Lightner Mining Co. v. Superior Court

This is an application for a writ of prohibition to restrain the judge of said superior court from proceeding with the trial of the action of James V. Coleman, plaintiff, v. Lightner Mining Company, defendant, until the final determination by the land department of the United States of an application for a patent to the land involved in the controversy. Among other facts it appears that the complaint in said action was filed in 1903. Therein it was alleged that “plaintiff for more than fifteen years last past has been and now is the owner and in the possession and entitled to the possession of all that certain quartz mine, mining property situate, lying and being in the Altaville townsite, in the county of Calaveras, known as and called the ‘Billings’ quartz mine.” Then follows a particular description of the property. “That within the surface lines of the said Billings quartz mine extended downward vertically are certain lodes, ledges and veins of quartz and rock in place carrying gold and other valuable minerals. That the said Billings quartz mine is contiguous to and adjoins on the east the so-called Lightner quartz mine owned and operated by the said defendant corporation;…