Source: https://openjurist.org/280/us/306
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 22:41:17+00:00

Document:
UNITED STATES ex rel. KRUSHNIC.
The Attorney General and Mr. George C. Butte, of San Juan, Porto Rico, for petitioner.
Messrs. Chester I. Long, of Wichita, Kan., and Langdon H. Larwell and Charles S. Thomas, both of Denver, Colo., for respondent.
On October 1, 1919, respondent and seven associates, all qualified under the law, located a tract of land in Garfield county, Colo., under the name of Spad No. 3 placer claim. The land contained valuable deposits of oil shale, and was open to appropriation under the mining laws of the United States. Spad No. 3 placer claim formed one of a group of six oil placer claims, numbered Spad No. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, respectively, all located and owned by the same persons, and lying adjacent to each other. The assessment year 1920, at act of Congress, was extended until July 1, 1921. Prior to that date, annual labor amounting in value, it was asserted, to more than $600 was performed on claims numbered 4, 5, and 6, with the intention that said labor should apply to the entire group.
Subsequently, respondent acquired the interest of his colocators in the Spad No. 3, and, during and for the assessment year 1921, performed thereon assessment labor of an admitted value of more than $100, and continued to perform labor and make improvements on the claim until the aggregate value exceeded $500. On September 25, 1922, he applied for a patent, and, having complied with the statutory requirements and paid the purchase price, obtained final receiver's receipt on December 16, 1922. No relocation of the claim was ever attempted, nor was the valid existence or maintenance of the claim ever challenged in any wise by the United States, or by any one, prior to the issue of the receiver's receipt. Thereafter, a proceeding against the entry was instituted by the Commissioner of the General Land Office; and that officer, after consideration, held the claim null and void upon the sole ground of insufficient assessment labor for the year 1920. This holding was affirmed by the Secretary of the Interior.
In all the proceedings before the land officers amd the Secretary, it was conceded, as it is here conceded, that the claim was valid and existent when the Leasing Act was passed; and that no reason existed, or now exists, for withholding a patent, save the alleged failure of assessment labor for the assessment year 1920. The Secretary held that by such failure all rights to the claim became extinguished and could not be saved or revived by a resumption of work.
Thereupon, respondent applied by petition to the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia for a writ of mandamus to compel the Secretary to issue a patent to the claim. After a hearing on rule to show cause, that court discharged the rule and dismissed the petition. Upon appeal this judgment was reversed by the Court of Appeals for the District. 58 App. D. C. 332, 30 F.(2d) 742.
Two questions are presented for determination: (1) Did the Leasing Act of 1920 have the effect of extinguishing the right of the locator, under section 2324 (30 USCA § 28), to save his claim under the original location by resuming work after failure to perform annual assessment labor? (2) Is the case a proper one for the writ of mandamus?
1. The rule is established by innumerable decisions of this Court, and of state and lower federal courts, that, when the location of a mining claim is perfected under the law, it has the effect of a grant by the United States of the right of present and exclusive possession. The claim is property in the fullest sense of that term; and may be sold, transferred, mortgaged, and inherited without infringing any right or title of the United States. The right of the owner is taxable by the state; and is 'real property,' subject to the lien of a judgment recovered against the owner in a state or territorial court. Belk v. Meagher, 104 U. S. 279, 283, 26 L. Ed. 735; Manuel v. Wulff, 152 U. S. 505, 510-511, 14 S. Ct. 651, 38 L. Ed. 532; Elder v. Wood, 208 U. S. 226, 232, 28 S. Ct. 263, 52 L. Ed. 464; Bradford v. Morrison, 212 U. S. 389, 29 S. Ct. 349, 53 L. Ed. 564. The owner is not required to purchase the claim or secure patent from the United States; but, so long as he complies with the provisions of the mining laws, his possessory right, for all practical purposes of ownership, is as good as though secured by patent. While he is required to perform labor of the value of $100 annully, a failure to do so does not ipso facto forfeit the claim, but only renders it subject to loss by relocation. And the law is clear that no relocation can be made if work be resumed after default and before such relocation.
Prior to the passage of the Leasing Act, annual performance of labor was not necessary to preserve the possessory right, with all the incidents of ownership above stated, as against the United States, but only as against subsequent relocators. So far as the government was concerned, failure to do assessment work for any year was without effect. Whenever $500 worth of labor in the aggregate had been performed, other requirements aside, the owner became entitled to a patent, even though in some years annual assessment labor had been omitted. P. Wolenberg et al., 29 L. D. 302, 304; Nielson v. Champagne Mining and Milling Co., 29 L. D. 491, 493.
It being conceded that the Spad No. 3 'was a valid claim existent on February 25, 1920,' the only question is whether, within the terms of the excepting clause of section 37 (30 USCA § 193), the claim was 'thereafter maintained in compliance with the laws under which initiated.' These words are plain and explicit, and we have only to expound them according to their obvious and natural sense.
It is not doubted that a claim initiated under section 2324, R. S., could be maintained by the performance of annual assessment work of the value of $100; and we think it is no less clear that, after failure to do assessment work, the owner equally maintains his claim, within the meaning of the Leasing Act, by a resumption of work, unless at least some form of challenge on behalf of the United States to the valid existence of the claim has intervened; for as this court said in Belk v. Meagher, supra, at page 283 of 104 U. S., 26 L. Ed. 735: 'His rights after resumption were precisely what they would have been if no default (that is, no default in the doing of assessment labor) and occurred.' Resumption of work by the owner, unlike a relocation by him, is an act not in derogation, but in affirmance, of the original location; and thereby the claim is 'maintained' no less than it is by performance of the annual assessment labor. Such resumption does not restore a lost estate (see Knutson v. Fredlund, 56 Wash. 634, 639, 106 P. 200); it preserves an existing estate. We are of opinion that the Secretary's decision to the contrary violates the plain words of the excepting clause of the Leasing Act.
See, also, Ballinger v. United States ex rel. Frost, 216 U. S. 240, 250, 30 S. Ct. 338, 54 L. Ed. 464.

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