Appellant appeals from an adverse judgment in cross actions to quiet title to mining claims.
This is the third lawsuit involving purported relocations of six gypsite placer mining claims, five contiguous and one separate, all located in the Red Rock Mining District near Cantil, Kern County. The first prior action turned, in part, *691 oil whether respondent’s predecessors performed the required annual assessment work for 1956-1957. * The second action involved the same question as to the year 1958-1959. In each case the court found that respondent and her predecessors had performed the required work or improvement on the claims.
This action involves the in-between year, appellant resting her assertion of title upon a relocation of the six claims in 1958 following an alleged failure of respondent and her predecessors to perform annual assessment work for 1957-1958. At the outset, respondent asserts thаt her quiet title judgment involving the 1958-1959 annual assessment work is res judicata, and that appellant cannot go behind this judgment and attack the title upon the ground that work was not done for a prior assessment year.
We need not explore the question of res judicata, however, as we conclude, for reаsons appearing below, the trial court’s finding that respondent and her predecessors performed the annual assessment work for the year 1957-1958 must bе sustained, and that appellant's attempted relocation of the claims in 1958 is void.
Respondent was required to prove that her predecessors performed labor or made improvements equal in value to $100 for each claim during the 1957-1958 annual assessment year. (30 U.S.C.A. § 28.) Under the doctrine of group development, annual assessment work performed on any one or more contiguous claims inures to the benefit of all claims in the group.
(Pepperdine
v.
Keys,
Appellant leans heavily upon the testimony of three engineers who examined the property in November 1963, some five years and four months after the 1957-1958 assessment year ended. She points to contradictions between the testimony of her experts and that of rеspondent’s witnesses as to the number of hours required to complete the work, the value of the work, whether part of it benefited the property frоm a mining standpoint, and whether certain roadwork was done at all. Appellant also cites testimony and computations by *692 her engineers discounting estimates of respondent’s witnesses as to the extent of overburden scraped from the claims and the work value of such scraping, the amount of gyрsum removed and its value, the time and cost of digging core holes, and the rental or use value of equipment employed on respondent’s behalf.
That this action involves a controversy over mining claims makes no less applicable the settled rule that an appellate court will view the еvidence in the light most favorable to the respondent, will not weigh the evidence, will indulge all intendments and reasonable inferences which favor sustaining thе finding of the trier of fact, and will not disturb the finding of the trier of fact if there is substantial evidence in the record in support thereof. Furthermore, the burden rests on а subsequent locator asserting a forfeiture to prove that a prior claim locator failed to do required annual assessment work.
(Pascoe
v.
Richards,
Appellant analyzes the testimony of respondent’s witnesses, eliminating bit by bit the parts she deеms discredited, until respondent’s entire case is alleged to rest largely upon the testimony of one witness. Appellant then points to inconsistenciеs in the testimony of this witness which she says makes his testimony so unreliable that this court must reverse the judgment. Not all of this witness’s testimony was contradicted, however, and, аdditionally, testimony by other witnesses supports, in part at least, the findings of the trial court. Our review of the testimony of witnesses under these circumstances is delineated by the Supreme Court, in
People
v.
Huston,
“To warrant the rejection of the statements given by a witness who has been believed by a trial court, there must exist either a physical impossibility that they are true, or their falsity must be apparent without resorting to inferences or deductions. [Citations.] Conflicts and even testimony which is subjеct to justifiable suspicion do not justify the reversal of a judgment, for it is the exclusive province of the trial judge or jury to determine the credibility of a witness and the truth or falsity of the facts upon which a determination depends.” (Italics added.)
*693
These rules apply to the testimony of expert witnesses as well as that of lay witnesses.
(Ideal Packing Co.
v.
Brice,
Appellant concedes that a court will not be permitted to substitute its own judgment in place of that of the owner as to the wisdom and expediency of the method employed for developing a mining claim
(Mann
v.
Budlong,
The question is not open on this appeal, since a locator’s good faith in performing assessment work on a mining claim is a question of fact for the trial court. In
B & B Sulphur Co.
v.
Kelley,
Appellant raises the question whether an assignment by respondent of a 51 per cent interest in the mining claims to a Mr. and Mrs. Barnes, a fact brought out during the trial but not mentioned in the findings or judgment, requires a reversal. Since we have sustained the finding of the trial court that respondent’s predecessors performed the required assessment work for 1957-1958, appellant’s attemptеd relocation of the claims in 1958 is a nullity. Therefore the judgment *694 quieting respondent’s title as against appellant is proper. Whether the Barnes alsо have an interest in the claims is irrelevant as between appellant and respondent.
The judgment is affirmed.
Conley, P. J., and Brown (R M.), J., concurred.
A petition for a rehearing was denied June 23, 1965, and appellant’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied July 21, 1965.
Notes
Annual assessment work of $100 value per claim is required for each assessment year, which runs from July 1 to June 30. (30 U.S.C.A., § 28.)