City of Eureka v. Gates (1902) · DecisionDepot

City of Eureka v. Gates

Name: California Superior Court Tentative Rulings
Creator: DecisionDepot
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

California Supreme Court Jul 23, 1902 No. S.F. No. 2189.Published

Before: THE COURT.

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Holding. The court held that the appellant's deeds constituted a valid offer to dedicate the land as a public street and alley, which was effectively accepted by the city's ordinances. Furthermore, the appellant failed to prove the mutual mistake required to reform the deeds, and her claim for reformation was barred by the statute of limitations.

Issues

Whether the description of land in deeds as bounded by a street and alley constitutes an offer to dedicate the land to public use.
Whether the city's ordinances constituted a valid and timely acceptance of the dedication.
Whether the appellant established sufficient grounds for the reformation of her deeds based on mutual mistake.
Whether the appellant's claim for reformation of the deeds was barred by the statute of limitations.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“it was there held that such a description as the one before us was at least an offer to dedicate”

“the ordinance of April 7, 1885, was sufficient acceptance, and we think was manifested within a reasonable time”

“The statute would bar the relief sought in the cross-complaint.”

Synopsis

The facts are stated, in the opinion of the court.'

Henry L. Ford, L. M. Burnell, and E. M. Frost, for Appellant.

THE COURT.

action is to recover possession of a certain part of Tenth Street, between I and J streets, in the city of Eureka, and a certain part of an alley leading to said part of Tenth Street. Defendant Mrs. Gates answered by specific denials of the allegations of the complaint, pleaded adverse possession, and also the statute of limitations. By way of cross-complaint she seeks to correct a description given in a •certain deed to one Close, April 7, 1881, by which she described the land conveyed as bounded by Tenth Street and the alley referred to in the complaint, and also to correct a certain other deed to Le Roy Gates, December 3, 1885, by which the land conveyed was bounded by Tenth Street. The ground on which the prayer of the cross-complaint is based is the mutual mistake of grantor and grantee in each instance in thus describing the land conveyed. This correction of

[91]

these deeds is sought in the action, we presume, for the purpose of destroying their evidence of ‘dedication. The following diagram will make the issue more easily understood:—

Defendant Phoehe A. Sharp, answering the cross-complaint, alleges that said Le Roy Gates conveyed to her, September 22, 1886, the land in the second deed above referred to,"and by the same description as given in Ann Gates’s deed to Le Roy; and denies specifically the allegations of the cross-complaint. Defendant Nettie Drew answers the cross-complaint, and alleges that said Close conveyed to her, on October 2, 1894, a frontage on I Street and on the said alley of sixty feet, part of the premises conveyed by Ann Gates to Close; she alleges that to reform Ann Gates’s deed to Close, as prayed

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for by Mrs. Gates, would be an irreparable injury to her property. Defendant Margaret Balcom answers the cross-complaint, alleging that she became the -owner September 22, 1894, by mesne conveyances of the remaining land conveyed by Ann Gates to Close, and denies the allegations of the cross-complaint, and avers irreparable injury should the Ann Gates deed be reformed.

City of Eureka v. Gates

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Synopsis

THE COURT.

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