Baker v. Waite

VAN DYKE, P. J.

By this action plaintiff, respondent herein, on behalf of himself and certain assignors, sought to impose upon real property owned by defendants Cuneo and Garibotti, appellants herein, liens for unpaid wages arising from employment of respondent and his assignors by defendants Waite and Davenport who were lessees of the real property. The complaint alleged, and the court found, that appellants were the owners of the real property involved; that respondent and his assignors have performed labor as miners upon the real property; that the lessees were operating the property as a mine; that the work and services rendered were for the working, preservation, construction, improvement and development of the real property as a mine, and for the benefit of said property in the entirety. Judgment was rendered in favor of respondent and therefrom Cuneo and Garibotti, the owners of the real property, have appealed.

Appellants assert that the findings of fact are not supported by the evidence and that the conclusions of law are not justified by the findings. A discussion of these assignments of error requires a summary statement of the evidence.

It appears that the two parcels of real property involved are separated by a considerable distance, estimated by witnesses to be from 12 to 20 miles. One parcel, known as the millsite, contained a mill on which the ore taken from the mining property was processed mainly by concentration. The mining property was mined for chromite. Speaking generally, the area has long been known as one of the areas of the state producing chromite commercially and chromite had been mined therefrom at various times. The earlier operators had extracted chromite by methods which included both tunneling and open cut operations and had dumped tailings on the property and left them to lie there. A considerable part of the mining done by respondent and his assignors consisted in reworking the old tailings although a part of the work was done in the old cuts and tunnels. This operation, too, appeared to have been a culling and concentrating process, the accumulated products selected for transportation and milling being then trucked to the mill where the processing was continued. Some of the work done was the repair and reconstruction of a campsite on the mining property to house and care for the

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