Court Opinion

ID: 9417535
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 20:22:29.045462+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:45.049026
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Bbewer,
with whom-the Chief Justice concurred, dissenting:
I am unable to agree with the, opinion of the court, delivered ■by Mr. Justice Miller.
A placer patent and the statute under which it is issued ex-, pressly provide that it shall not include any known lode or vein. So if, within the limits of placer ground there be a vein .or lode bearing gold or other mineral of precious value, and that vein or lode was known at the. time of the-application for the placer patent, it did not pass under the patent. It was as 'much excepted from.its terms as though it were in an adjoining State. It was territory carved out by the very language of the patent and the statute, and not passing to the patentee, remained the property of the government, and subject to location and patent, as fully and in the same manner and upon the same terms as any other .mineral vein. Suppose a patent for agricultural lands by virtue of the statute excépted all lakes, ponds and other bodies of water, who would.doubt that the title to any lake or pond, within the territory described in such patent, remained in the government and subject to sale by it in any manner it deemed best ; or that a title thereto obtained, in the manner prescribed by law, was paramount? ■ So here. .There is only one way and one tribunal provided for obtaining *303title to any vein or lode, whether within or without the limits of plaber ground, and that is by application in the land office. That way ivas pursued in this case, and a patent "obtained. Whether this lode or vein was or was not within' the limits of' the placer patent depends upon no matter of law, but upon two Questions of fact: first, Was there a vein bearing gold or other precious mineral within the limits.of phe placer territory 1 and, second, Was it known at the time oh the application for the placer patent ? These two questions .of fact determine the question whether the placer patent took the whole surface ground, and all veins and lodes within its territory. Provision is made by statute for putting such questions *of fact in issue. The adverse proceedings prescribed by statute are of common occurrence. '.It is the ordinary procedure. We have had cases involving such procedure before us this term. But I fear that this decision is equivalent to holding that such statutory adverse proceedings ■ amount to nothing and are unworthy of notice. From Johnson v. Towsley, 13 Wall. 72, to the present time, the uniform ruling of this court has been, that questions of fact passed upon by the land department are conclusively determined, and . that only questions of law can be brought into court.
The right to this patent depends solely upon these two questions of fact, which were ¡-considered by ,the land office when the original patent was issued. I think that its determination, upon them was conclusive.
I am authorized by the Chief Justice to say that he concurs in these views.