Meyers v. Pratt
Opinion of the Court
The appellant, as plaintiff in the court below, brought this suit, alleging her possession and ownership of three certain placer mining claims about eight miles northwest of the town of Juneau, Alaska, called Jim D., Jim M., and Jim O’D., respectively, containing an area of about 60 acres, and alleging that the defendants to the suit asserted some claim thereto while having no right, title, or interest therein, and asking that they be required to set forth the nature of their claim and that the plaintiff’s title to the property be quieted.
The answer of the defendant Pratt put in issue both the alleged ownership and possession of the plaintiff, and alleged his own ownership and possession of all of the land described in the amended complaint, by virtue of an entry made by him under sanction of the government of the United States long prior to the time of the placer locations under which the plaintiff asserts title, and the answer of the other defendants alleged the ownership and possession by the defendant L. H. Smith of a specifically described portion of the premises claimed by the plaintiff. The suit, therefore, was one simply to quiet the plaintiff’s alleged title, and was not brought in aid of any proceeding in the United States Land Office.
The act further provided that upon the filing of any such list or description the Secretary of the Interior should declare the said lands open to homestead settlement and entry in tracts not exceeding 160 acres in area and not exceeding one mile in length, at the expiration of 60 days from the filing of the list in the land office of the district within which the lands are located, during which period the said list or description should be prominently posted in the land office and advertised for a period of not less than 4 weeks in one newspaper of general circulation published in the county in which the lands are situated: “Provided, that any settler actually occupying and in good faith claiming such lands for agricultural purposes prior to January first, nineteen hundred and six, and who shall not have abandoned the same, and the person, if qualified to make a homestead entry, upon whose application the land proposed to be entered was examined and listed, shall, each in the order named, have a preference right of settlement and entry,” etc.
The court below found as facts that .the property described in the complaint is, and ever since February 16, 1909, has been situated within the boundaries of the Tongass National Forest as the same was created and established by executive proclamation of that date issued under authority of the act of Congress approved March 3, 1891; that on the 29th day of June, 1915, and the 5th day of
The court further found as facts, in effect, that the land in controversy is not mineral, but agricultural, land, and accordingly entered judgment dismissing the complaint, with costs in favor of the defendants.
To the contention, on the part of the appellant, -that the findings of fact are not supported by the evidence, we have given careful consideration, and find in the record abundant evidence to sustain them. Referring to the case of Steele v. Tanana Mines, 148 F. 678, 78 C.C.A. 412, we think nothing more need be said to show that the judgment must be affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- MEYERS v. PRATT
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- 1 case
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- Published