Source: http://supreme.nolo.com/us/151/658/case.html
Timestamp: 2019-05-25 08:54:01
Document Index: 97095102

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2392', '§ 2392', '§ 19', 'art, 17', '§ 25', '§ 2', '§ 709', '§ 5']

DOWER V. RICHARDS, 151 U. S. 658 - Volume 151 - 1894 - Full Text - US Supreme Court Center - USSC Cases - Nolo
US Supreme Court Center > Volume 151 > DOWER V. RICHARDS, 151 U. S. 658 (1894) > Full Text
Under the statutes of the United States, a ledge containing gold-bearing rock, which has formerly been profitably worked for mining purposes, but all work upon which has been abandoned, and which at the date of
The defendants, in their answer, alleged that Harriet Dower, of whom the other defendants were servants, was the owner and in possession and entitled to the possession, of a quartz ledge and mine, called the "Wagner Ledge," situated partly upon and crossing the lots demanded; that Richards had no other right of possession than under a town site patent granted by the United States to the City of Nevada in 1869; that the ledge was known to be a gold-bearing ledge, and was held and worked as such long prior and subsequent to that patent, and was by the laws of the United States excepted from that patent, and that Harriet Dower had located the ledge, and was engaged in working it, including three hundred feet on either side thereof, under those laws. The laws relied on by the defendants were the Acts of July 26, 1866, c. 262; March 2, 1867, c. 177, 14 Stat. 251, 541; June 8, 1868, c. 53, 15 Stat. 67; May 10, 1872, c. 152, 17 Stat. 91; Rev.Stat. § 2392.
Upon the facts so found, the court decided as matter of law that the plaintiffs were owners and entitled to the possession of these lots; that no part of them was subject to location as a mining claim at the date of Harriet Dower's attempted
That court, as stated in its opinion filed in the case and reported in 81 Cal. 44, affirmed the judgment upon the following grounds: upon the facts found and the evidence stated in the record before that court, it decided as matter of fact that before 1869, a gold-bearing quartz ledge was known to exist and had been profitably worked within the limits of these lots, but had never been located or marked out; that in the winter of 1868-69, all work on the ledge was abandoned, and no work was afterwards done there until one of the defendants, in 1884, made the location under which they claimed; that from the time when work was so abandoned until July 1, 1869, when the town site patent was granted, the portion of the ledge included within the boundaries of these lots was regarded as worked out, and as of no further value for mining purposes, and was not known to be valuable for mining purposes at the date of that patent, nor discovered to be so before the plaintiffs and their predecessors occupied and improved the lots for the purpose of residence under the town site patent. Having decided that to be the state of facts at the time when the town site patent took effect, and assuming that the provision of the Act of March 2, 1867, that no title should be acquired by a town site patent "to any mine of gold, silver, cinnabar, or copper," was not repealed by the provision of the Act of June 8, 1868, c. 53, that no title should be so acquired to "any valid mining claim or possession held under the existing laws of Congress," but stood with it, as in the reenactment of both provisions in § 2392 of the Revised Statutes, the court decided as matter of law that land not known at
The essential difference between this proposition and that affirmed by the Supreme Court of the State of California is that the plaintiffs in error insist that if the ledge in question was known to have been gold-bearing and to have been profitably worked before the acquisition of the town site patent, and had not in fact been worked out before the acquisition of that patent, the right to that ledge was not included in the patent, but was reserved to the United States, and would pass by a subsequent mining location, whereas the court held that if the ledge was not known at the time of the acquisition of the town site patent to contain such an amount of minerals as to be valuable for mining purposes, it was not excepted from the operation of that patent.
In the legislation of Congress, from the foundation of the government, a writ of error which brings up matter of law only has always been distinguished from an appeal, which, unless expressly restricted, brings up both law and fact. Wiscart v. Dauchy, 3 Dall. 321; United States v. Goodwin, 7 Cranch. 108; Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 19 U. S. 410; Hemmenway v. Fisher, 20 How. 255, 61 U. S. 258; In re Neagle, 135 U. S. 1, 135 U. S. 42.
In the first Judiciary Act, the whole appellate jurisdiction of this Court was limited to matters of law. While an appeal lay from the district court to the circuit court in admiralty cases, neither the judgments or decrees of the circuit court, whether in law, equity, or admiralty, nor judgments or decrees of the highest court of a state, could be reviewed by this Court except by writ of error. Act of September 24, 1789, c. 20, §§ 19, 22-25, 1 Stat. 83-86.
Hyde v. Booraem, 16 Pet. 169, 41 U. S. 176.
and had therefore ordered the case to be reargued. United States v. King, 7 How. 833, 48 U. S. 844-845. Upon the final argument, while four of the Justices dissented from the opinion of the Court upon the principal question of law presented by the record, none of them differed from the Chief Justice on the question of practice, and Mr. Justice Wayne, who delivered the principal dissenting opinion, said:
7 How. 48 U. S. 865. See also Parks v. Turner, 12 How. 39, 43; Arthur v. Hart, 17 How. 6, 48 U. S. 12; Lanfear v. Hunley, 4 Wall. 204, 71 U. S. 209; Generes v. Campbell, 11 Wall.193; Jeffries v. Mutual Ins. Co., 110 U. S. 305, 110 U. S. 309.
The only appellate jurisdiction which has ever been conferred by Congress upon this Court to review the judgments or decrees at law or in equity of the highest court of a state has been by writ of error. Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 19 U. S. 410; Verden v. Coleman, 22 How. 192; Act of September 24, 1789, c. 20, § 25, 1 Stat. 85; Act of February 5, 1867, c. 28, § 2, 14 Stat. 386; Rev.Stat. § 709; Act March 3, 1891, c. 517, § 5, 26 Stat. 827.
Such a writ of error can be sustained only when the decision of the state court is against a right claimed under the Constitution and laws of the United States. Montgomery v. Hernandez, 12 Wheat. 129; Missouri v. Andriano, 138 U. S. 496. And if the decision of the state court rests on an independent ground of law not involving any federal question, this Court has no jurisdiction. New Orleans Waterworks Co. v. Louisiana Sugar Co., 125 U. S. 18; Eustis v. Bolles, 150 U. S. 361; California Powder Works v. Davis, ante, 151 U. S. 389. The reasons against its jurisdiction are as strong, if not stronger, when the decision of the state court proceeds upon matter of fact only.
Mackay v. Dillon, 4 How. 421, 45 U. S. 447. The only questions of evidence considered in that case arose upon a bill of exceptions to the legal competency of evidence relied on to prove a title under an act of Congress.
50 U. S. 9 How. 1, 50 U. S. 7. And this Court assumed jurisdiction of that case solely because the state court had
63 U. S. 22 How. 193, 63 U. S. 203. Those observations must be taken as applied to the case before the court, in which the decision of the question of fact depended on the legal effect of acts of officers of the United States regarding that title, and that it was not intended to enlarge the scope of the appellate jurisdiction of this Court is evident from the cases there cited. See also Maguire v. Tyler, 1 Black 195, 66 U. S. 203.
That this Court, in an action at law, at least, has no jurisdiction to review the decision of the highest court of a state upon a pure question of fact, although a federal question would or would not be presented, according to the way in which the question of fact was decided, is clearly settled by a series of later decisions, some of them in cases very like the one now before us.
115 U.S. 577.
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