title:
The United States, Appellant, George O. Kelly and Andrew C. Smith, (As Executors of the Estate of E S Smith deceased) and M. F. Hatch, Appellees, Brief of Appellant
creator:
United States
contributor:
W. H. White
date:
1888-01-01
publisher:
Supreme Court of the Territory of Washington
type:
Civil
subject:
Timber
subject:
Commercial
subject:
Real Property
language:
eng
format:
application/pdf
description:
Prior History: ERROR to the District Court holding terms at Tacoma. Second District.The opinion of the court states all the material facts.Timber Act of June 3, 1878 – Purchaser – Public Lands – An applicant to purchase timber land under the act of congress has no right to enter thereon and cut or remove timber from the land for the purpose of sale as logs, or to engage in the manufacture thereof into lumber for commercial purposes, prior to his proof and payment therefor.Same – Same – No entry of any kind, and no cutting of any timber for any purpose, is necessary to perfecting tittle under said act, or permissible for any purpose whatever.Trespass – Laches by Government Officers – Estoppel – The fact that government officers had knowledge that applicants to purchase public lands, under the timber act, were unlawfully cutting timber upon the land before proof and purchase, and did not interfere to prevent it, does not make such trespass lawful, nor does it estop the government from claiming its own, and the subsequent issue of a patent to the applicant cannot change the title to the timber severed from the soil by his own act, while the government had the title and payment had not been made.Public Lands – Trespass – Damages – Measure of – In an action by the United states to recover the value of lumber manufactured out of logs unlawfully cut on public lands of the United States, by willful trespassers, who sold the logs to defendant, and the defendant innocently purchased the logs without knowledge or notice of this trespass, and manufactured the same into lumber: Held, that the measure of damage was the value of property at the time of the purchase, and not the value of the lumber manufactured out of said logs by such innocent purchaser.Same – Nonsuit – Failure of Proof – When in the trial of such an action sole reference was had to the question of liability of innocent purchasers for the value of manufactured lumber, under the circumstances above stated, and it being conceded in the argument by the plaintiff that if such liability did not exist the judgment of nonsuit in the lower court should be affirmed, and there being no evidence from which the value of the logs, at the time of the purchase, could be ascertained, and there being no claim by plaintiff for nominal damage: Held, that judgment of nonsuit against plaintiff was properly granted. Conversion – Personal Property – Accession – Where no element of willfulness or intentional wrong appears on the part of him who applies another’s material, and the identity of these materials has finally disappeared in the new product, or where it is shown that his own labor and materials contributed more to the value of the present chattel than those materials which he took without intentional wrong, he is entitled to keep the chattels as his own, making, however, due compensation to the owner of the materials for what he took.
relation:
United States v. Kelly, 3 Wash. Terr. 421 (1888)
relation:
17 P. 878
rights:
These materials are public records. Please see Washington State Court Rules: General Rules 31 for details https://www.courts.wa.gov/court_rules/pdf/GR/GA_GR_31_00_00.pdf