Ring v. United States Gypsum Co.

NOURSE, J.

This is an action under section 738 of the Code of Civil Procedure to determine conflicting claims to ten placer mining locations near Amboy, San Bernardino County. The claims to which plaintiffs assert title are described as Crater Nos. 1 to 10, inclusive, and the claims to which the defendant asserts title, and which covered substantially the same ground, were also ten in number and separately named. It was agreed that all locations were in proper form and that in each case discovery of gypsum was made. The complaint and answer are in the usual form for actions of this nature and no question arises upon the pleadings. Judgment was rendered in favor of the defendant, from which plaintiffs appeal upon a bill of exceptions. The

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only attack upon the judgment is that the findings of fact of the trial court were not supported by the evidence.

Briefly, the facts are that a portion of the ground covered by the land in dispute was originally located by Marcus Pluth and others and that in 1905 he sold his interest therein to defendant’s predecessor; that the defendant and his predecessors in interest have occupied the land continuously since 1905, together with some ten or twelve other adjoining claims, all of which were worked under a general system of group development requiring a large annual expenditure of money aggregating in the year 1919 the sum of over $18,000 and in the year 1920 the sum of over $141,000. On September 17, 1920, the plaintiffs, acting through the same Marcus Pluth, went upon the land in dispute and posted notices of location for their ten separate claims. They then commenced this action to quiet title to the property upon the theory that it had been abandoned by the defendant.

The trial was had without a jury and at its conclusion the trial court made its findings of fact and conclusions of law wherein it was found: “That all and every of defendant’s claims comprise the group of said Amboy Mining Claims, and that all of said group of mining claims, and each of them, were worked, operated, developed and improved in common as an entire group of claims for more than five (5) years prior to the commencement of this action, and that especially and particularly during the years 1919 and 1920 they were so worked, operated, developed and improved as a group of mining claims, and that sums of money amounting in the aggregate to $18,989.76 during the year 1919, and $141,825.29 during the year 1920, were expended for work, labor and improvements thereon tending directly to the development and benefit of each and all of said claims and to facilitate the extraction of mineral therefrom. ’ ’