United States v. Coleman

Background

In 1956 a man named Coleman applied to the Interior Department for a land patent after finding quartzite on public land and asserting it was valuable building stone. The Secretary refused the patent, saying the stone could not be extracted and sold at a profit (the marketability test) and that the stone was a "common variety" excluded by a 1955 law. Coleman stayed on the land and the Government sued to eject him; the District Court sided with the Government, but the Court of Appeals reversed.

Reasoning

The key question was whether the Secretary’s marketability test and the 1955 law’s common-variety exclusion could block a mining patent for widely found stone. The Court said yes. It explained that the marketability test refines the long-standing "prudent-man" idea by asking whether a reasonable person would expect to profit from developing a mine. Because there was no feasible market for the quartzite, huge quantities of identical stone lay outside the claims, and other facts suggesting the land might be used for purposes besides mining, the Secretary properly concluded the deposits were not economically valuable and fit the common-variety exclusion.

Real world impact

The ruling means people cannot win mining patents for common building stone that cannot be profitably sold. Such common materials will instead be handled under the government’s materials-sale rules, and the Government may eject those occupying land based on such claims. The Court reversed the appeals court and denied Coleman’s patent claim.