Winchester v. Payne (1909) · DecisionDepot

Winchester v. Payne

Name: California Superior Court Tentative Rulings
Creator: DecisionDepot
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

California Court of Appeal May 1, 1909 No. Civ. No. 517.Published

Before: Taggart

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Holding. The court affirmed the judgment for the defendant because the plaintiff failed to provide sufficient evidence to locate her property on the ground or to prove that the disputed strip of land fell within the description of her deed.

Issues

Whether the plaintiff met her burden of proof to show that the disputed strip of land was included within the property description in her deeds.
Whether the trial court's determination of the street lines based on conflicting evidence regarding historical fences and city surveys should be disturbed.

Disposition. affirmed

Synopsis

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Santa Barbara County, and from an order denying a new trial. Felix W. Ewing, Judge presiding.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

TAGGART, J.

Action in ejectment. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff appeals from judgment and from an order denying her motion for a new trial.

The complaint alleges ownership and possession by plaintiff of a strip of land fronting on Montecito street eight feet and six inches, and extending at the same width one hundred and seventy-five feet into the east quarter of block 273 of the city of Santa Barbara, along the southwesterly line of said quarter; and that the defendant, on August 1, 1906, ousted her from the possession thereof. The answer is, in effect, a general denial.

Plaintiff showed no connection with the paramount source of title, but the record contains this recital: “It is agreed by the parties hereto, plaintiff and defendant, that the basis of title is contained in a deed from Isaac J. Sparks to Ramona Trussel, which deed conveys to the grantee named therein, a tract of land known on the official map of the city of Santa Barbara as Square 273, and bounded by Ranchería, Castillo, Gutierrez and Montecito streets.” This deed is dated September 1, 1858, and was recorded September 3, 1858, in the records of Santa Barbara county. Plaintiff also introduced in evidence three other deeds of mesne conveyance through and by which the title of said Ramona Trussel to the easterly quarter of said block was, on the 10th day of October, 1885, vested in plaintiff. The particular descriptions in

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these and each of said deeds were the same, and are in the words and figures following: “Commencing at a point in City Block Two Hundred and Seventy-three (273) at the intersection of Montecito and Castillo streets, and running thence in a southwesterly line along the line of Montecito street 225 feet; thence at right angles into said block 225 feet; thence at right angles 225 feet to Castillo street; thence along the line of Castillo street 225 feet to the place of beginning.”

Plaintiff’s respective predecessors in title, taking successively under each of said deeds, went into possession of and occupied continuously since the year 1878 a lot of land of the dimensions above given, which did not include the strip in question but adjoined it immediately to the northeast; and neither they nor plaintiff have ever been in the actual occupancy of this strip.

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In the absence of proper evidence essential to the correct official location of either the block or the streets surrounding it, the trial court was justified in accepting the best evidence the case afforded, or, if it afforded none, in applying the presumption which the law provides where there is a failure to present satisfactory evidence. In sustaining his conclusions it is not necessary that we assume that the learned judge who tried the ease construed the opinions in the two cases above cited as supporting the view of respondent that fences are original evidence of the street lines. We do not regard those cases as so holding. In both of them the respective parties to the litigation properly sought to locate the lines of an “official” survey to support title the paramount source of which rested thereon for purposes of description. The difficulty of locating the original monuments of the official survey recognized by both parties to each of said actions led to the consideration of two methods of determining where the lines of the streets of that official survey ran. In the Orena case the trial court adopted the theory that measurement from the initial point of the original survey, the location of which was known, was the proper method of locating a disputed point, following the ordinance of the city declaring this to be a rule of evidence in all such cases; but it was shown by recognized monuments of the original survey in the immediate vicinity of the property in litigation that the original survey was inaccurate, and the supreme court, in reversing the judgment in that ease, declared that in determining the location of the line of the street in question the initial point' would not necessarily be of greater or less importance than those monuments found in the vicinity, and that' measurements on the street in question would be of more value than those made elsewhere. That in the absence of original measurements it would be important to ascertain the boundaries of the streets as actually opened and used; and if such location had been generally acquiesced in by the public, by lot owners and by the municipality, in the absence of more certain evidence, it would be conclusive of the location of the lines of the official survey. Incidentally, it was also determined that the ordinance attempting to legis

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Synopsis

TAGGART, J.

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