Otey v. Carmel Sanitary District

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WASTE, C. J.

Defendant appeals from a judgment quieting plaintiff’s title to certain beach lands at and near the mouth of the Carmel River in Monterey County. Plaintiff claims title by accession or accretion to the upland while the defendant claims through a legislative grant of tideland. The trial court found in favor of the plaintiff and gave judgment accordingly.

The principal question on this appeal has to do with the sufficiency of the evidence to support the trial court’s findings. Section 1014 of the Civil Code declares that “Where, from natural causes, land forms by imperceptible degrees upon the bank of a river or stream, navigable or not navigable, either by accumulation of material or by the recession of the stream, such land belongs to the owner of the bank, subject to any existing right of way over the bank.” Appellant contends that the record is destitute of evidence tending to show that the land here in dispute formed “from natural causes” and “by imperceptible degrees” as required by the code section. It urges that “the accumulation in the case at bar is not of solid material. It is loose sand in the bed of the river, without vegetation, shifting with the changes of tide and wind. The accumulation is no permanent part of the land, but is a mere drift which at the caprice of the wind and tide changes constantly in breadth and depth. Such drifts are not accretion.”

Examination of the record discloses that defendant introduced evidence tending to define and characterize the land here in dispute as above described. However, in view of the lower court’s findings we must, under well-settled principles, accept plaintiff’s evidence which very definitely indicates that the land involved falls within the code definition of alluvion.

Carmel Martin, called upon a previous trial of the cause and whose testimony was admitted at the second trial upon stipulation of the parties, testified, in substance, that he was born near the mouth of the Carmel River in 1879; that he has always lived there except when away at school; that there is more sand now in the Otey property than there was in 1907; that it is higher up at the northern boundary and wider on the east and west; that the expanse of sand is

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