Source: https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/87658/dower-vs-richards
Timestamp: 2016-12-04 21:10:37
Document Index: 304739747

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 692', '§ 1', '§ 3', '§ 691', 'art,\n17', '§ 25', '§ 2', '§ 709', '§ 5']

Dower Vs Richards - Citation 87658 - Court Judgment | LegalCrystal
Save as PDF Add a Tag Add a Note Semantics Visualize Dower Vs. Richards - Court Judgment	LegalCrystal Citationlegalcrystal.com/87658CourtUS Supreme CourtDecided OnFeb-04-1894Case Number151 U.S. 658AppellantDowerRespondentRichardsExcerpt:
dower v. richards - 151 u.s. 658 (1894)
a town site patent of the land within which it lies is not known to be valuable for mining purposes, is not excepted from the operation of the town site patent, although, after the town site patent has taken effect, the land is found..... Judgment:
A jury trial was waived, and the case submitted to the superior court, which made findings of fact, in substance, as follows: a town site patent for a tract including the two lots demanded was issued July 1, 1869, by the United States to the City of Nevada, which, before May 1, 1887, conveyed all its title in these lots to Richards, and that title was now vested in the plaintiffs as his executors. Before the issue of that patent, the Wagner ledge was known to exist as a gold-bearing quartz lode, but had never been located or marked out, and there was no proof that any local mining rules were in force in that district. For many years before 1869, it had been profitably worked, and many tons of gold-bearing rock extracted from it by persons who were trespassers upon the public domain and were not shown to have had more than a mere
possessio pedis
of certain shafts, tunnels, and dumps. In the winter of 1868-69, work on the ledge was abandoned, and no work was afterwards done by those persons, and the defendants did not claim under them. In 1884, Harriet Dower, being a citizen of the United States and qualified to make a mining location, attempted to make a quartz mining location upon the ledge within the lots demanded, which, in manner and form, complied with the laws of the United States in respect to mining locations, and by virtue of her location she claimed the ledge, with three hundred feet on each side thereof, and since did annual work thereon, as required by those laws, excavated the soil, sank shafts, erected buildings, and piled earth, sand, and debris across the surface of the lots. For more than a year before her attempted location, no annual work had been done by any one upon the ledge. On May 1, 1887, Richards was the owner and in possession, and entitled to the possession, of the lots, and the defendants wrongfully and unlawfully ejected him from the part claimed by them, and ever since wrongfully and unlawfully withheld the possession thereof from him and his executors.
There can be no doubt that the decision of the supreme court of the state in this respect was correct. It is established by former decisions of this Court that under the acts of Congress which govern this case, in order to except mines or mineral lands from the operation of a town site patent, it is not sufficient that the lands do in fact contain minerals, or even valuable minerals, when the townsite patent takes effect, but they must at that time be known to contain minerals of such extent and value as to justify expenditures for the purpose of extracting them, and if the lands are not known at that time to be so valuable for mining purposes, the fact that they have once been valuable or are afterwards discovered to be still valuable for such purposes, does not defeat or impair the title of persons claiming under the town site 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.
7 Cranch. 108;
Hemmenway v. Fisher,
20 How. 255,
61 U. S. 258
135 U. S. 42
3 Dall. 336;
The Charles Carter,
4 Dall. 22.
In 1803, Congress substituted an appeal from the circuit court to this Court, instead of a writ of error, in cases in equity and in admiralty, and upon such an appeal the facts as well as the law were open to review in both those classes of cases until 1875, when the appeal in admiralty was restricted to questions of law. Act March 3, 1803, c. 40, 2 Stat. 244;
2 Wheat. 132;
8 Wall. 377; Rev.Stat. § 692; Act of February 16, 1875, c. 77, § 1, 18 Stat. 315;
Judgments of the circuit court in actions at law have remained reviewable by writ of error only.
Jones v. La Valette,
5 Wall. 579; Act of July 4, 1840, c. 43, § 3, 5 Stat. 393; Rev.Stat. § 691. Upon such a writ of error, this Court, as is well settled, cannot review a decision of a question of fact even if by the local practice, as in Louisiana, the law and the facts are tried together by the judge without a jury.
