Stillwell v. Jackson

CONREY, J. This is an appeal by H. S. Stillwell, plaintiff, and by Marguerite Goux, Robert E. Goux, and Augustine Charles Goux, a minor, defendants and cross-complainants, whose interests are identical with those of said plaintiff, from a judgment of the Superior Court of Santa Barbara County.

As shown by the pleadings of plaintiff and of said cross-complainants, they seek to quiet title to a narrow strip of land, which is part of a sand beach fronting on the Pacific Ocean, as against defendants who own lands adjoining said described parcel, and who claim that the said lands owned by them include the parcel of which appellants assert ownership in themselves.

[167]All of the lands in controversy, as well as the adjoining lots of respondents, were formerly included in a large tract owned by the town of Santa Barbara. In the year 1866 this tract was conveyed by the town, by one deed, to several grantees, who thereby became owners as tenants in common of the entire tract. Appellants derive their claims of title from certain of those tenants in common, or their successors. Respondents, with respect to their several lots, deraign title from one or another of said original grantees of the town of Santa Barbara.

In the year 1891, a certain action, Coyle et al. v. Southern Pacific R. R. Co. et al., was begun in the superior court, for partition of all of the land conveyed by said deed of the town of Santa Barbara. In the course of time that action was tried, an interlocutory decree ascertaining the several undivided interests was duly entered, commissioners were appointed, surveys made, commissioners ’ report filed, and a final decree was entered. It is admitted herein that in all of the partition proceedings, including the interlocutory decree, the strip of land claimed by appellants herein was part of the land which was sought to be and was ordered to be parceled out in severalty. The asserted title of appellants depends wholly upon the soundness of their contention that the land described in the complaint in this action was omitted from the final decree of partition in said former action.

In the final decree of partition there are several recitals and declarations which prove the continuing intention of the court to partition “the lands and premises mentioned in the complaint”. If there was any failure to include all of that land, such failure must be ascribed to some error in describing one or more of the parcels, so that the court did not accomplish the announced purpose and intention of the decree. It can be only through some such error that any of the parties could have retained, as tenants in common, their title to the land now in controversy.