Case Name: FEE et al. v. DURHAM
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1903-03-09
Citations: 121 F. 468
Docket Number: No. 1,617
Parties: FEE et al. v. DURHAM.
Judges: 
Reporter: Federal Reporter
Volume: 121
Pages: 468–476

Head Matter:
FEE et al. v. DURHAM.
(Circuit Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.
March 9, 1903.)
No. 1,617.
1. Mining Claims — Right of Relocation — Failure to Complete Assessment W ork.
•Rev. St. §* 2324, as amended by Act Jan. 22, 1880, 21 Stat. c. 9, p.' 61 [U. S. Comp. St 1901, p. 1426], requires $100 worth of labor to be performed on each mining claim in each calendar year, commencing on the 1st of January succeeding the date of location, and provides that “upon a failure to comply with these conditions the claim or n!me on, which such failure occurred shall be open to relocation in the same manner as if no location of the same had ever been made, provided that the original locators * * * have not resumed work upon the claim after failure and before such location.” A locator commenced his annual assessment work on December 26th, and his employes worked until the night of December 30th, which was Saturday, when they quit until Monday morning, January 1st, and then resumed work, in the meantime leaving their tools on the claim. They continued the work until $500 worth had been done, but less than $100 worth had been done on Saturday night. Sunday night, between 12 and 1 o’clock, plaintiffs went upon the claim and relocated the same. Helé that, in contemplation of law, the original locator continued in actual possession from Saturday night until Monday morning, and his work was continuous, and that plaintiffs were trespassers, and acquired no rights by their relocation.
Sanborn, Circuit Judge, dissenting.
In Error to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Arkansas.
The High Peak placer mining claim was duly located January 1, 1898, •by the grantors of the defendant in error. On the 26th of December, 1899, the original locators of the claim commenced to do the assessment work for that year. Laborers, provided with suitable tools for the purpose, worked continuously during the usual working hours of each day from the 26th of December up to Saturday evening, December 30th, when they left off work, leaving their tools on the ground intending to resume work Monday morning, which they did, and thereafter prosecuted it diligently until largely more than the assessment work required by law had been done. Acting on the assumption that the original location of the claim was forfeited, and that it was open to relocation, because the full amount of the assessment work for the year 1899 had not been done before the expiration of the year, the plaintiffs in error, a few minutes past midnight on the last day of December, 1899, entered upon and relocated the claim, and afterwards brought this action of ejectment to recover possession thereof from the defendant in error. A jury trial resulted in a verdict and judgment for the defendant, and the plaintiffs sued out this writ of error.
The only question in the case which it is material to consider arises on the court’s charge to the jury, which was as follows: “In determining this case you will start out with the assumption that the defendant’s location on the first day of January., 1898, was valid. That gave him until midnight of the thirty-first day of December, 1899, to do such, work as was necessary to hold the claim; and it is undisputed in this case that the defendant did not do the work during the year 1899 necessary to hold the claim; therefore at midnight on the 31st day of December, 1899, his claim forfeited, and the land became subject to relocation and entry, unless it appears from the proof that the plaintiffs relocated the land before the defendant resumed work upon the claim after his failure and before such relocation; but if you find from the evidence that the defendant commenced work on the 26th day of December, 1899, and prosecuted said work until the 30th day of December, that day being ¿Saturday, and that on that day his laborers engaged in such work left their tools upon the ground at the place where they were engaged in work, intending to return on Monday morning, January 1, 1900, and that they did return at the usual hour on that day, and continued said work with reasonable diligence until the amount required by law had been performed, and that all of said work was done by defendant in good faith, intending thereby to perfect his title to the land, and that plaintiffs or any of them had knowledge that the defendant was thus engaged in such work on said land, and in order to defeat his claim entered upon said land between the hours of twelve o’clock at midnight and one o’clock on the morning of January 1st, and posted notice on said land, then the plaintiffs were trespassers upon the land in the possession of defendant, and such attempted location, under such circumstances, was void, and they acquired no right thereunder as against the defendant; but, on the other hand, if the defendant did not resume work on said land until the 4th day of January, 1900, and in the meantime the plaintiffs had filed for record the location of said lands, then the plaintiffs would be entitled to recover.” The giving of this instruction, to which due exception was taken, is now assigned for error.
