City of Los Angeles v. Moore

JAMES, J.

This is an appeal taken by John Griffin Johnston, against whom judgment was entered and an order made denying his motion for a new trial. The appeal calls into question the correctness of the decision of the trial judge, wherein it was determined that said appellant had no interest in an irregular plot of ground aligning Avenue 20 in the city of Los Angeles, which the city by condemnation seeks to take for the purpose of widening that thoroughfare. The. trial judge determined title to be in defendant O. B. Carter. That determination on the separate appeal of the city of Los Angeles taken to this court was affirmed in an opinion filed this day,

ante,

p. 39, [159 Pac. 872] (Civil No. 1975).

The land in question aligns a portion of the northwesterly boundary of lands patented to the city of Los Angeles. By deed made in 1863, the city of Los Angeles conveyed to John

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S. Griffin and J. C. Welsh, a large tract of land embracing more than two thousand acres. It was stipulated at the trial that the title to all of this land and the land in dispute was vested in the city of Los Angeles immediately prior to the making of the deed mentioned. Welsh subsequently conveyed to Griffin and Griffin later to one Hamilton, who subdivided the land so obtained into “Hamilton’s Subdivision” and “Hamilton’s Additional Subdivision.” Appellant Johnston, as the devisee under the will of John S. Griffin, claimed that the plot of land in dispute was included in the deed to Griffin and Welsh from the city, and was not included in the deed made by Griffin to

Hamilton;

hence, that it was distributed to him under the will in the estate of Griffin. Under the stipulation made, in effect that the title was in the city unless divested by the Griffin-Welsh deed, appellant at the trial assumed the burden of establishing that the land was located within the boundaries of the large tract conveyed to Griffin and Welsh. In order to establish the northwesterly boundaries of the plot so conveyed, it was necessary to locate the original patent boundary of the city. This boundary, as surveyed and described in the patent, starting from the northwest city patent corner, pursued a meandering course southwesterly to a point made by the junction of the Los Angeles River with the Arroyo Seco. Prom this point, called Station 35, the line proceeded in a northwesterly meandering course, following the bed of the Los Angeles River. Station 36, being the one immediately northwesterly of the point Station 35, was described as being at the edge of the water of the river. The river for some distance in that locality is confined on the west by a chain of hills composed in the main of a shale or rock formation. In the Griffin-Welsh deed the southerly corner of the land described was located at a monument marked by a mound of stones, the location of which the testimony showed was well known to old residents and its location was by the testimony accurately fixed at the trial. The testimony of the surveyors, who attempted to trace the lines of the Griffin-Welsh land, showed that the monument mentioned at the southerly corner of the property was disregarded. The testimony also showed that had the location of this monument been taken as a starting point and the line run northerly, the land in dispute would have been thrown without the parcel conveyed to Griffin and Welsh. The inaccuracy of the lines of these surveyors was also illustrated in the testi