Uinta Tunnel Min. & Transp. Co. v. Creede & Cripple Creek Min. & Mill. Co.

Citations

• 119 F. 164
• 57 C.C.A. 200
• 1902 U.S. App. LEXIS 4661

Syllabus

<p>1. Mining—Tunnel-Site Claimant Need Not Adverse Lode Claim.</p> <p>The claimant of a tunnel site located across lode claims is not required by sections 2325, 2326, Rev. St. [U. S. Comp. St. 1901, pp. 1429, 1430], to file an adverse claim, when applications for patents of the lode claims are made, in order to protect his rights in those cases in which his interest in the lode claims is so uncertain, contingent, and intangible that it cannot be fairly litigated when the applications are made.</p> <p>2. Same—Patents of Lode Claims Subject to Rights of Claimants of Tunnel Sites Located before the Entries.</p> <p>Patents of lode mining claims based on entries made after the location of a claim for a tunnel site across them are subject to the rights of the claimant of the tunnel site in cases in which his rights therein were so uncertain, contingent, and intangible that they could not be fairly litigated when the applications for the patents were made.</p> <p>8. Same—Land Department—Entries and Patents—Estoppel.</p> <p>The judgments of the land department permitting entries of land and the patents based upon those entries bind all the parties to the proceedings which resulted in them and all those claiming interests acquired from such parties subsequent to the entries. But they do not estop those who were not, and were not required to be, parties to the proceedings from establishing by the customary evidence the truth relative to any fact material to their claims in any litigation between them and the holders under the patents.</p> <p>4 Same—Entries and Patents of Lode Claims—No Estoppel of the Owner of Prior Tunnel Claim.</p> <p>Entries and patents of lode mining claims in proceedings to which a claimant of a tunnel site, located across them prior to the entries, was not, and was not required to be, a party will not estop him from establishing by the testimony of witnesses who know, and by other customary evidence, the fact that no discoveries of lodes or mines of min