42 F. 821 | U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Colorado | 1890
March 6, 1889, defendants applied in the land-office at Olonwood Springs to enter the Blazing Star Lode claim in Pitkin county, to a portion of which plaintiffs made adverse claim May 10, 1889, under a location called the “Jay Gould Lode.” This suit was brought in support of the adverse claim, April 29, 1890, nearly one year after filing the adverse claim in the land-office. The act of congress (Rev. St. § 2326) plainly requires the adverse claimant, “within thirty days after filing his claim, to commence proceedings in a court of competent jurisdiction to determine the question of the light of possession,” and this suit was not brought within that time. Plaintiffs aver, by way of excuse for tho delay, that a suit in all respects similar to this was brought by them, in due time, in the district court of Pitkin county, which was afterwards dismissed by the court “for a matter of form,” in that no summons was issued within one mouth after filing the complaint; and plaintiffs rely on a section of the statute of limitations of the state (section 18, p. 673, Gen. St. 1883) which provides that, in case of the failure of a suit from insufficient service, unavoidable accident, and the like, plaintiffs may renew their suit “at any time within one year after the abatement or other determination of the original suit.”
This proposal to ingraft a statute of the state upon an act of congress does not appear to he within any recognized principle of construction. It is true that state statutes of limitation arc often enforced in federal courts, when, like other laws of the state, they euter into the contract, and become binding on the parties. But they have no application in a proceeding for disposing of public land, of which congress has exclusive jurisdiction. Tn respect to the manner of making locations, it is provided in the act of congress that it may be supplemented by local law, and the rules and customs of miners. But a proceeding in the' land-office, and, upon a controversy in that office, suits in court to settle the title are to be begun and conducted as declared in the act of congress, which must be regarded as full and complete on that subject. There were obvious reasons for requiring that the application for title, when made in the!