City of Los Angeles v. McCollum

SLOSS, J.

Action by the city of Los Angeles to recover possession of a parcel of land claimed to be part of a public street. Judgment went for plaintiff, and four of the defendants appeal from the judgment and from an order denying their motion for a new trial.

The court finds that on June 27,1884, the defendant Elmira Hall, then the oxvner of a tract of land including the parcel in controversy, caused to be recorded a plat or map, in which said tract was divided into lots and blocks, and streets were laid out in connection with the plat for the use of prospective purchasers of said lots and blocks. By such recording, she offered to dedicate as public highways of the city of Los Angeles the streets shown upon the map. The strip of land in controversy was shoxvn upon the map as a public street and formed a continuation or extension of Johnston Street, a then public and accepted street of the city. The street was thereupon opened for public travel, and remained so until August, 1894. In December, 1890, the city council, by ordinance, accepted said street so offered to be dedicated as a public street. The offer to dedicate was never withdrawn or rescinded prior to August, 1894.

The appellants attack as unsupported by the evidence the findings that there was an offer to dedicate, and that such offer, if any was made, was not revoked prior to acceptance. We think the evidence fully sustains each of these findings. The questions presented can be best explained by a reproduction of the essential features of the map filed by Mrs. Hall in June, 1884.

The land in controversy is the undesignated strip, 94 links in width, running along the westerly line of lot 21. That this strip, south of its intersection with “Hall Street,” as shown on the map, was and is a public street, known as Johnston Street, is not disputed by appellants, but they contend that no street was created north of Hall Street. It seems perfectly clear that the court was at least authorized, if not bound, to.

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conclude, from a mere inspection of the map itself, that its filing constituted an offer to dedicate, as a public street, the whole of the strip bordering on lots 1 and 21. Dedication is, in each ease, a question of intention