David Ray Rawls v. Secretary of the Interior

This is an appeal by plaintiff-appellant David Ray Rawls, acting in propria persona, from an order of the district court denying appellant’s motion for summary judgment and granting that of the defendant, Secretary of the Interior and Robert Mesch, Hearing Examiner of the United States Forest Service.

The dispute concerns the validity of two placer mining locations on land in the Kaibab National Forest in Arizona. Appellant located them in 1964 for building stone asserting that the flagstone deposits were of “distinct and special value” for building purposes. In 1966 the Forest Service of the…