De Sanchez v. Grace Methodist Episcopal Church

Britt, C. Action of ejectment, begun March 11, 1886, for a parcel of land in the city of Los Angeles. Judgment was for plaintiff. Appellant contends that plaintiff never had title in the disputed premises; that if she did acquire such title yet it was lost by her conveyance thereof, or by adverse user; and lastly that it, the defendant, never ousted the plaintiff or had possession of the premises.

1. In April, 1872, the city council of Los Angeles passed an ordinance vacating portions of a highway in said city, commonly known as Messer’s lane (styled in the ordinance “old First street”) and establishing instead thereof a new street called First street. Plaintiff then owned a number of lots including those designated [297]as lots 23 and 24—the latter a fractional lot—in block 4 of the “Sanchez tract,” which lots and block abutted on the north side of Messer’s lane; the “Sanchez tract” extended thence northerly, having an area of fourteen, acres, intersected, by other streets, and bounded on the east by Alameda street. The land on the south side of Messer’s lane opposite plaintiff’s tract was owned by T. D. Mott and Albert Johnson. The new street established by said ordinance was laid out a little to the south of said lane, so that there intervened, between the south line of plaintiff’s said lots and the north line of First street thus fixed, a piece of land which included the whole of the former lane in that part of its course, and also a narrow wedge-like strip off the Mott & Johnson tract. April 26, 1872, said Mott & Johnson executed a deed to plaintiff conveying, “as the separate estate of the grantee,” their interest in the whole of such intervening parcel; and on May 3,1872, the city conveyed to plaintiff its “right, title, claim, and demand” in and to the same premises. The deed of the city recited a consideration of one dollar paid with the grantee’s “separate funds and for her separate use”; though it was really the result of exchange for other land of plaintiff, contained in the new street, convéyed to the city about the same time by her deed, in which her husband, Tomas Sanchez, joined. The premises in controversy on this appeal are included in the calls of said deeds of the city and Mott & Johnson to plaintiff; and are bounded north by said lots 23 and 24, south by First street, and on the other sides, respectively, by the west line of lot 23 and the east line of lot 24, if those lines were produced to First street.

It is argued that the title became vested in plaintiff’s husband as community property. Prima facie, the deed of Mott & Johnson to Mrs. Sanchez, which conveyed at least that part of their tract between the new street and the vacated lane, made the estate granted her separate property (Swain v. Duane, 48 Cal. 358); and no attempt was made to rebut the presumption. Whether the deed