Burdge v. Smith
California Supreme Court
Appeal from the Eleventh District. Plaintiff avers himself to be the owner in fee and possessed of a tract of land containing about five hundred acres. That for several years he has had a fence around the same, and has used it for agricultural and grazing purposes. That defendants entered upon a portion of the land, and, by digging up the soil, erecting a dam, and carrying on mining, generally, have flooded and injured the land greatly, etc. etc.
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Appeal from the Eleventh District. Plaintiff avers himself to be the owner in fee and possessed of a tract of land containing about five hundred acres. That for several years he has had a fence around the same, and has used it for agricultural and grazing purposes. That defendants entered upon a portion of the land, and, by digging up the soil, erecting a dam, and carrying on mining, generally, have flooded and injured the land greatly, etc. etc. Defendants are miners, and claim the right to go upon the land as public mineral land and extract the gold. Plaintiff proved his inclosure and…
1Opinion of the CourtBaldwin, J.
The plaintiff took up a portion of public land, professing to *383enter it by virtue of the Act of 1858, as seminary land, to which the State is entitled under Act of Congress. The land was mineral land, and the defendants went upon it to extract the gold, and to use water running through it as auxiliary to mining.
The plaintiff can derive no aid from his location on this tract as seminary land under the Act of the Legislature, for neither that Act nor the Act of Congress allows mineral land to be so appropriated. The presumption raised by statute, (Wood’s Dig. 527,) is, “ that all lands in this…
2Cited by2 opinions
- City of Santa Cruz v. EnrightCalifornia Supreme Court · 1892
- Hunt v. SteeseCalifornia Supreme Court · 1888