¶ 1. See Mines and Minerals, vol. 34, Cent. Dig. § 59.
The act of Congress requires that $100 worth of labor shall be performed or improvements made on every located mining claim during each year until the patent issues, and the act of Congress approved January 22, 1880, 21 Stat. c. 9, p. 61 [U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 1426], provides that “the work required to hé done annually on all unpatented mineral claims shall commence on the first day of January succeeding the date of location of such claim.”
J. W. Black, S. W. Massey, J. C. Floyd, and Robert Neill, for plaintiffs in error.
S. W. Woods and John B. Jones; for defendant in error.
Before CARDWERR, SANBORN, and THAYER, Circuit Judges.

Opinion:
CALDWELL, Circuit Judge,
after stating the case as above, delivered the opinion of the court.
The defendant's grantors were in the actual possession of the claim, actively engaged in doing the annual assessment work thereon, when the plaintiffs entered upon the claim and made their location. The entry and location, under these circumstances, was a trespass, and no rights were acquired thereby. The Lebanon Mining Co. of New York v. The Consolidated Republican Mining Co., 6 Colo. 371; Weese v. Barker, 7 Colo. 178, 2 Pac. 919; Belk v. Meagher, 104 U. S. 279, 26 L. Ed. 735. Inchoate rights to the public lands cannot in any case be acquired by trespass or by violence. An entry upon the prior possession of another is a trespass, and tends to provoke violence, homicides, and other crimes, and one making such an entry gains nothing by it. Atherton v. Fowler, 96 U. S. 513, 24 L. Ed. 732.
The original locators must be held to have been in the actual possession of the claim at the time the plaintiffs made their location. The suspension of work Saturday night, intending to resume it Monday morning, and leaving their tools on the ground for that purpose, was not, in any sense, an abandonment of their possession for the time between Saturday night and Monday morning. In contemplation of law, their possession was as complete and actual during that time as if they had remained at work during the night and on the Lord's Day. They were not required to work during the night or on the Lord's Day in order to maintain their possession and make their assessment work continuous. Their possession was attested and protected by their work and the presence of their tools. They could not lawfully work on the Lord's Day if they had desired to do so, for the law of the state forbids labor on that day under a penalty. Sand. & H. Dig. § 1887. Resting from their work from Saturday night until Monday morning was no more an abandonment of their work or possession than the cessation of work to eat their midday meal would be.
Under the act of Congress the failure to do the required assessment work within the year does not absolutely and irrevocably render the claim subject to relocation. It has this qualification: "Provided that the original locators have not resumed work after •failure and before such location." Referring to this statute the Supreme Court of the United States in Belk v. Meagher, 104 U. S. 279, 26 L. Ed. 735, said:
"Such being the law, it seems to us clear that If work is renewed on a claim after it has once been open to relocation, but before a relocation is actually made, the rights of the original owners stand as they would if there had been no failure to comply with this condition of the act. Mining claims are not open to relocation until the rights of the former locator have come to an end. A relocator seeks to avail himself of mineral in the public lands which another has discovered. This he cannot do until the discoverer has in law abandoned his claim and left the property open for another to take up."
The original locators in this case had not abandoned their claim, but were actually and continuously at work from the 26th of December until an early day in January, when they had done $500 worth of work. There was no suspension of the work during this time, and there was no period of time during which the plaintiffs could enter and make a valid location. The continuity of the work and possession was riot broken by the cessation of labor at night and on the Lord's Day. It must be conceded that if the original locators had "resumed work" after the clock struck 12 on Saturday night, December 31st, that the plaintiffs' location would have been invalid. We think upon the facts in this case, for all legal purposes, the original locators must be held to have been prosecuting the work for the whole of that night, and that the plaintiffs could not rightfully enter upon the claim and make a valid location between midnight and the usual hour of resuming work on Monday morning. Pharis v. Muldoon (Cal.) 17 Pac. 70; Belcher Consolidated Gold Mining Co. v. Deferrari, 62 Cal. 160.
The instructions of the court are- in harmony with the views we have expressed. The judgment of the Circuit Court is affirmed.