Pereira Farms Corp. v. Simas

California Court of Appeal Oct 7, 1924 No. Civ. No. 2752.Published

Before: THE COURT. —

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Holding. The court held that the plaintiff established title by adverse possession through payment of taxes, even in cases of double assessment and payment, but remanded the case for a retrial regarding the portion of the disputed land for which the trial court failed to adjudicate title.

Issues

Whether a claimant establishes title by adverse possession when taxes are paid on land that is also assessed to and paid for by the record owner.
Whether the trial court erred in failing to adjudicate title to the remainder of the disputed land not awarded to the plaintiff.
Whether the substitution of a corporation as plaintiff following a transfer of interest during the pendency of the action was proper.

Disposition. reversed in part and affirmed in part

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“In so far as it fails to adjudicate the rights of the parties in and to the aforesaid remainder of the lands described in the cross-complaint the judgment is reversed, with directions to the trial court to retry and determine such rights.”

THE COURT.

The defendants have appealed from the judgment herein quieting plaintiff’s title to certain lands described in the complaint.

The Somplaint alleges that the plaintiff is the owner of a “portion of lot 1 and all of lots

and 3 and portion of the south

of northwest ^4, all in section 33, township 44 north, range 8- west, Mount Diablo Base and Meridian,” particularly describing such lands, as well as other lands not in controversy here, and prays for judgment quieting plaintiff’s title thereto. Defendants denied the foregoing allegation of the complaint and, for cross-complaint, alleged that defendants are the owners of the south half of the northwest quarter and lots 1 and

of said section 33, containing 90.40' acres, and prayed for judgment quieting- their title thereto. Plaintiff answered the cross-complaint, denying defendants’ title to the lands therein described, and alleging that plaintiff is the owner of the whole thereof. Of the lands so in controversy, the judgment quiets plaintiff’s title to about 25 acres hut is silent as to the remainder.

[161]

In 1856 C. C. Tracy, a deputy United States surveyor, surveyed a tract of land in said township 44 three miles in length from east to west and one-half mile in width, which he described as the north halves of sections 31, 32, and 33. The survey was approved by the United States government. In 1880' W. F. Benson, a deputy United States surveyor, surveyed the whole of the township. The Benson survey was also duly approved. The section and subdivision boundary lines of the Tracy survey are a quarter of a mile farther east and more than a quarter of a mile farther north than the corresponding lines of the Benson survey, so that the south half of the northwest quarter of section 33 of the Benson survey lies south of the southeast quarter of the northwest quarter and the southwest quarter of the northeast quarter of section 33 of the Tracy survey and is separated therefrom by a narrow strip of land designated in the Benson survey as lots 1 and 2, each lot containing 5.20 acres.

Pereira Farms Corp. v. Simas

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THE COURT.

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