30 Cal. 290 | Cal. | 1866
The plaintiffs and defendants are the owners of a valuable mining claim at Sucker Flat in Yuba County, known as the “ Blue Point Claim,” connected with which is a flume known as the “ Blue Point Flume ” of about seven hundred feet in length,* extending through and from such claim toward the Yuba River. The same parties also own this flume. The undivided interests of the several persons constituting the parties to this action in said claim and flume áre as follows: The plaintiffs Dougherty and Lahey each own one seventh—the plaintiffs Beatty ’and Whalen jointly own one seventh; the defendant Creary owns three sevenths and the defendant Ackley owns one seventh ; and these several persons, at the time this action was commenced, had been working the claim and using the flume for the purpose for more than a year and they and those under whom they hold the property had been carrying on the mining business there and using the flume in aid of the work for more than three years before then. Connected with the Blue Point Flume at the lowest end of it is another known as the “ Cheek and Ackley Flume ” extending from the point of connection toward the Yuba River about seven hundred feet, of which the same persons, except Beatty and Whalen, were the owners at the commencement of this suit and for three years before then had been the owners in the following undivided proportions : Dougherty, Lahey and Creary each owned one sixth, and Ackley three sixths. Connected with the last named flume at the lower end of it, is another, known as the Side Hill Flume, extending from the point of connection toward and to the Yuba River. The
The foregoing facts, with others, are- set forth in the stating part of the complaint, followed by a prayer for the equitable interposition of the Court by injunction, to be-directed to the ■ defendant Creary, commanding and enjoining him, and his agents, servants and employés, and each and every of them, to desist and refrain from the continuance of the alleged wrongful acts complained- of, and which the defendant Creary, as alleged, intended to continue; and further commanding and enjoining the same persons from interfering, in any manner whatever, with the free passage of all the waters used in working the Blue Point Claim, into- and through the Blue Point, Cheek and Ackley and Side Hill Flumes, and from diverting the'water into the Union Flume ; and'that, upon the-final hearing of the cause, the injunction might be made perpetual : and the plaintiffs prayed for such other relief as might to the Court seem equitable.
The complaint was verified and filed, and the Judge of the District Court made an order that the defendants show cause, if any thay had, at a particular time and place, why tlie injunction for which plaintiffs prayed should not be granted. At the time and place appointed the defendants appeared, and,
The defendant Creary also submitted his own affidavit, setting forth that the Blue Point Mining Company, and the Cheek and Ackley Flume Company, and the Side Hill Flume Company were separate organizations, independent of each other, and were formed at different times, and that some time about the month of June, 1864, the Blue Point Mining Company made an agreement with the owners of the Cheek and Ackley Flume Company, and also with the Side Hill Flume Company, by which the Cheek and Ackley Company agreed to pay the Blue Point Company five dollars per day for the privilege of taking and receiving from the flume of the last named company the water and gold bearing earth and the gold therein that passed through the Blue Point Flume; and that the Side Hill Company agreed to pay to the Blue Point Company such sum as it was reasonably worth, to wit: ten dollars a day, for the privilege of taking and receiving from the Cheek and Ackley Flume the water and the gold bearing earth and the gold therein which passed through that flume. That notwithstanding such agreements made with the flume companies, the owners of a major portion of the interests therein, respectively, wholly neglected and refused to pay the Blue Point Mining Company anything whatever, as they had agreed to do. He then states that the Blue Point Mining Company purchases the water with which to work their mining ground, and consequently have the entire management and control of the water and the gold béaring earth and the gold therein which passed out of their flume, and that at the time the affidavit,was made, by an agreement existing between
Eacli of the plaintiffs made an affidavit that no agreement, to his knowledge, was ever made on the part of the Side Hill Flume Company to pay the mining company anything whatever for the privilege of running the water and earth into and through the Side Hill Flume; and they also severally deposed that if there ever was any agreement made and entered into at any time between any of the owners of the Blue Point Company and the ditch company, by which the.Union Flume was to receive the water and earth from the Cheek and Ackley Flume, or otherwise, for ten dollars a day, or any other consideration, that then such agreement was made and entered into on behalf of the Blue Point Company by the defendants
Upon hearing the plaintiffs’ motion for an injunction, and the defendants’ objections thereto, the Judge, by order, refused to grant it, and from this order the plaintiffs have appealed.
