Gildersleeve v. New Mexico Mining Company/Opinion of the Court

The appeal being from a judgment of a territorial court, and no exceptions to rulings of the court on the admission or rejection of testimony being presented for our consideration, we are limited in our review to a determination of the question whether the facts found are sufficient to sustain the judgment rendered. Haws v. Mining Co., 160 U.S. 303, 312, 16 Sup. Ct. 282.

In the trial court, the controversy between Gildersleeve and the mining company was disposed of upon the ground that the statute of limitations barred complainant's right to recover. The supreme court of the territory, however, rested its judgment of affirmance, not only upon the bar of the statute, but upon the further fact found by it that Ortiz and his wife had executed a valid mutual will, by which, upon the death of Ortiz, title to the mine in question vested in his widow, through whom the mining company claimed.

We shall, however, consider the case in another aspect, and shall base our conclusion that the complainant is not entitled to relief at the hands of a court of equity upon the fact that the record exhibits such gross laches on the part of complainant, or those with whom he is in privity, and upon whose rights his own must depend, as to effectually debar him from a right to the relief which he seeks.

In Hammond v. Hopkins, 143 U.S. 224, 12 Sup. Ct. 418, speaking through Mr. Chief Justice Fuller, this court said:

'No rule of law is better settled than that a court of equity will not aid a party whose application is destitute of conscience, good faith, and reasonable diligence, but will discourage stale demands, for the peace of society, by refusing to interfere where there has been gross laches in prosecuting rights, or where long acquiescence in the assertion of adverse rights has occurred.'

In Galliher v. Cadwell, 145 U.S. 368, 12 Sup. Ct. 873, speaking through Mr. Justice Brewer, it was said of the case then being considered (page 371, 145 U.S., page 873, 12 Sup. Ct.):

'The question of laches turns not simply upon the number of years which have elapsed between the accruing of her rights, whatever they were, and her assertion of them, but also upon the nature and evidence of those rights, the changes in value, and other circumstances occurring during that lapse of years. The cases are many in which this defense has been invoked and considered. It is true that, by reason of their differences of fact, no one case becomes an exact precedent for another; yet a uniform principle pervades them all.'

In Speidel v. Henrici, 120 U.S. 377, 7 Sup. Ct. 610, the court said, speaking through Mr. Justice Gray (page 387, 120 U.S., page 610, 7 Sup. Ct.):

'Independently of any statute of limitations, courts of equity uniformly decline to assist a person who has slept upon his rights and shows no excuse for his laches in asserting them. 'A court of equity,' said Lord Camden, 'has always refused its aid to stale demands where the party slept upon his rights, and acquiesced for a great length of time. Nothing can call forth this court into activity but conscience, good faith, and reasonable diligence. Where these are wanting, the court is passive, and does nothing. Laches and neglect are always discountenanced, and therefore, from the beginning of this jurisdiction, there was always a limitation to suits in this court." In Lane & Bodley Co. v. Locke, 150 U.S. 193, 14 Sup. Ct. 78, and Mackall v. Casilear, 137 U.S. 556, 11 Sup. Ct. 178, it was declared to be correct doctrine that the mere assertion of a claim, unaccompanied by any act to give effect to it, could not avail to keep alive a right which would otherwise be precluded.

With the principles enunciated in these decisions to guide us, we proceed to review the pertinent facts showing the conduct of the persons in whom complainant contends the title to the mine vested upon the death of Ortiz, in 1848, by reason of the alleged intestacy of the latter.

It is undisputed, if the claim of the collateral heirs of Ortiz as to the nullity of the will executed by Ortiz was well founded, whatever title Ortiz had to what is now known as the 'Ortiz Mine' vested in them upon the decease of Ortiz, in 1848, subject to such confirmation by the United States, as the law required. By article 8 of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1846 (9 Stat. 927), this government agreed to respect rights of private property in the ceded territory in existence at the date of the cession. To carry into effect this agreement, congress passed an act entitled 'An act to establish the office of surveyor general of New Mexico, Kansas, and Nebraska, to grant donations to actual settlers therein, and for other purposes,' which act was approved July 22, 1854 (10 Stat. 308). By section 8 of this act, it was made the duty of the surveyor general, under rules and regulations to be established by the secretary of interior, to inquire into and report to congress upon the validity or invalidity of all claims to lands within the territory ceded by Mexico which had originated before such cession, which report was to be laid before congress for such action thereon as might be deemed to be just and proper, with a view to the confirmation of bona fide grants. This act has been considered by this court. Stoneroad v. Stoneroad, 158 U.S. 240, 15 Sup. Ct. 822; Astiazaran v. Mining Co., 148 U.S. 80, 13 Sup. Ct. 457, and cases cited in the latter case.

