California Acad. of Scis. v. City of San Francisco

Harrison, J. Ejectment.

The land claimed by the plaintiff is embraced within the pueblo claim of the city of San Francisco, which was confirmed to the city by the decree of the circuit court, May 18, 1865. It is situate west of the charter line of 1851, and is within that portion of the city and county commonly known as outside lands, and is a portion of the land referred to in the act of Congress of March 8, 1866. (14 U. S. Stats. 4.) After the passage of this act the supervisors passed an ordinance known as “order No. 800,” which was ratified by the legislature by an act approved March 27, 1868. (Stats. 1868, p. 379.) By the first section of this ordinance the board of supervisors were authorized and directed to devise and adopt a plan for the subdivision of these outside lands into blocks and lots, “ and to select and set apart for public uses such lots and portions of said land as said board may deem necessary.” The second section provided that after the adoption of the plan the board of supervisors should cause a map of the lands to be made according to this plan, “ and upon such map shall be designated the lots and portions of land set apart for public uses, and the particular use for which each lot or portion of land shall have been set apart.” Provision was also made for hearing applications for changes in the plan, and making alterations therein, and delineating them upon the map, and that, when such alterations should have been delineated, the map should become the official map, and the portions of land thereon designated for public purposes should be deemed to have been dedicated as such. By virtue of the provisions of this ordinance the committee on outside lands prepared a map, which they presented to the board of supervisors, and accompanied the same with a report showing the various selections of lots and portions of land set apart for public uses, and designating one of these selections to be “for the use of the Academy of Sciences.” Before the final adoption of the map the lot involved in this action was, upon the recommendation [337]of the committee on outside lands, substituted, for the one that had been originally reported by them, and was delineated thereon, and the map was by ordinance declared to be the official map, and all the lots and lands designated on said map were declared to be set apart and dedicated to the uses for which they bad been designated on the map. Upon this map the words “Academy of Sciences” were placed within the space corresponding to the description of the lot involved herein. Other acts were performed by the supervisors indicative of an intention to set apart the lot in question for public uses, and upon other official maps subsequently made the lot is marked “Academy of Sciences.” By virtue of these acts of the city and its officers the plaintiff claims the right to the possession of the lot. The plaintiff was never in the occupancy of the lot; but in December, 1887, a resolution was passed by its trustees and entered in its records, “ accepting the dedication” of the lot, and a copy of this resolution was presented to the board of supervisors and filed with its clerk. In February, 1888, the supervisors passed a resolution granting the use of the lot to the board of education, and thereafter this latter body erected a schoolhouse thereon, and is still occupying the lot.