The Goldfield news. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1904-1911, 1906-05-26
COURT DECISIONS
AFFECTING MINING

ease VI stewart VS.. Gold and
Copper company. supreme court of
Utah. old that 1t is now settled law
that the location of a mining claim
made by an alien is not void, but only
voidable; and may he cured by his
grant to a citizen, and that a location
made by an alien is free from attack
on that ground by anyone except the
government.
The extent to which a workman as
sumes the natural and ordinary risks
incident to his employment, and how
far obedience to the orders of his en-
ployer will excuse the workman from
negligent acts, is illustrated in the case
of Devling VS.. Poorman Silver Mines.
recently decided by the supreme court
of Colorado.
The defendant mining company re-
quired it's employees to examine the
place where they were working for
missed shots before beginning to drill.
and in compliance with such rule plain
tiff, with a fellow workman and the
foreman, went into the mine, and the
foreman, in the presence of the others,
inspected a hole. Being of the opinion
that 1T was safe, he directed plaintiff to
drill 1t out. Plaintiff, believing it was
safe, began drilling out the hole. when
a charge therein exploded and the plain
tiff was injured.
The court says: THE case is one
where the master and servant had equal
knowledge and means of knowledge of
ascertaining the true character of the
place of work, which was inherently
dangerous, and which was the very
thing the servant was employed to do,
and the particular danger encountered
was one hat not ~infrequently happens
in work of this character" The gem
eral rule is that the servants duty is
to obey the orders of his master, and
ordinarily he will be excused if he COM
plies Herewith. Plaintiff invoked this
doctrine and says that when the fore
man ordered him to sink the hole deeper
he was bound at the peril of discharge
to obey. The court held that this doc
trine was wholly inapplicable to the
facts of the case and that the mere
order to do the work did not, of itself.
constitute negligence, and the plaintiff
assumed the risk.
In a suit between two conflicting lode
mining lOCdtlOnS, the supreme court VI
Colorado has held, in the case of Treas
ury Tunnel Mining company VS.. Boss,
that, as against another and subsequent
location, a prior lode claim is good, in
locating which all statutory require
ments have been complied with except
failure to place a discovery notice upon
the ground at the point of the only valid
discovery made on the claim, If such
notice as recited in the recorded loca-
ton certificate, and If the boundaries re-
main the same after as before the true
discovery.
The court says: when filed in the
proper office the certificate takes the
place of the notice on the ground, and
posting or keeping at the point of the
new and valid discovery, if the first al
legged discovery is void, of a notice of
what particular ground is claimed. The
recorded notice sufficiently describes
the ground claimed, and this recorded
notice contains precisely the same
things which the new notice, if posted.
would include. Subsequent locators are
sufficiently and duly notified by that
and the posting of a new notice
would not give them any information
which the record does not already furn-
ish. 1t is a we'll known fact that the
boundaries as marked upon the ground
and the notices thereupon posted within
a very short time often disappear, and
there is no requirement in the law that
they shall be maintained or replaced by
the locator in order to keep his claim