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CALIFORNIA MINERS APPEAL DISMISSAL OF LAWSUITJanuary 18, 2012 - For Immediate Release
DENVER, CO. California miners whose lawsuit claiming they were denied full rights as to their mining operations on their private property was dismissed by a federal district court in September 2011, today filed their opening brief in their appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Ken McMaster, who with two cousins, owns the Oro Grande in the Trinity Alps Wilderness Area in northern California, charges that the United States of America, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), U.S. Forest Service, and Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior denied him his full property rights and the right to use his property as permitted by law. He argues that the United States has violated the General Mining Law of 1872, the Wilderness Act of 1964, the act creating the Trinity Alps Wilderness Area, and regulations and policies and asked the district court to so rule and to quiet title to his property in his and his cousins’ names. “The district court erroneously interpreted ‘valid existing rights,’ failed to consider the BLM’s long-standing regulations regarding valid existing rights, and misinterpreted and misapplied the pleading requirements of the Quiet Title Act,” said William Perry Pendley, president of Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF); MSLF represents the miners. The Oro Grande claim is a 20-acre association placer claim located in the 1930s. In 1992, the Oro Grande claimants applied for a patent. In 1994, the BLM issued the first half final certificate, which vested equitable title to the mining claim in the claimants. In 1998, the Solicitor of the U.S. Department of Interior unilaterally changed the rules under which a patent in a wilderness area is issued. In February 2009, the mining claimants finally received patent to the Oro Grande mining claim. Under the terms of the patent, however, the BLM did not convey fee title to the property as it should have done. Instead, the BLM conveyed only title to the “mineral deposits within association placer mining claim known as the Oro Grande Mining Claim,” ostensibly due to the provisions set forth in the Wilderness Act of 1964 and the 1998 Solicitor’s Opinion. Since Mr. McMaster received the patent, the Forest Service has asserted that he does not own the mining structures that are present on the claim, despite that they have been utilized in the mining operations since the claim was located. The Forest Service now demands that he apply for and receive a special use permit before he will be “permitted” by the Forest Service to continue mining operations on his patented claim. The lawsuit was filed on April 13, 2010. After it was dismissed on September 10, an amended complaint was filed on September 24, 2010. Mountain States Legal Foundation, founded in 1977, is a nonprofit, public-interest legal foundation dedicated to individual liberty, the right to own and use property, limited and ethical government, and the free enterprise system. Its offices are in a suburb of Denver, Colorado. McMaster v. Salazar, No. 10cv881 (E.D. Calif.) |
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Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF) is a nonprofit,
public interest legal foundation dedicated to individual liberty, the right
to own and use property, limited and ethical government, and economic freedom. It is an Internal Revenue Code 501(c)(3) entity
incorporated in the State of Colorado. Csontributions
to Mountain States Legal Foundation are tax deductible. [Mission] [Press
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