Robicheaux v. Jaya Investments CA1/1

Filed 4/21/16 Robicheaux v. Jaya Investments CA1/1 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION ONE

ANTHONY J. ROBICHEAUX et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, A146620 v. JAYA INVESTMENTS, (Del Norte County Super. Ct. No. CVCV14-2200) Defendant and Respondent.

Plaintiffs appeal from a judgment of dismissal and a denial of a motion for new trial. We dismiss the appeal as untimely because plaintiffs’ notice of appeal was filed sixty one days, one day too late, after plaintiffs were served with a written notice of entry of judgment. BACKGROUND This case centers around an undeveloped, 60 feet by 205 feet area of land (the property) in Crescent City (the city). The property abuts plaintiffs’ RV Park, which the plaintiffs purchased in 2007. In 2014, the titled owner of the property, defendant Jaya Investments (Jaya), demanded that plaintiffs quit the property. In response, plaintiffs filed this action alleging that they had acquired an adverse possessory interest in the property by having “enjoyed free access and use, maintained, possessed, and have openly and notoriously exercised uninterrupted control, restricted use and access of the [property].” They also alleged that Jaya was not the legal owner of the property because it obtained title in 2013 from Hambro Forest Products, Inc. (Hambro), which had no legal right to the property and had never paid property taxes on it.

1

Jaya filed a demurrer and asked the trial court to take judicial notice of certain documents, including (1) the grant deed conveying the property from Hambro to Jaya; (2) portions of a plat map showing the property to be part of the Walton Docks subdivision; (3) the plat map of Walton Docks by which the original grantor dedicated the property to the city for public use; and (4) city resolution 2014-10 (passed on March 17, 2014), through which the city vacated its right of way in the subject property. In support of its demurrer, Jaya argued that plaintiffs could not have acquired the property through adverse possession because, as a matter of law, property in public use cannot be acquired through adverse possession and the city only relinquished its rights to the property in March 2014. After a hearing in September 2014, the trial court granted the request for judicial notice and took the demurrer under advisement. The demurrer was then granted on October 30, 2014, without leave to amend. In granting the demurrer, the court found that the property was included in the shaded areas on the Walton Docks plat map that were dedicated to public use. The court found that the original grantor dedicated the shaded portions to the city in fee simple with the provision that title would revert to the grantor “in the event the city vacated a shaded part.” The court concluded that the dedication was in the nature of a fee rather than an easement because “the plaintiffs’ and defendant’s lots are shown on the map as terminating at the edge of the shaded portions rather than extending to the center of the [subject property].” The court then held that Civil Code section 1007 barred plaintiffs’ claim of adverse possession because the property had been dedicated to public use in fee.1 The action was dismissed by an order of dismissal entered on November 19, 2014. Defendant served a “Notice of Decision Sustaining Demurrer and for Entry of Judgment”