Merced Mining Co. v. Fremont

Citations

• 7 Cal. 317

Syllabus

<p>Under existing legislation, the owner of a mining claim has, in practical effect, a good vested title to the property, and should be so treated until his title is divested, by the exercise of the higher right of his superior proprietor. His right to protect the property, for the time being, is as full and perfect as if he were the tenant for years, or for life, of his superior proprietor. As his lease is of the mine, he is entitled to all the remedies, for its protection, that he could claim if he were the owner, against all the world, except the true owner.</p> <p>A writ of injunction will lie, to restrain trespass, in entering upon a mining claim, and removing auriferous quartz from it, where the injury threatens to be continuous and irreparable. It comports more with justice to both parties to restrain the trespass, than to leave the plaintiff to his remedy at law.</p> <p>Moreover, it would be impossible to estimate, with any approach to accuracy, the damage done; and hence, the greater necessity of preventing what cannot be adequately compensated.</p> <p>The removal of gold from a mine is emphatically taking away the entire substance of the estate, and comes within that class of trespass in which injunctions are now universally granted.</p> <p>Per Murray, G.«I, dissenting.—The plaintiffs’ bill alleging that the plaintiffs own the soil, and that the mine belongs to the State, by whose license the plaintiffs are working it, a trespass upon the mine, and the removal of auriferous quartz therefrom, is not an injury to the inheritance, and, in order to obtain an injunction, it must be shown that the injury is irreparable.</p> <p>The mere depriving the plaintiff of a quantity of gold-bearing quartz is not an irremediable injury, in the sense which will entitle him to' an injunction.</p>