Bond v. Aickley

BEASLY, J.,

pro tem.

This action to quiet title was begun on June 4, 1907, by the plaintiff Mary Bond against W. C. Aickley, James Miller, and Lydia A. Larue individually and as the administratrix of the estate of James Larue, deceased. On September 1, 1909, Aickley made a deed of the property in controversy to Irving E. Smith, after which Aickley died, and his widow Ruth, who had become his administratrix, and Smith, his grantee, were substituted in his stead as defendants. From the judgment in favor of the plaintiff, Smith appeals.

The action was once before appealed to the supreme court and reversed by that court

(Bond

v.

Aickley,

168 Cal. 161, [141 Pac. 1188]). At the time of the first trial, from which

[12]

that appeal was taken, none of the parties attempted to deraign title from any paramount source. Reference may be had to" the opinion of the supreme court in that case for the facts as they appeared in the record at that time.

On the second trial the defendants attempted to show" a paramount title derived by William C. Aickley subsequent to his deed to Annie Bond. This attempt was based upon two deeds to the property executed the one by Lydia A. Larue upon April 2, 1907, purporting to convey an undivided one-half of the property to Aickley, and the other by R. C. Corrigan, dated September 24, 1908, and purporting to convey the whole thereof to Aickley. The appellant claims that Lydia A. Larue and Corrigan, when they executed these deeds to Aickley, held the title to this property. The property is a part of a small tract thirty-seven and one-half feet wide at one end, and running down to a point apparently at the other, known to searchers of record in Alameda County as “No man’s land.” It is a portion of the rancho San Antonio, which was a Mexican grant made to Antonio Maria Peralta, confirmed by a patent of the United States dated September 15, 1874. Previous to the patent the title to the strip of land, of which the little lot in controversy here formed a part, had been obscured and entangled by conveyances of parts of the ranch to many parties; and while we have examined this record with care after the manner of a technical title attorney, and find that the title apparently did not at the time of their deeds to Aickley rest in either Mrs. Larue or Corrigan, we are not confronted with the necessity of determining that point, because the plaintiff’s title seems to be supported by proof of adverse possession on the part of W. C. Aickley before he deeded to Mrs. Bond, coupled with the possession of Annie Bond, his grantee, and the plaintiff Mary Bond subsequent to that date and extending down to the time of filing the complaint in this action.