Merchant v. Grant

CHIPMAN, P. J.

This is an action to quiet plaintiffs’ title to a strip of land 243 feet long, 13 feet wide at its eastern end and 16 feet wide at its western end and alleged to be bounded on the south by the county road running from Healdsburg to Santa Rosa, in Sonoma County. The court, made findings in favor of plaintiffs and entered its decree accordingly. Defendant appeals from the order denying his motion for a new trial.

It is conceded that defendant is the owner of the land in dispute unless the court was justified from the evidence in finding that two certain deeds under which plaintiffs claim title were intended to make the said county road the southern boundary of the land.

On June 11, 1887, John D. Grant and S. Cohn conveyed to William Van Alen a block of land 36 feet wide and 168 feet long, bounded on the north by the right-of-way land of the San Francisco & North Pacific Railroad Company and from the point of beginning at the railroad land the line ran at right angles to the railroad track southerly 36 feet, “thence at right angles parallel with said railroad 168 feet; thence at right angles northerly 36 feet to railroad property; thence westerly at right angles along railroad property to place of beginning; and canning rights, etc." This block of land had been in use for and on it had been erected a warehouse covering nearly the entire tract. On November 7, 1887, Grant and wife conveyed to Van Alen a strip of land described as “commencing at the southeast comer of the warehouse lot, thence 6 feet southerly on line with easterly line of warehouse lot; thence westerly 243 feet parallel with south line of warehouse

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lot; thence northerly and at right angles 42 feet to railroad line; thence easterly 75 feet to the northwesterly corner of warehouse lot; thence southerly and easterly following line of said warehouse lot to the point of beginning. ’ ’ By this deed a strip of land 6 feet wide was added to the south side of the warehouse lot first above described, and also a piece on the west 42 feet wide and 75 feet long, the two. deeds thus conveying a block of land 42 feet wide and 243 feet long. The land in controversy is an additional strip, as above stated, along the southern boundary of this block of land, 13 feet wide at its eastern end and 16 feet wide at its western end. No mention is made, in either of these deeds, of the county road or reference to it in any way as constituting the south boundary of the land in question. Appellant contends that the block of land, described by these two deeds, cannot be extended beyond the metes and bounds mentioned therein; that the strip of land in controversy lies between the highway and the land conveyed by these deeds and is part of a tract of land to which he holds title from the same ancestor in estate as the one through whom plaintiff’s claim title. Plaintiff’s claim that the county road was in fact the southern boundary of the land conveyed by these deeds and although not made so by their terms the fact that the southern boundary coincided with the northern boundary of the road, i. e., that the land conveyed was intended to be so bounded, the result is the same as if the deeds had so declared.