106 P. 452 | Or. | 1910
delivered the opinion of the court.
“Every person who shall do work upon or furnish material for the working or development of any mine, lode, mining claim, or deposit yielding metals or minerals of any kind, * * shall have a lien upon the same to secure to him the payment for the work or labor done, or material furnished by each,” etc.
The form of coal obtained from the strata of the earth is a carbonaceous mineral substance, commonly known as mineral coal, and the procurement thereof, by digging in the earth, is termed “mining.” 27 Cyc. 532.
“Every act shall embrace but one subject, and matters properly connected therewith, which subject shall be éxpressed in the title. But if any subject shall be embraced in an act which shall not be expressed in the title, such act shall be void only as to so much thereof as shall not be expressed in the title.” B. & C. Comp., p. 41.
In Singer Mfg. Co. v. Graham, 8 Or. 17 (34 Am. Rep. 572), it was held that an act (Deady’s Gen. Laws, p. 745, c. 20) which required “a foreign corporation before doing business in this State” to appoint a resident attorney, with authority to receive service of process in any action which may be brought against it in this State, was limited, in its application, to foreign corporations doing an insurance, banking, express, and exchange business, because of the restricted character of the title of the act, which read:
“An act to regulate and tax foreign insurance, banking, express and exchange corporations or associations doing business in the State.”
The same ruling was made in the case of Oregon & W. Trust Inv. Co. v. Rathburn, 5 Sawy. 32 (18 Fed. Cas. 764). In those cases the language used in the title to express the subject-matter, upon which legislation was intended, is clear and unambiguous. There was no room for construction, and nothing for the court to do but to
In Bewick v. Muir, 83 Cal. 368 (23 Pac. 389), it was contended that, where the owners of a mine had obtained a patent therefor, it was not a “mining claim,” properly so called, and that the term “mining ground,” used in the
“We think that for the purposes of the law it makes no difference whether the owners had obtained a patent or not. If this is not so, it would follow that a laborer upon a mine for which a patent had issued from the government has no lien. This is not the meaning of the law. The words ‘mining claim,’ as used in the law, have no reference to. the different stages in the acquisition of the government title. In our opinion it includes, all mines, whether the title is inchoate, as in the case of a mining claim in its strict sense, or perfect, as in the case of a fee-simple title. It may not make any difference if the title to the mine had passed under a Spanish grant.”
It was also held that the phrase “mining claim” included “mining ground.” In a later case, that of Morse v. De Ardo, 107 Cal. 622 (40 Pac. 1018), the same court commented upon the language used in Bewick v. Muir, seeming to think, in part, that it was obiter dicta. But in Berentz v. Belmont Oil Co., 148 Cal. 577 (84 Pac. 47: 113 Am. St. Rep. 308), a still later case, in ‘which the question presented for decision was whether an 80-acre tract of land, in process, of development as an oil mine, was a mining claim within the meaning of the lien law of that state, the court held that it was. It appears that the land in question had been known as the “Baradino Placer Mining Claim,” and had been patented, but leased for the purpose of its development for oil. After stating that, for the purpose of the lien law, the land does not cease to be a mining claim by the issuance of a patent, it was said:
“This was clearly held in Bewick v. Muir, 83 Cal. 372 (23 Pac. 389), and the authority of that decision has never been questioned. Something said obiter by Justice Sharpstein, in the course of his opinion, in regard to lands granted by the Mexican government, was disregarded in Morse v. De Ardo, 107 Cal. 624 (40 Pac. 1018), but it was not there decided that ground actually worked as a mine within a larger tract of agricultural land was*197 not subject to a lien as such. The judgment of the lower court decreeing a lien upon 26 out of 160 acres of land, including the mining works, was reversed for want of a finding that the smaller tract was a mining claim.”
It appears quite clear from these decisions that, when used in a lien law, the words “mining claim” are not to be construed in their strict sense for the purpose of determining the right to a lien, but that they control in measuring the extent of the lien.
The peculiar place accorded to the words “mining claim” in the title of the act in question here also leads us to believe that a reasonable man would not suppose that the legislature thereby intended to restrict the scope of the act to laborers on “mining claims,” strictly so called. It will be noticed that these words “on mining claims” immediately follow the word “laborers,” and precede the words “and materialmen,” so that if they are construed in their strict sense, and be given the restrictive power claimed for them, it must be held to be confined to “laborers,” and not to apply to “materialmen,” thus giving the one class of lienholders the benefits of the full scope of the body of the act, while confining the other class to a very restricted and limited benefit. We cannot believe that such was the intent or belief of any member of the legislature who participated in the enactment of this law.
The decree is affirmed upon the reason of the case as first stated. Affirmed.