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75 Cal. 284

Pharis v. Muldoon

California Supreme Court

Decided March 20, 1888

California Supreme Court · decided 1888-03-20

On the 10th of July, 1884, the defendant located the ground in controversy as a quartz mining claim, and during the year 1885, expended thereon, in labor and improvements, the sum of sixty dollars. On the 1st of January, 1886, at the hour of one o’clock, A. m., the plaintiff went upon the ground and posted thereon a notice of location in his own name, but did not mark or establish any boundaries of his location until the 5th of the same month.

Relies on Belcher Consolidated Gold Mining Co. v. Deferrari · Newbill v. Thurston

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1888-03-20

How this case has been cited

Cited by 15 later decisions — most recently May 1957

2 federal appellate · 8 state decisions

4018881890190019101920193019401950decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Foote, C.

¶1—Action to quiet title to a mining claim. It is found by the court, and assumed by counsel upon both sides, that the claim of the defendant was not open to relocation until January 1, 1886.

¶2At one o’clock, a. m., of that day, plaintiff posted his notice, but did not mark out his boundaries until January 5th. In the mean time, that is to say, at the usual hour of commencing work of that kind on the first day of January, 1886, the defendant resumed labor on his claim, did ten dollars’ worth of work on it up to the 5th of January, 1886, and afterward, during that year, performed labor upon it to the amount of two hundred dollars more.

¶3*287The marking of boundaries is a necessary part of the location (Newbill v. Thurston, 65 Cal. 419), and this was not done until January 5, 1886; the defendant had resumed work “after failure and before location.” This being the case, the plaintiff’s proceedings conferred no right upon him (Belcher Con. G. M. Co. v. Deferrari, 62 Cal. 163), even if we concede, what we are not prepared to admit, that an entry by stealth at one o’clock in the morning is within the contemplation of the act of Congress (sec. 2324, Eev. Stats. U. S.). The other points' made require no special notice.

¶4It results that the judgment should be affirmed.

¶5Hayne, C., and Belcher, C. C., concurred.

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