Edwards v. Sergi

California Court of Appeal Mar 14, 1934 No. Docket No. 4928.Published

Before: Pullen

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Holding. The court held that a vendor is presumed to know the boundaries of their own land, and a purchaser who relies on the vendor's positive misrepresentations regarding those boundaries is not required to conduct an independent investigation, thereby tolling the statute of limitations until the actual discovery of the fraud or mistake.

Issues

Whether a purchaser is barred from recovery for misrepresentation of land boundaries when the means of verifying the deed's metes and bounds were available.
Whether the statute of limitations for an action based on mistake or fraud is tolled until the actual discovery of the error when the purchaser relied on the vendor's positive assertions.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“where a purchaser relying upon positive statements of a vendor is thereby lulled into a sense of security the running of the statute of limitations will be postponed until actual discovery of the fraud or mistake.”

PULLEN, P. J.

In 1927 plaintiff purchased from defendants 160 acres of land in Napa County. Approximately three and one-half years later she brought this action against defendants for damages for mistake, alleging that a 19-acre tract of timber had been represented by defendants as a part of the 160-acre tract, whereas it was not so contained, and if the particular 19 acres of wooded land had been a part of the larger tract it would have been of a greater value. The jury awarded plaintiff $2,500 as damages therefor.

Appellants by demurrer and answer set up subdivision 4 of section 338 of the Code of Civil Procedure as a bar to the action and now urge that point as ground for reversal.

Plaintiff, in response to an advertisement, communicated with Joseph Sergi, one of the defendants and appellants herein. Thereafter by agreement, plaintiff and defendant Joseph Sergi, who at all times was acting upon behalf of and by authority of appellant Emile Sergi, the undisclosed owner, met and examined the 160-acre tract of land and spent approximately the entire day in viewing the property. Plaintiff had on several occasions told defendant ° Joseph Sergi she' was particularly interested in a wooded tract suitable for summer homes, and defendant Joseph Sergi assured her the place he had was suitable for that purpose. While on the tract plaintiff observed a strip of heavily wooded land lying adjacent to certain orchard lands which defendant Joseph Sergi then represented to plaintiff as being a part of the property included in the deal. Thereafter, plaintiff believing the 19 acres of wooded land was part of the 160-acre tract, purchased the same. In December, 1930, plaintiff caused the tract purchased by her to be surveyed, and then for the first time learned that the 19 acres of wooded land was not embraced in the boundaries

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of the properties purchased by her. Appellants insist that the metes and bounds set forth in the deed from Sergi were notice to plaintiff of the location of the land and of the actual land within its boundaries and that she had the means at hand of ascertaining what was embraced in the deed. In support of this appellants cited several cases. In the case of

Bank of Mendocino

Edwards v. Sergi

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PULLEN, P. J.

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