Gore v. McBrayer

         I. Conceding that the subject of the action is an interest in land, defendants seek to avoid plaintiff's right of recovery through the Statute of Frauds, which we submit has no application to the facts of this case, or if it has, that all the writing required by the statute was furnished by the defendant McBrayer.

         1st. Admitting, for the sake of the argument, that a written instrument was necessary, we find it in the notice written by McBrayer, and placed upon the claim by him. Can he dispute or question a title which he himself thus creates, and that, too, in accordance with the terms and conditions of a solemn engagement? The notices thus posted operated as a record, and excluded all others from the claim thus located.

         Again, suppose I hire a man and send him to prospecting for quartz, or any other mineral, the agreement being verbal, and while in my employ he discovers a rich claim, and puts a notice thereon with my name upon it: to whom does the claim belong?

         2d. The posting of the notices as shown, operated as an appropriation of the claim, and it thereby became the property of the parties whose names were appended thereto; and when once their rights attached, theycould only be lost by abandonment or forfeiture under some mining law.

         3d. The right in a mining claim vests by taking in accordance with local rules. (McGarrity v. Byington , 12 Cal. 426.) The custom of miners is entitled to great, if not controlling weight. (Brown v. '49 and '56 Quartz Mining Co. , 15 Cal. 152.)

         II. The appellants complain of the admission of the mining laws, because a notice was given for a meeting on the twenty-third of August, and instead of meeting on that day, the miners chose to meet and enact their laws on the twenty-first. If they had given no notice whatever, but had met by common consent (as seems to have been done in this case) and passed laws, they would have been valid.

         III. The exceptions to the charges of the Court all fall with the appellants' first proposition. If the parties were tenants in common, (and we admit they were,) the instructions were clearly improper, even with the modifications, but with the modifications, they were all given without any grounds of complaint or error.

         JUDGES: Baldwin, J. delivered the opinion of the Court. Field, C. J. and Cope, J. concurring.

         OPINION

          BALDWIN, Judge

         Ejectment for a mining claim. Conceding, for the purposes of the decision, that a partnership for the purchase of mining claims is a partnership for dealing in land, and that the agreement must be in writing, within the Statute of Frauds, in order to entitle the several partners to any interest or share in the land purchased by one, still it seems to us that the appellants cannot avail themselves of this principle to defeat the plaintiff's action.

         It appears that the plaintiff, Gore, and defendant McBrayer and others, verbally agreed to prospect for quartz, and to be equally interested in claims taken up, and that McBrayer discovered this lead or claim, and located it by putting up a written notice with plaintiff's name and others on it, and thus making claim to the lead. This process seems to be the usual mode recognized among miners to indicate the taking up of a claim of this sort--as, in fact, an appropriation or proof of appropriation of the claim. As the title comes from appropriation made in accordance with the mining rules and customs, and as it is not necessary that a party should personally act in taking up a claim, or in doing the acts required to give evidence of the appropriation, or to perfect the appropriation, it would seem that such acts as this are valid to give title to the claimant, if done by any one for him or with his assent or approval. Indeed, we suppose that the assent would be presumed when the name of a party is used in taking up a claim, or what is the same thing, inserted in a notice which is the external manifestation of the purpose to appropriate--upon the principle that a party is presumed to assent to a deed or other act plainly for his benefit. Any recognition of the authority of the person acting for such claimant, or adoption of the act evidenced by the notice or claim, would be sufficient to give it validity--certainly, if nothing had intervened between the notice and the adoption or recognition to alter the relations of the parties to the claim. But it is enough to say, that in this case the agreement operated as the authority from Gore to McBrayer to take up this claim or any other, and to use his (Gore's) name for that purpose. It is as if Gore had made McBrayer his agent to take up the claim for him and in his name; and, upon the performance of the act, Gore's title, so to speak, vested, and he was the owner, subject to the rules of the vicinage, of the claim, or his share of it. We do not see what the Statute of Frauds has to do with such a case. The title to the land is in the United States; the right to mine and to use and hold possession of the claim inures by a sort of passive concession of the Government to the discoverer or appropriator. No writing is necessary to give the miner a title; but whatever right he has originally comes from the mere parol fact of appropriation, unless, indeed, the rules or the customs prevailing in the vicinage, or recognized among miners, make a written notice necessary, and unless, further, this notice be a writing within the meaning of the rule applicable to real estate titles. If this be so, then the plaintiff would have the required written evidence of title--his name having, with his consent, been inserted in the notice. However this may be, we consider that all that the plaintiff was required to do to give him all the right to be derived from an appropriation of this claim, was to authorize it to be taken in his name, and then the consequent act of the defendant in making the claim in plaintiff's name and for his use in the notice perfected his right. The right of Gore having attached in this way, his claim was like any other fixed right, and could not be divested by the mere act of the agent or associate McBrayer, in taking down the notice and putting up other notices with other names. (See McGarrity v. Byington et al. , 12 Cal. 426, for the principle of this case.)

         2. There is nothing in the point that the mining laws offered in evidence were passed on a different day from that advertised for a meeting of miners. We cannot inquire into the regularity of the modes in which these local legislatures or primary assemblages act. They must be the judges of their own proceedings. It is enough that the miners agree--whether in public meeting or after due notice--upon their local laws, and that these are recognized as the rules of the vicinage, unless some fraud be shown, or some other like cause for rejecting the laws. It is not necessary to consider the other points. The instructions asked were abstract, in the view we have taken of the case. After the notice containing the name of Gore, he became a tenant in common of the mine, and might bring this action to vindicate his title against any one who excluded him and denied his right. We think the circumstances do not make out a partnership, but only a tenancy in common.

         Judgment affirmed.