County of Riverside v. Title Insurance & Trust Co.

SEAWELL, J.

This appeal was taken by the defendant Title Insurance and Trust Company, a corporation, from a judgment entered in favor of the County of Riverside decreeing the foreclosure of a lien upon defendant’s real property as security for the payment of a charge of $1,260.71, including interest and costs, on account of expenses and costs incurred by said county in the abatement of a nuisance after notice to and failure or refusal on the part of defendant to exterminate, destroy, and eradicate from the soil of said real property a certain noxious weed known as Russian thistles, and ground-squirrels, a common animal pest (secs. 2322, 2322a, Pol. Code; Stats. 1917, p. 627). By the second amended complaint filed in the court below it was alleged that defendant corporation was the owner of a tract of land situate in the County of Riverside, this state, particularly described as “lots 1 to 12 inclusive; lots 29 to 50

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inclusive;

lots 67 to 84 inclusive; lots 114 to 119 inclusive; lots 124 to 125 inclusive, of Fairhaven Farms, West Riverside, as shown by map on file in Book 6, page 2 of Maps, records of Riverside County.” The sixty lots above enumerated contain five acres each, totaling 300 acres, and lay north of Limonite Street, while the remaining fifty acres, which, according to the map on file are subdivided into ten lots of five acres each, lie south of said street, eight of which abut thereon. The court found that said 300 acres lying north of said street, notwithstanding the legal subdivisions into which they had been mapped, constituted a single tract or parcel of land. As a matter of fact no contention is made that there are any physical lines or marks or objects separating one lot from another in said 300-acre tract against which the lien herein is asserted. It appears that Limonite Street, which forms the southern boundary of said 300-acre tract, was not merely a platted street but it was actually in use as a thoroughfare. It also appears that a portion of the exterior limits is partially marked by a fence. But we do not regard this as a circumstance of great moment, inasmuch as said lots are specifically referred to by numbers in both the notice to abate the nuisance and in the notice of lien. The argument of appellant is that the entire acreage of said Fairhaven Farms tract constitutes one entity and no part is severable from another, and that an entry upon any one lot is an entry upon the whole. Therefore, it is argued, the entry by the county upon the ten lots south of Limonite Street having been made without authority of law, for the reason that it was made before the expiration of the ten-days’ period allowed by law to the owner to abate the nuisance, the proceedings taken by the horticultural commissioner commanding the owner to exterminate said ground-squirrels and destroy the Russian thistles growing on said lands are invalid