Tognazzini v. Morganti

Beatty, C. J. This is an action to recover a tract of land in Santa Barbara County. Defendants had judgment in the superior court, from which, and from an order denying a new trial, plaintiff appeals, assigning [160]errors in the rulings of the court, and contending that the findings are contrary to the evidence.

Plaintiff is owner of a Mexican grant known as the Casmalia rancho. This rancho was patented to his grantors in 1861, with boundaries as described and delineated in a survey and map made in 1860 by a deputy United States surveyor named Terrell. Terrell’s survey commenced at the northwest cornet of the rancho, and ran a certain distance easterly to the northeast corner, designated as “0. No. 2,” the location of which is known and undisputed. His next course was south 50° east, 395 55 chains, to corner No. 3, which -was also corner No. 5 of an adjoining rancho, called Todos Santos, and the stake set at this corner at that time was marked “ T. S. No. 5, and C. No. 3.” After some years this stake disappeared, and the government, desiring to connect the surveys of public lands with the northeast boundary of the Casmalia rancho (the line between C. 2 and C. 3, T. S. 5), caused several surveys to be made for the purpose of re-establishing the lost corner. In 1868 Thompson, who had accompanied Terrell in the capacity of chain-man in the original survey of the Casmalia rancho, re-established the common corner (C. 3, T. S. 5) of that and the Todos Santos. This, however, was done in a survey of Todos Santos, and it is not clear that it was done by direction of the government. But in 1880 Von Schmidt, starting from C. 2, and running the course and distance called for by the patent and Terrell’s field-notes (south 50° east, 395.55 chains), established C. 3 at a point 20.30 chains easterly from the stake 0. 3, T. S. 5, established by Thompson. This survey of Von Schmidt ■ was rejected by the government, and another surveyor (Minto) was directed to run a correct line, and to obliterate Von Schmidt’s work. Minto, after a careful survey, established a straight line running from C. 2 to the Thompson stake (C. 3, T. S. 5), as the correct boundary. The result was to excude from the Casmalia rancho, as [161]surveyed by Von Schmidt, a triangle having its apex at C. 2, and for its base a line 20.20 chains in length extending from Von Schmidt’s 0. 3 to Thompson’s and Minto’s C. 3, T. S. 5, and for its sides the Von Schmidt line on the east and the Minto line on the west.