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claim owners retain all mineral rights.:smile:

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Can a Placer claim be filed over a Lode claim and vice versa?

No. Not without the lode owner's permission.

If you want to learn about claim law, download and read this pamphlet:
http://data.nbmg.unr.edu/public/freedownloads/sp/sp006.zip

Its written for Nevada, but the basics are true in every state. Some deadlines and minor points vary between states.

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There is no circumstance where a valid placer claim can be located over a valid lode claim.

A lode claim can be located over a placer claim once a valid lode discovery is made by either the owner of the preexisting placer claim or by another if invited by that placer claim owner to prospect the claim.

The lode over placer issue is covered in detail in Section 11 of the General Mining Act of 1872.

A very good place to start increasing your knowledge is the above linked text of the mining law as well as the very important mining case Cole v Ralph. The Supreme Court explains just about every claim/adverse claim possibility as well as covering the real implications of allowing others to prospect your claim in Cole v Ralph.

 

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16 hours ago, Reno Chris said:

No, you cannot legally detect on a mining claim be it placer or lode. The owner receives all mineral rights and you need their permission to detect there.

 

2 hours ago, Clay Diggins said:

A lode claim can be located over a placer claim once a valid lode discovery is made by either the owner of the preexisting placer claim or by another if invited by that placer claim owner to prospect the claim.

The lode over placer issue is covered in detail in Section 11 the General Mining Act of 1872.

 

So then if lode and placer claims each individually grant all mineral rights by themselves, what purpose does it serve to locate a lode claim over a placer? An how can 2 different claims be valid if they both cover the same minerals? 1872 grants "exclusive rights" to the minerals, not joint ownership unless multiple parties are on the same claim.

Consider one potential situation - most clubs file placer claims, and membership either implicitly or explicitly grants permission to prospect club claims, which means that according to what you are saying members now acquire rights to overstake a valid club claim with a lode claim. If that happens then which claim takes precedent, the lode or the placer? If they can both exist legally then that means both are granting legal rights, which means they must be granting rights to seperate minerals doesn't it? Thus lode is defined as "in-situ" deposits, and placer are defined as "placer" deposits, presumably to rectify this logical impossibility.

Otherwise if you have two valid claims covering the exact same minerals, then you have joint ownership which is counter to 1872 and the inherent idea of a claim. And how would that work if the parties conflict? Since the lode claim is just as valid as the original placer claim then the lode claim owner could then kick all the other club members off "his" claim (and thus the club claim). Just as one example of conflict. When it comes to actual mining, imagine the other conflict...does the lode claimaint have to pay the placer claimaint half of everything mined since they both own the minerals equally? Do they each need permission from each other to start a mining operation? There is no code or rules governing this, maybe for a reason. Because it creates a logical impossibility when two different people have "exclusive" rights to something. 

If the answer is that the lode applies to the lode minerals and the placer applies to the placer minerals...then a person has to assume each claim has a seperate purpose and they are not in fact granting rights to all minerals but only the corresponding lode or placer minerals depending on the claim type.

Having two valid legal instruments to grant exclusive and all encompassing rights to the same physical entity, I think, is not possible. Only if two people are on a single legal instrument. Because both parties would have equal right to do anything without permission from the other, which itself means that the claims don't actually grant exclusive rights.

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So then if lode and placer claims each individually grant all mineral rights by themselves, what purpose does it serve to locate a lode claim over a placer? An how can 2 different claims be valid if they both cover the same minerals? 1872 grants "exclusive rights" to the minerals, not joint ownership unless multiple parties are on the same claim.

There will be two separate and distinct claims when a valid lode is made over a valid placer. They do not intersect.

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Consider one potential situation - most clubs file placer claims, and membership either implicitly or explicitly grants permission to prospect club claims, which means that according to what you are saying members now acquire rights to overstake a valid club claim with a lode claim. If that happens then which claim takes precedent, the lode or the placer? If they can both exist legally then that means both are granting legal rights, which means they must be granting rights to seperate minerals doesn't it? Thus lode is defined as "in-situ" deposits, and placer are defined as "placer" deposits.

Yes - club members, or anyone else, with an explicitly granted right to prospect could make a lode discovery and claim it to the exclusion of the placer claim.

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Otherwise if you have two valid claims covering the exact same minerals, then you have joint ownership. And how would that work if the parties conflict?

