Lackman v. Wood

By the Court, Shafter, J. This is an action of ejectment, brought to recover certain lands in the “Western Addition,” so called, situate in the City and County of San' Francisco.

The defendants answered severally. William G. and Emily Wood denied all the allegations of the complaint, and the answer of Joseph M. Wood, in addition to a general denial, alleges the title to be in him.

The plaintiffs, at the trial, in proof of their right, relied upon a lease executed by one White to the defendant, William G. Wood, on the 25th day of November, 1851, and upon an ássignment to them, by White, of the reversion; and upon the fact that the term created by the lease had expired before the commencement of the action.

For the purpose of bringing the defendant, Joseph M. Wood, within the operation of the facts named, the plaintiff introduced evidence tending to prove that Joseph M. Wood was the son of William G. Wood, and that, at the date of the lease, he was about seventeen years of age, and that Joseph M., so being a minor, went upon the lands as a member of his father’s family, and not otherwise.

We consider that the plaintiffs might have safely rested [150]their case upon this testimony; but they went further, and introduced evidence, not so much for the purpose of making out a good case prima facie in their own favor against J. M. Wood, as for the purpose of showing that he was estopped in pais from alleging that the land was his.

The testimony upon the subject of the estoppel was drawn by the plaintiffs from their witness, Williams, who testified that White, the plaintiff’s assignor, in company with William Gr. and Joseph M. Wood, called upon him in June, 1851—five months before the lease was in fact executed—and that in the course of a conversation that ensued between the witness, William Gr. Wood and White, White exhibited to the witness “a roll of papei-s as the plan of his land, and introduced the Woods, father and son, to the witness, and said they were to be the neighbors of the witness; that he, White, had leased the premises to Wood and his family, and hoped that he, the witness, would find them agreeable neighbors.” * * # * “Joseph M. Wood stood by his father, and said nothing.”

The plaintiffs, having closed their case, Joseph M. Wood, as we gather from the record, undertook to sustain his plea of title on the ground—first, that he was emancipated by his father prior to the execution of the lease, November 25th, 1851; second, that prior to the date of the lease, and after his emancipation, he entered upon the premises in his own right, and that he has ever since held and occupied them, adversely to the lessee, to White, and all other parties.