Kenneth McClarty v. Secretary of the Interior

This is an appeal from a summary judgment entered May 27, 1966, by the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Washington, dismissing an action to review the decision of the Secretary of the Interior, United States v. McClarty, 71 I.D. 331 (1964), invalidating Appellant’s mining claim located for building stone.

There have been significant developments in this area of the law since the processing of this case through the administrative appeals in the Interior Department and since the decision of the District Court. The Supreme Court has ruled (United States v. Coleman, 1968, 390 U.S. 599 , 88 S.Ct. 1327 , 20 L.Ed.2d 170 ) that the Act of July 23, 1955, 69 Stat. 367 , 30 U.S.C. §§ 601-615 , eliminating as minerals locatable under the mining laws a “deposit of common varieties of sand, stone, gravel, pumice, pumi-cite or cinders” applies to common varieties of building stone, but that the Act of August 4, 1892, 27 Stat. 348 , 30 U.S.C. § 161 , authorizing mining locations of lands chiefly valuable for building stone remains viable and “effective as to building stone that has ‘some property giving it distinct and special value’.” United States v. Coleman,…