Higgins v. Carlotta Gold Mining Co.

SHAW, J.

In this case a number of persons who had performed labor upon a mine filed separate claims of lien on the two mining claims constituting the mine for the sums due them, respectively, for such labor, and afterwards began the actions involved in this appeal to foreclose their said liens. Several separate actions were begun, but before the trial all were consolidated and tried as one case. The parties defendant were the Carlotta Gold Mining Company, which was the owner of the mining claims, and David Naegle, David Miller, and J. B. Coleman, who were lessees thereof, operating the mine under a lease of the mining claims executed to them by the said owner. The two mining claims were worked together as a single mine, and no objection is made on the ground of misjoinder. The labor for which the liens were claimed was all performed for the lessees, and under contracts made by the lessees alone with the respective claimants. A personal judgment was given in favor of each claimant against the lessees for the amount of his particular claim, and against all the defendants, including the appellant, for the foreclosure of the liens and the sale of the mining claims to pay the same. A motion for new trial, made by the Carlotta Gold Mining Company, was denied. The company alone appeals from the judgment and from the order denying its motion for a new trial.

It is conceded that the work for which the several liens were allowed was done upon the mine, and was of the value for which judgment was given, and that the interest of the lessees in the mining claims is subject to the liens. The sole question presented is the liability of the interest of the lessor, the Carlotta Gold Mining Company, in the property to the liens, and to sale for the payment thereof. The lease, under which the lessees were operating, gave them the exclusive possession of the mining claims during the term, and provided that they should forthwith begin and “continually prosecute” the work of “exploring, developing, and mining

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upon said premises,” and should mill and reduce the ores extracted, and that they would “pay to the lessor monthly, on the 10th day of each month . . . two thirds of the net profits of the proceeds derived by him (them), from the working of said mine during the calendar month immediately preceding,” less the sum of $2,131 in unpaid bills of a former lessee, and the cost of “such machinery and improvements as he (they, the present lessees) shall have put upon the premises,” which amounts were to be first paid from such gross receipts. The agreed statement of facts, set forth in the statement used on motion for a new trial, shows that the work for which the liens were claimed was done in part in extracting ore from the portion of the ledges already exposed by shafts sunk in the mine before the execution of the lease, and in part “in drifting and stoping for the purpose of opening up new ore bodies and discovering better ore. ’ ’ Prom the findings it appears that certain of the liens were for work done exclusively for the purpose of extracting ore, and'not in the process of development, but many of them were for work which, for aught that appears in the record, may have been done either in extracting ore, or in development and improvement, or in both. According to our view of the law, and of the correct interpretation of the lease under which the work was done, the interest of the Carlotta Gold Mining Company is liable for all the liens, whether for work done exclusively in the extraction of ore, and for that purpose only, or for work done for development to discover new or better ore, or to facilitate the extraction of ore, discovered or undiscovered, or for work which served to accomplish all these purposes.