Southern California Mountain Water Co. v. Lincoln University

HENSHAW,

action was brought to settle conflicting claims to real estate, the land involved being a portion of the Jamul Rancho, which under proceedings in probate in the estate of Henry S. Burton, deceased, had been by the probate court set apart as a homestead to his widow. The history of the title to the Jamul Rancho will be found set forth in the case of

McDonald

v.

McCoy,

121 Cal. 55. Therein also will be found the law determining title to the rancho in so far as in any case such title may depend upon the same facts as those set forth in that decision. In

McDonald

v.

McCoy

it is held that title by patent from the United States vested in the widow and two named children of Henry S. Burton absolutely and free from any trust attaching to the estate of the deceased husband and father. As a necessary corollary to this, the Jamul Rancho formed no part of the estate of Henry S. Burton, deceased, and the court in probate was powerless to administer upon it. The widow and children had executed a mortgage upon the rancho to Maurice Dore. That mortgage had been foreclosed, and the legal title to the rancho had passed to Leach and Capron, who in turn had executed a mortgage upon the whole rancho to one Bayley, the agent of Dore. The title in turn acquired after proceedings in foreclosure and sale under the Bayley mortgage was the foundation of plaintiff’s claim in

McDonald

v.

McCoy,

the defendants in that action claiming title through a probate sale of a portion of the rancho made by order of court in the administration of the estate of Burton. In the present case plaintiff’s claim rests upon the same foundation, it having become grantee of the sheriff’s deed under execution and sale following the foreclosure of the Bayley mortgage. Defendant's title rests for its sufficiency upon the validity of the proceedings and order of the probate court in the estate of Henry Burton,

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