Court Opinion

ID: 9417425
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 20:14:54.790391+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:42.132303
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief-Justice Waite
dissenting.
I am unable to agree to this judgment. The facts briefly stated are these: The Mining Company holds title under a patent for a placer claim. Within the boundaries of this claim, as located on the surface and extended vertically downwards, is a vein or .lode. The existence of this vein or lode was.known when the patent under which the Mining Company holds was issued, Jiut it had not then, .nor has it now, been located as a vein or lode claim. Neither Reynolds nor Morrissey has any titló to or claim upon the lode within the boundaries of the placer claim. They are mere intruders, having wrongfully, and without any authority of law, worked from an adjoining claim under the surface of the placer claim of the Mining Company and taken possession of the mineral in the lode. Under 'these circumstances it seems to me the Mining Company *699has the better right. . The question is not whether the company owns the lode or vein, nor whether it' has the right to "take mineral therefrom, but whether as against a mere intruder it has the better right to the possession.- By the exr press provision of Rev. Stat. § 2333 the patent, under/ which the .company holds, gives it no right to the possession of any vein or lode claim within the boundaries of the placer patent, but as yét no such claim exists. - There is a lode or vein, but no one has either claimed or attempted to claim it. Quite different questions would arise if Reynolds or Morrissey were attempting to locate a lode claim within the boundaries of the ■placer patent upon a lode known to exist when the patent was applied for. In my opinion the charge of the court was-right; and the judgment should be affirmed.