The finding of facts does not recapitulate the various steps in the proceedings initiated, by the mining company through Whittlesley, before the surveyor general, under the act of 1854 to acquire a patent to the mining grant. Knowledge, in the collateral heirs of Ortiz, of the passage of the act in question, and of their right to file a claim with the surveyor general, is, of course, to be presumed. It has not been asserted, however, that these collateral heirs ever submitted their alleged title to the surveyor general for examination, or entered objection to the validity of the claim to ownership of the entire grant filed with that official by the New Mexico Mining Company. It is also not pretended, after the surveyor general had reported the entire grant to congress for confirmation, as belonging to the New Mexico Mining Company, that the alleged collateral heirs of Ortiz ever in any way presented their pretensions to that body, or raised any objection to the confirmation by congress of the grant in the manner and form recommended by the surveyor general; and after the grant was confirmed by congress, in the long interval which elapsed before the issue of the patent (from 1861 to 1876), there is also no pretense that the collateral heirs of Ortiz ever before any administrative officer of the government asserted the existence in themselves of the rights now advanced by them as the basis for the equitable relief which they seek. Indeed, the record shows that during 22 years, between the passage of the act of 1854 and the issue of the patent in 1876, the collateral heirs remained supinely indifferent to the assertion of their supposed title; while during the greater portion of this time the New Mexico Mining Company was expending labor and incurring the expense connected with the obtaining of the letters patent. So, also, these alleged heirs, from the date of the death of Ortiz, permitted Mrs. Ortiz, Greiner, and those holding under him, including the mining company, to remain in undisturbed possession of the property, and to engage in large outlay for its development, without, so far as appears, even claiming rights in themselves, until more than four years had elapsed from the final granting of the patent. It is proper also to observe that when the first suit was brought, in 1880, it was commenced, not on behalf of the collateral heirs of Ortiz, but was initiated for the benefit of one who, with full knowledge of all the circumstances, acquired the supposed title of such collateral heirs for the purpose of speculating upon the chance of wresting from the mining company the title acquired by it under the patent, although at that time the laches of the collateral heirs, whose rights the suit championed, had effectually debarred them from invoking the aid of a court of equity to relieve them from the results of their own acquiescence and neglect.

It is true, as held in Johnson v. Towsley, 13 Wall. 72, that where the title to land had passed from the government, and the question becomes one of private right, courts may inquire whether the party holding the patent should be treated as owning it absolutely in his own right, or as a trustee for another; and, therefore, that courts of equity have the power to inquire into and correct mistakes, injustice, and wrong. But when the aid of a court of equity is invoked in effect to annul the confirmation by congress, or to overrule the final conclusion of the administrative department as to the person entitled to a patent from the United States, the fact that the complainant who asks such equitable relief theretofore possessed, not only ample opportunity to assert his own claim, but also abundant occasion to contest the right of the person to whom a patent was granted, has completely failed to do either, and has been guilty of the grossest and most inexcusable laches, is necessarily a conclusive reason against the allowance of the relief asked.

When Brevoort acquired his alleged rights, in 1873, the New Mexico Mining Company was in possession of the property, and Brevoort knew this fact. When, on June 30, 1880, Brevoort executed the conveyance of an undivided interest to Gildersleeve and Knaebel for the consideration of their assistance by advance of money or otherwise in contemplated litigation with the mining company, Brevoort's grantees knew the fact to be that he was not in possession, and that the New Mexico Mining Company was in actual possession.

To recapitulate, there was an uninterrupted use and enjoyment by the widow of Ortiz, and those claiming by conveyance from her of the property in question, from the death of Ortiz, in 1848. No attempt was ever made to assert rights, if any, of the collateral heirs of Ortiz in this property until the year 1880. They stood by and witnessed the expenditure of large sums of money upon the property, and did nothing exhibiting an intention to assert their supposed rights. No attempt was made in the pleading of Gildersleeve to offer any explanation of this long-continued acquiescence in the rights of those in possession of the mine, and of the privilege connected therewith. Under such circumstances, we think the heirs and those claiming under them are not entitled to equitable relief. Finding, at the very threshold of the case, the existence of such laches on the part of complainant as debars him from obtaining the equitable relief which he invokes, we have not deemed it necessary to express any opinion on the other questions presented by the record. The court below, in the concluding sentences of its opinion, aptly conveyed the reasons which, apart from a consideration of the other questions by it considered, demonstrates the entire want of equity in the complainant's case. The expressions to which we refer, by O'Brien, C. J., are as follows:

'Ortiz dies in 1848. The widow claims and asserts her rights under the will as the absolute owner of all the property of which he died possessed. She disposes of such rights to bona fide purchasers. For nearly forty years before this suit was commenced, they occupy, improve, and pay taxes on this property. Plaintiff's grantor and those through whom such grantor claims title, relatives of the deceased Ortiz, and residing in the vicinity of the grant, remain silent; acquiesce, by such silence, in the disposition so made of the property for so long a period, while the same is being enhanced in value by the capital and labor of honest purchasers or occupants. In fact, not a word is heard from any of the kindred in relation to the matter until they relinquish, for a trifling consideration, all their interest therein to plaintiff's grantor.'

The judgment of the supreme court of the territory is affirmed.