30 U.S.C. § 38
Section 38 · Evidence of possession and work to establish right to patent
Applied in 16 court decisions — leading case United States v. Consolidated Mines & Smelting Co. (1971)
Most recently applied in 73 F. Supp. 2d 1215 - Conner v. United States Department of the Interior (September 1999)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Where such person or association, they and their grantors, have held and worked their claims for a period equal to the time prescribed by the statute of limitations for mining claims of the State or Territory where the same may be situated, evidence of such possession and working of the claims for such period shall be sufficient to establish a right to a patent thereto under sections 21, 22 to 24, 26 to 28, 29, 30, 33 to 48, 50 to 52, 71 to 76 of this title and section 661 of title 43, in the absence of any adverse claim; but nothing in such sections shall be deemed to impair any lien which may have attached in any way whatever to any mining claim or property thereto attached prior to the issuance of a patent.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
References in Text
Sections 21, 22 to 24, 26 to 28, 29, 30, 33 to 48, 50 to 52, 71 to 76 of this title and section 661 of title 43, referred to in text, were in the original “this chapter”, meaning chapter 6 of title 32 of the Revised Statutes, consisting of R.S. §§2318 to 2352.
Codification
R.S. §2332 derived from act July 9, 1870, ch. 235, §13, 16 Stat. 217.
Submerged Lands Act
Provisions of this section as not amended, modified or repealed by the Submerged Lands Act, see section 1303 of Title 43, Public Lands.