Ritter v. Lynch

Citations

• 123 F. 930
• 1903 U.S. App. LEXIS 4957

Syllabus

<p>1. Public Lands—Right of Possession—Acts Sufficient to Establish.</p> <p>The question of what acts are sufficient to give a right of possession to public lands is one to be determined upon the facts of each particular ease, such as the character of the land, its locality, and the object and purpose for which it is taken up and claimed; the only general rule being that the acts must be of such a character as to show the dominion and control of the claimant over the land.</p> <p>2. Same—Deposit of Tailings from Stamp Mill—Impounding in Reservoir.</p> <p>The owner of a mill for the crushing and reduction of ore constructed a reservoir by building a bulkhead across a ravine on unoccupied public land of the United States adjoining his mill site, in which he impounded the tailings from his mill to the amount of some 60,000 or 70,000 tons, and of considerable value. After his death and the removal of his widow and children, she continued to pay taxes on the land, and to have it looked after by resident agents, who kept trespassers off, and from time to time had repairs made or work done to protect the tailings against being washed away. Held, that such acts of the decedent were sufficient to preserve his ownership of the tailings, and to give him the right to the possession of the land on which they were deposited, which continued in his heirs, and, as shown by the evidence, had never been abandoned by them; that such ownership and right of possession precluded the acquiring of any right in the tailings or the land covered by the reservoir by another by the location thereon of a placer mining claim, based, principally at least, on the discovery of mineral in the tailings, no work having been done on the claim by the locator except with reference to such tailings.</p>