City of Sacramento v. Clunie

GAROUTTE, J. This is an action of ejectment brought hy the city of Sacramento to recover the possession of certain lands •claimed to be public streets. The city’s right to recover is based upon an alleged dedication hy the owners to the public as streets. Defendant, and his grantors have been in the adverse and exclusive possession thereof, claiming title thereto, for more than forty years, and have erected improvements thereon to the value of at least twenty thousand dollars. The trial court found as a fact that the lands described in the complaint were never dedicated to public use, and rendered judgment against the city. The sufficiency of the evidence to support this finding is the main matter at issue here, and, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, as developed hy the foregoing facts, we will not disturb the finding of “no dedication” made hy the trial court, unless the pressure of the evidence upon us forces such result.

It is insisted that an equitable estoppel has arisen in the path of plaintiff to bar a recovery. And Los Angeles v. Cohn, 101 Cal. 373, is relied upon to support the contention. While the conduct of the city in waiting forty years before bringing this [31]action is not at all commendable, especially in view of the fact that during this long interim large sums of money were expended upon the property in permanent improvements by the defendant and his grantors, still it is only in exceptional cases that ■the doctrine of equitable estoppel may be invoked against a municipality, and this case in its facts is not Los Angeles v. Cohn, supra. Again, we will not concern ourselves as to the true chain of title. While there appear to have been two distinct chains of title to these lands, yet both chains begin with Sutter in 1848 and terminate in this defendant. As we view the case, this difference of title becomes immaterial. There also appears to be a somewhat intangible claim upon the part of the plaintiff that all the lands of the city lying west of the east line of Front street, and extending to the river bank, form a part of that street. This position is inconsistent with the main position taken by the city, and certainly is not w'ell founded.

Brannan, Bruce, and four others, claiming to own under deeds from Sutter a tract of land lying west of Front street and east of the Sacramento river, had the same laid out into blocks divided by streets. A map of these blocks and streets—the blocks numbered and the streets named—was made by Buth, a surveyor, and filed in the recorder’s office of Sacramento county May 3, 1851. The tract of land depicted upon this map has subsequently been known in the history of Sacramento city as Bran-nan’s addition to the city. Subsequently, some of the blocks outlined upon this map were quitclaimed by five of these owners to Gillespie, also an original owner. The map as recorded was used for the purposes of description, and that transfer included the land here in dispute. But soon thereafter Gillespie conveyed to Haggin the land in dispute, with other lands by metes and bounds. The assessor of the city of Sacramento assessed the lands in the so-called Brannan’s addition according to the description found upon, the Buth map. In the year 1854 the city adopted an official map wherein Brannan’s addition according to the Buth map is found. The adoption of this map as the official map of the city would undoubtedly have more weight as evidence of acceptance of the streets in Brannan’s addition, if prior to that time Gillespie had not sold these lands, including the streets, to Haggin; for such sale is some evidence of intent