Mining Company v. Boggs/Opinion of the Court

by Salmon P. Chase

United States Supreme Court

70 U.S. 304

Mining Company  v.  Boggs

No question is raised by the pleadings, of which this court has jurisdiction upon writs of error to the Supreme Court of California, unless by the allegation of prior possession of this land for the purpose of taking out the minerals. But this allegation does not set up any authority exercised under the United States in taking such possession, nor any treaty or statute of the United States, in virtue of which it was taken. Nor does it anywhere appear from the record that the decision of the State court was against the validity of any such authority, treaty, or statute. The case brought before us is, therefore, wanting in the requirement made essential to our jurisdiction by the 25th section of the Judiciary Act.

If we were at liberty to look into the opinion of the court for the purpose of ascertaining what questions were made on the argument, and decided by the court, we should find that, upon a liberal construction of the stipulations of counsel, the defendants were allowed to insist that they were warranted in their possession of the lands, for the purpose of extracting the minerals, by a license inferred from the general policy of the State or of the United States, in relation to mines of gold and silver and the lands containing them.

We doubt whether such a claim, even if made in the pleadings, would be such an allegation as would give jurisdiction to this court.

However that may be, there was no decision of the court against the validity of such a license. The decision was, that no such license existed; and this was a finding by the court of a question of fact upon the submission of the whole case by the parties, rather than a judgment upon a question of law.

It is the same case, in principle, as would be made by an allegation in defence to an action of ejectment, of a patent from the United States with an averment of its loss or destruction, and a finding by the jury that no such patent existed, and a consequent judgment for the defendant. Such a judgment would deny, not the validity, but the existence of the patent. And this court would have no jurisdiction to review it.

DISMISSED.

Notes