of a placer location may maintain an adverse action against an applicant for a patent of a lode claim, when the latter’s application includes part of the placer grounds.</p> <p>Qucere, and not decided, what the powers of a court of equity may be as to conflicting placer and lode locations.</p>