Your assumption that two claims own the exact same minerals is incorrect.

Lode claims cost twice as much per acre to purchase as placer claims. Congress assured that known lodes could not be patented as placer claims. Simple and straightforward - if you have a known lode on your placer the lode is excluded from the placer patent unless you also claim the lode.

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Since the lode claim is just as valid as the original placer claim then the lode claim owner could then kick all the other club members off "his" claim (and thus the club claim).

Yes the lode claim owner could exclude the placer claim owners and their invitees from their lode claim.

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Just curious, because if the answer is that the lode applies to the lode minerals and the placer applies to the placer minerals...then a person has to assume each claim has a seperate purpose and they are not in fact granting rights to all minerals but only the corresponding lode or placer minerals depending on the claim type.

Why would you continue to speculate? I gave you a link to the law that says just what I wrote here. I gave you a link to the Supreme Court case that explains the situation in detail. Neither one of those sources imply that the lode minerals are distinct from the placer minerals. Clearly according to Congress and the Supreme Court the two types of claim are distinct and separate.

From Cole v Ralph and hundreds of other mining cases:

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A placer discovery will not sustain a lode location, nor a lode discovery a placer location.

Consider why Congress granted minerals to their discoverer. Lode mines have clearly out paced the value of placer claims in enriching this country. Valid Lode claims have this one precedence over placer claims just as valuable mineral discoveries have precedence over agricultural values in the law. I see that as a reasonable balance.

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57 minutes ago, Clay Diggins said:

There will be two separate and distinct claims when a valid lode is made over a valid placer. They do not intersect.

Then how can it be said that both lode and placer claims grant all mineral rights as Gambler and Reno Chris stated above?

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Your assumption that two claims own the exact same minerals is incorrect.

Just to be clear here, I didn't assume this. I was posing logical questions. In fact for years I've been posting just the opposite on this subject here and on other forums (some of which regretably deleted my posts and account because they didn't like what I had to say on this and other matters).

Most BLM employees I've talked to on this subject have ended up agreeing with me too, no matter what they believed at first. One of them is the lead geologist in Winnemucca, Ken Loda, after we spent a few hours going through his case law book. Mentioning him in particular since I know a lot of people on this forum prospect in that district and he's accesible to speak with and he keeps all the code and case law right on his desk for easy reference and discussion.

The conclusion I draw is that lode and placer claims grant exclusive rights to lode and placer minerals respectively. Not all minerals. And a lot of case law regarding lode vs placer is in reference to patenting too, which muddies the water further since the rulings don't necessarily adjudicate on the overstaking of two different kinds of claims themselves but instead on the private ownership of the land where the two different claims had been being worked legally and the dispute came in when one attempted to patent. Clipper v. Eli is another one.

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Here is the direct ruling from Clipper v Eli (regarding prospecting for lode over placer claims). Draw your own conclusions...

If there is a ruling similar to this relating to the overstaking of placers over lode or the inability to prospect for placer minerals on a lode claim (which was the original question posed in this thread), then could someone please post it? Few have time to read through entire court cases which may or may not be relevant.

"Although a placer location is not a location of lodes and veins beneath the surface, but simply a claim of a tract of ground for the sake of loose deposits upon or near the surface, and the patent to a placer claim does not convey the title to a known vein or lode within its area unless specifically applied and paid for, the patentee takes title to any lode or vein not known to exist at the time of the patent and subsequently discovered. The owner of a valid mining location, whether lode or placer, has the right to the exclusive possession and enjoyment of all the surface included within the lines of the location.

One going upon a valid placer location to prospect for unknown lodes and veins against the will of the placer owner is a trespasser, and cannot initiate a right maintainable in an action at law to the lode and vein claims within the placer limits which he may discover during such trespass.

The owner of a placer location may maintain an adverse action against an applicant for a patent of a lode claim when the latter's application includes part of the placer grounds."

But even here there is some room for debate because it both does and does not say placer claims get title to lodes. So I think nothing is clear cut as it may seem. But again, the confusion comes in when we stop talking about minerals and start talking about titles and patenting. A mineral claim is not a title.

So I think when we talk about minerals only, which is all we can talk about today, a person can validly prospect for placer minerals over a lode claim but I'm willing to change my opinion if some precedent can be shown that says otherwise. The converse however, may or may not be true depending on circumstance.

I think the topic is not resolved anyways and interesting to discuss.

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