City of San Francisco v. Sharp

BRITT, C. Action by the city and county of San Francisco to quiet title to the tract of land which was designated on the Van Hess map of 1856 as a “hospital lot,” and which was originally part of the pueblo lands of the city within the corporate limits as defined by the act of April 15, 1851. Such tract was within the scope of ordinance Ho. 833 of the common council of the city approved June 30, 1855—the Van Hess ordinance, and the other ordinances following thereon, relating to the disposition of said pueblo lands, all of which were ratified in terms by the act of the state legislature approved March 11, 1858. (Stats. 1858, p. 53.) Defendant has possession of a portion of said tract, and the possession so held by her is continuous with that of her predecessors in interest, beginning at a time prior to January 1, 1855. The court below rendered judgment declaring that plaintiff is the owner of the land in suit “in trust for the use and benefit of the people of the state of California, and the inhabitants of the city and county of San Francisco, for the purposes of a public hospital”; and that defendant has no right or interest in any part of the same.

On appeal, defendant abandons sundry of the defenses set up in her answer, and admits that as a result of the legislation above referred to, and the confirmatory act of Congress of July 1, 1864, the said lot was dedicated to public use for purposes of a hospital; but she claims, as we understand the argument, that she is entitled to occupy the part thereof in her possession as aforesaid until the city shall pay to her the value of the same—found by the court to be the sum of seventy-five thousand dollars—and that the judgment was erroneous in not re[536]quiring the city to compensate her to the amount of such value as a condition precedent to quieting its title against her.

The several ordinances mentioned are recited at length in the said act of 1858; and the steps taken by the common council of the city and the commission appointed by it, for the selection of public grounds to be reserved from the general granting provisions of ordinance No. 822, have been described in a number of cases involving the effect thereof as ratified by the legislature, and need not be here rehearsed. (See Hoadley v. San Francisco, 50 Cal. 265; 124 U. S. 639; Sawyer v. San Franciso, 50 Cal. 370; Board of Education v. Martin, 92 Cal. 209.) The claim of the defendant to pecuniary compensation, as above stated, rests on the provision of section 6 of ordinance No. 822 that “the city shall not, without due compensation, occupy for the purposes mentioned in this section” (which included sites for hospitals) “more than one-twentieth part of the land in the possession of any one person.” The court found that at the; time the said hospital lot was selected and dedicated to public use the portion of the same then in the possession of defendant’s said predecessors in interest “comprised more than one-twentieth of the lands in their possession between January 1st and June 20, 1855.”