Gallentine v. Hickey

BRITTAIN, J.

The defendants appeal from a decree quieting the plaintiff’s title to a lot of land in the principal business block in the town of Ojai, formerly known as Nordhoff, in Ventura County. The decree also required the removal of a wall built within the exterior boundaries of the plaintiff’s lot.

The dispute concerned a strip of land 1.67 feet wide along the division line between the lots of the plaintiff and the defendants. According to an old map these lots were near the middle of a block shown on the map to have a frontage of 472 feet, but by actual measurement it was only 470.33 feet long. Early deeds called for measurements from the southeast corner of the block to the nearest corners of lots conveyed, or boundary lines of earlier conveyed lots so located. The descriptions used in the deeds in the plaintiff’s chain of title all related directly or indirectly to the southeast corner of the block. So, also, did the earlier deeds in the defendants’ chain of title, but in a deed containing such a reference a predecessor of the defendants added a recital calling for a distance from the southwest corner of the block computed from the erroneous map call and, therefore, 1.67 feet too long. Subsequent grantees reversed the old descriptions; using the erroneous call from the southwest corner of the block and thereby causing an apparent overlapping of the western lot 1.67 feet on the eastern lot.

The plaintiff’s husband, from whom she derived title and possession, in 1911, acquired his lot by the ancient descrip tion. There was then a store building on the lot afterward acquired by the defendants. The plaintiff’s husband caused a survey to be made in accordance with his deed and with the plaintiff in that year built a store on his lot. In the erection of his building two things were done which have a direct bearing on the questions involved in this suit: A concrete foundation was built for the Gallentine store, and

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overhanging eaves of the older store were cut away to permit the erection of the Gallentine building on the west line of the plaintiff’s lot. At that time there was some talk between Mrs. Gallentine, acting on behalf of herself and her husband, with one of the predecessors in interest of the defendants, then a record owner of the land and an occupant of the old store, concerning the cost of the survey, and he said he made no claim against the Gallentines. One of the defendants testified, in effect, that when they bought they had a survey made and got their full frontage without considering any part of the land covered by the Gallentine building. Both buildings were destroyed by fire in 1917, but the concrete foundation built by Gallentine remained in place. Thereafter, and shortly before the commencement of this suit, the defendants started to build a new east wall 1.67 feet east of the old division line, marked by the old buildings, as shown by the remaining concrete foundation. The plaintiff testified that from 1911 until her building was burned in 1917, it was occupied by tenants from whom she collected all rents, and that for the same period, and thereafter until the time of the trial, she had paid all taxes on the lot to which she claimed title.