Chino Land & Water Co. v. Hamaker

CONREY, P. J.

It has been stipulated between respondent and appellants, through their respective counsel, that, whereas the records in the above-entitled cases are absolutely identical, except as to description of the property, the several appeals in said actions shall be consolidated and presented upon a single transcript. In each case the defendants have appealed from the judgment and from an order denying their motion for a new trial.

In view of the stipulation, we shall refer to the facts hereafter as if there were only one case. This is an action wherein the plaintiff seeks to quiet its title to certain described lands in the county of Orange. The defendants claim the lands as mining claims under placer mining locations. It may be assumed, as claimed by them, that in their answer they have alleged the facts necessary to sustain their claim, providing the lands in controversy were open to location under the mineral land laws of the United States and those of California in 1911. The plaintiff deraigns title by mesne conveyances from the Southern Pacific Railroad Company of California, to which company a patent had been issued by the United States of America. At the trial the plaintiff introduced in evidence the patent issued by the government to the Railroad Company, including the lands in controversy, which patent was dated April 4, 1879, and on the twelfth day of February, 1881, recorded in the office of the county recorder of the county in which the lands were located. The plaintiff also introduced in evidence a deed from the Southern Pacific Railroad Company and others, including in its description the lands in controversy, conveying to one Franklin Cogswell the lands therein described, “reserving all claim of the United States to the same as mineral land.” It was admitted at the trial that the plaintiff had acquired whatever right, title, and interest passed from the United States to the Southern Pacific Railroad Company by the granting act referred to in the patent, and by the said patent and from the Southern Pacific

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Railroad Company and others to Franklin Cogswell by said deed. Such were the sole sources of plaintiff’s title, except certain evidence offered for the purpose of showing title by adverse possession; but we shall not find it necessary to further discuss the subject of adverse possession in this case. The plaintiff having rested, the defendants requested the court to dismiss the complaint on the ground that the evidence was insufficient to show title in the premises in the plaintiff for the reason that there was no evidence before the court that the land was not mineral land. Said motion having been denied, the defendants offered to prove that all the lands in controversy were mineral lands within the meaning and purview of the granting act mentioned in the patent and within the meaning of said patent, and that the defendants had, in the year 1911, located said lands as mineral lands belonging to the United States and had ever since done upon them the annual assessment work required by law to be done. To this the plaintiff objected on the ground that the issuance of the patent by the United States was a conclusive adjudication that all the land described therein was nonmineral. This objection was sustained by the court. Thereupon the court made its findings and entered its decree in favor of the plaintiff.