San Antonio Union School District of Monterey County v. Huston (1919) · DecisionDepot

San Antonio Union School District of Monterey County v. Huston

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

California Court of Appeal Dec 23, 1919 No. Civ. No. 2965.Published

Before: Beasly

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Holding. The court held that the plaintiff failed to establish a right to specific performance or a trust interest in the property, as the original correspondence indicated only a permissive, temporary use for school purposes that terminated upon the school's abandonment.

Issues

Whether an action to quiet title can be maintained by a holder of equity against a holder of legal title.
Whether the correspondence and subsequent occupation created a contract for the sale of land or a trust enforceable by specific performance.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“the plaintiff at no time had the legal title to the acre in controversy.”

“specific performance cannot be decreed in this case because the demand for a deed should have been made to Mrs. Huston, the present owner of the record title”

Synopsis

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Monterey County. J. A. Bardin, Judge. Affirmed.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

BEASLY, P. J.,

pro

tern.

The plaintiff, San Antonio Union School District of Monterey County, brought this action as successor in interest to the Franklin School District. From the prayer of the complaint the action was originally intended to quiet title to a small piece of property which is a part of the southwest quarter of the southwest quarter of section thirty-two, township twenty-two south, range eight east, Mount Diablo meridian. The entire quarter-section was patented to Joseph Alcorn on 'September 25, 1888, and by mesne conveyances the defendant acquired the legal title to the whole quarter-section on August 16, 1905, and, as will hereafter appear, the plaintiff at no time had the legal title to the acre in controversy.

Being met at the outset with the objection that an action to quiet title cannot be maintained by the holder of the mere equity against the holder of the legal title to real property, plaintiff’s counsel in his brief apparently abandons the theory that the action is one to quiet title and insists that his client be given relief under the general prayer of the complaint for “such other and further relief as to the court may seem just and meet in the premises,” and from the language of appellant’s brief we infer that the plaintiff now seeks specific perfonúance of a contract to convey made between Alcorn and the Franklin School District and “for the enforcement of a trust in this property,” for the benefit of plaintiff. Although from the prayer of the complaint it appears very clearly that the plaintiff at first intended to rely upon a cause of action to quiet title to the lot, we are inclined to consider the case upon its merits, without regard to the form of the action.

[1]

The plaintiff, in support of the contract to purchase which it now seeks to enforce, relies upon the following facts: Some time in 1886, and while Joseph Alcorn was the owner or in possession of the quarter-section of which this lot forms a part, C. G. Heinsen was trustee of the Franklin School District and wrote Alcorn, according to Heinsen’s testimony,- to know how much he would take for one acre of land upon which to build a schoolhouse, giving

[226]

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no description, but mentioning the corner needed, and not saying whether or not the school district desired to purchase the corner in fee or to secure the mere right to build and maintain a sehoolhouse thereon. Running through the correspondence and the testimony of Heinsen is the statement of the purpose for which the land was desired, namely, for school purposes. On December 27, 1886, Heinsen received an answer signed by Mrs. Alcorn, wife of the owner of the property, dated at Boulder Creek, California, and saying: “Tour postal received and in reply will say that my husband thinks that twenty-five ($25) dollars is the price to ask for an acre of land for the sehoolhouse.” Seven months after the receipt of this letter Heinsen sent fifteen dollars, which Mrs. Alcorn received, and to this remittance Mrs. Alcorn sent a reply dated at Boulder Creek, July 24th, in which she said: “We have received fifteen dollars ($15) as part payment for the land for the sehoolhouse.” Mrs. Alcorn’s name alone is signed to this letter. In none of the correspondence was the length or width of the acre given and nothing was said about the terms of payments, whether in installments or in cash. Heinsen testified that within a year or two after the first letter the remaining ten dollars was available to pay for the land and that he wrote for a deed, but did not send the money. No answer was received to this last letter. There were no other negotiations than those referred to in these letters. Mrs. Alcorn testified that she wrote the letter of December 27, 1886, at her husband’s instance and there is no evidence of any written authority held by Mrs. Alcorn authorizing her to contract for the sale of the property. There is in the letters no agreement to sell. There is simply a recital of the price which Mr. Alcorn thought was proper for the land. Subsequently the Franklin School District . fenced the property. Mr. Heinsen “stepped off” the acre the best he could and a substantial fence was built around it, and from that time until the organization of the San ■ Antonio Union School District, the Franklin School District main tained a sehoolhouse and kept a school on the property. The plaintiff, San Antonio Union School District, is the successor in interest of the Franklin School District. There is no evidence that Alcorn ever had actual knowledge of the occupation of the property by the sehoolhouse. There seems

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Synopsis

BEASLY, P. J.,

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