Opinion ID: 1182366
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Authority of the Attorney General and Venue

Text: Considering then the authority of the attorney general to prosecute the suit and the proper venue thereof, we hold that this is justified by § 9-132, W.S. 1957, authorizing the attorney general to go into any court in the state to prosecute any proceeding which is in his opinion in the best interest of the state. While each individual locator or claimant of mineral interest in lands which may be affected by defendant's grandiose filings would have an individual right to protect his interests by proper action limited to the specific lands claimed, the evil here attacked is much broader than one mineral claimant or one county attorney can be expected to cope with. It represents a wholesale perversion of the beneficent purposes of the federal and state mining legislation designed to award the diligent search for and development of mineral wealth. To say that such action must be attacked piecemeal and upon a claim by claim basis would be to deny efficacy to the statutory restrictions on the initiation of mining claims. We do not think that the attorney general of this state must sit idly by while those mining laws are ignored in such a wholesale fashion. It has been held that the attorney general of the state of California was the proper party to cancel allegedly fraudulent voter registrations, Pierce v. Superior Court in and for Los Angeles County (1934), 1 Cal.2d 759, 37 P.2d 460, 461, where it was said that it was a state prerogative to provide elections, and, further, If, as we hold, the state may maintain such an action, the right of the Attorney General to institute it may not be attacked. The Attorney General, as the chief law officer of the state, has broad powers derived from common law, and in the absence of any legislative restriction, has the power to file any civil action or proceeding directly involving the rights and interests of the state, or which he deems necessary for the enforcement of the laws of the state, the preservation of order, and the protection of public rights and interests. In United States v. San Jacinto Tin Co. (1888), 125 U.S. 273, 8 S.Ct. 850, 31 L.Ed. 747, without any legislative designation as to who might represent the United States in a suit to annul a false patent, the court said (p. 279, 8 S.Ct. at p. 853):    we cannot believe that where a case exists in which this [cancellation of patent] ought to be done it is not within the authority of that officer to cause such action to be instituted and prosecuted. Defendant's objection to the maintenance of the suit by the attorney general is predicated on the theory that the suit is one to quiet title to lands of the United States and we would agree that the attorney general has no authority to bring such action. But considering the action as one to enforce the laws of the state applicable to the filing and recording of mining claims, and keeping in mind that the judgment of the court below or of this Court has no bearing upon the title of the United States or any claimant from it in or to specific lands, or the possessory rights therein, we think that the authority of the attorney general to maintain the action must be sustained. On the basis that the action is not a quiet title action it also follows that the action as prosecuted to judgment is not one involving land and the provisions of such statutes as relate to the maintenance of suits affecting real property do not apply. We think that the attorney general correctly relies upon § 1-36, and that the venue of a general action by him to enforce the laws of the state may properly be filed in the county where he has his office, in this case Laramie County.