/ Courts of equity.
The questions presented are perhaps novel in a Court of equity, but we are not to decline their consideration for that reason. It is the common experience of the Courts of this State to be called upon to deal |vith new and novel combinations of circumstances which are often extremely complicated and embarrassing. Still it is the duty of the Court, as a Court of equity, while keeping within the rules and principles on which its remedial jurisdiction is founded, to adapt its course of proceeding, as far as possible, to the existing state of things, and to apply its jurisdiction to all those new cases which from the diversified transactions among men, are continually arising, and to administer justice and enforce right for which there is no remedy save in a Court of equity. (Taylor v. Salmon, 4 Myl. & Cn., 141 ; Walworth v. Holt, Ib. 635.)
The several companies, that is the Blue Point Mining Company, the Cheek and Ackley Flume Company, and the Side Hill Flume Company, seem to be as companies independent of each other, though many of the members of each are members of the others. The controversy which has arisen in this case is not between any two or more of the companies as distinct organizations, but between and among members of the several companies ; and the first question to be ascertained is as to the right of the Blue Point Mining Company as an individual, to control for its own use and profit the water and tailings of its mine and mining operations ; and if it be determined that such company has the right so to do, the order of the Court refusing to grant an injunction must be affirmed as a matter of course.
Abandonment of tailings and water. 1
In 1862 the miners of the basin consolidated their claims under the name of the Blue Point Mining Company, and from that time became the successors in interest of the rights of the miners whose claims were thus consolidated in a single company. So long as the miners of the basin and the Blue Point Mining Company abandoned the water and tailings which passed from their mining grounds, the Cheek and Ackley Flume Company had the right to take and appropriate the same to its own use, and upon the passage of the water and earth through that flume the Side Hill Flume had the right to take and appropriate what so passed through the Cheek
The plaintiffs, as members of the Blue Point Mining Company, are interested as well as the the defendants in having that company make large profits by the effectual working of the mine; and if it requires flumes of great extent to work the same to advantage, they are concerned as well as the defendants in employing the means which shall be adapted to the end to be attained. They cannot be allowed to interpose a perpetual barrier to the profitable working of the mining ground by the company who own it, because they have an interest as members of another enterprise, depending for its success upon profits which the mining company is entitled to, if it chooses'to reduce the same to beneficial account.
From the case before us it appears that the defendants own four sevenths of the mining ground and water used in its working, and that the plaintiffs own the balance, and that the diversion of the water and gold bearing earth from the Cheek and Ashley Flume to the Union Flume was, at the instance of the defendants, for the benefit of the company. There is no complaint that ten dollars a day, which the Reservoir Ditch Company pay to the mining company, is not a just
A majority in interest in a mining claim may control.
The parties constituting the Blue Point Mining Company are the owners of its property, as tenants in common, and in the working of the mine they are to be considered as partners. (Duryea v. Burt, 28 Cal. 569.) As the property can only be used in entirety, it is indispensable to the conducting of the business of mining that those owning the major portion of the property should have the powmr to control, in case all cannot agree, otherwise the work might become wholly discontinued. As mining partnerships are not usually founded on the delectus personae, the powers of the individual members of the concern are much more limited than are the powers of the individual members of a purely commercial or trading partnership; and for this reason the conduct of the partners holding the major portion of the property in a mining concern is to be most jealously scrutinized when complaint is made by the minority in interest of oppression. It might and often would work great inconvenience and damage to the minority in interest of a mining partnership, if the majority were allowed to do as they might deem to their own advantage, regardless of the rights and interests of the minority. But notwithstanding the danger of the abuse of power in such cases, what may be necessary and proper for carrying on the business of mining for the joint benefit of all concerned must be determined by those owning and holding in the aggregate the major part of the property. And if the powers which are thus attempted to be exercised are not necessary and proper for the success of the enterprise, those whose interests are imperilled or disas
If the defendant Creary has obtained an unjust advantage for himself by disposing of the water and tailings to the ditch company, in which he is largely interested, at ten dollars a day, the plaintiffs may have their suit to redress the wrong; but it does not appear by the case, as found in the record before us, that the compensation which the ditch company pays is not ample and adequate.
The order appealed from is affirmed.