Hyde v. Booraem,
16 Pet. 169,
41 U. S. 176
and had therefore ordered the case to be reargued.
-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:
48 U. S. 865
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
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.
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.
. 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.,
California Powder Works v. Davis, ante,
. The reasons against its jurisdiction are as strong, if not stronger, when the decision of the state court proceeds upon matter of fact only.
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.
How. 1,
. And this Court assumed jurisdiction of that case solely because the state court had
Moreland v. Page,
this Court dismissed a writ of error to review the judgment of a state court upon a question of the proper boundary between two tracts of land, although the owner of each claimed under a grant from the United States, and Mr. Justice Grier, in delivering judgment, said:
How. 522,
61 U. S. 523
in which the Supreme Court of Arkansas had decided against a preemptive right claimed under the laws of the United States, Mr. Justice Catron said:
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.
1 Black 195,
66 U. S. 203
3 Wall. 106 (1865), a decision of the state court as to the value of land conveyed by deed, upon which depended the requisite amount of stamps under the revenue law of the United States, was held not to be reviewable, although, if the value of the land had been admitted, a federal question would have been presented.
Hall v. Jordon,
15 Wall. 393.
Boggs v. Mining Co.
(1865), a right of possession for the purpose of extracting gold from quartz rock was claimed "by a license inferred from the general policy of the state or of the United States in relation to mines of gold and silver and the lands containing them," and a writ of error to review a decision of the Supreme Court of California against the claim was dismissed by this Court, speaking by Chief Justice Chase, for the following reasons:
Wall. 304,
(1869), it was held that this Court had no jurisdiction where the decision of the state court turned upon the identity of the person to whom a recorder of land titles confirmed, or intended to confirm, a lot of ground, and Mr. Justice Miller, in delivering judgment, said:
Wall. 785,
76 U. S. 786
Crary v. Devlin,
decided February 21, 1876, in an action to recover the price of alcohol sold, the defendants contended that the sale was unlawful because of a violation of the internal revenue laws of the United States. The Court of Appeals of New York gave judgment for the plaintiff because no such violation was proved, and this Court dismissed the writ of error upon the authority of
Boggs v. Mining Co.,
above cited, Chief Justice Waite saying:
decided a week later, in an action at law concerning the title to real estate in which each party claimed under a grant from Congress, a district court of the State of Kansas, to which the case had been submitted without the intervention of a jury, made findings of fact, upon which it declared the law to be for the defendant. Its judgment was affirmed by the supreme court of the state, and the plaintiff sued out a writ of error from this Court. Mr. Justice Miller, in delivering the opinion, said:
above cited, were referred to as supporting this conclusion. 92 U.S.
(1877), upon a writ of error to the Supreme Court of Louisiana in an action in the nature of ejectment, Mr. Justice Miller, speaking for this Court, said that the question whether a selection of swamp lands had in fact been filed by the surveyor general of Louisiana in the General Land Office was "not of that federal character which authorizes us to review the decision of the Supreme Court of Louisiana upon it."
97 U. S. 97
Kenney v. Effinger
(1885), this Court dismissed a writ of error to the Supreme Court of Appeals of the State of Virginia for reasons stated in the opinion delivered by MR. JUSTICE FIELD, as follows:
Quimby v. Boyd
(1888), in which various errors were assigned in a judgment of the Supreme Court of the State of Colorado between two adverse claimants of a lode, this Court, speaking by the present CHIEF JUSTICE, dismissed the writ of error for want of jurisdiction because some of the objections made in this Court had not been taken below, and "the other alleged errors involved questions either of fact or of state, and not of federal, law."
U.S. 488-489.
, in which each party to a suit to quiet title claimed under a patent from the United States confirming a Mexican grant, and the judgment of the Supreme Court of California rested on the proposition of fact that the grant under which the plaintiff in error deraigned title was simulated and fraudulent, this Court dismissed the writ of error for want of jurisdiction.