Valentine v. Jansen

California Supreme Court Dec 2, 1869 No. No. 1723Published

Before: Crockett, Rhodes, Sanderson, Sawyer, Sprague

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Holding. The court affirmed the judgment and order denying a new trial, holding that the trial court did not err in its evidentiary rulings or jury instructions, despite noting that a party is entitled to have the actual evidence included in a statement on motion for a new trial when the tendency of that evidence is in dispute.

Issues

Whether the trial court erred in admitting certain deeds, survey documents, and judgment records into evidence.
Whether the jury instructions and the submission of the case to the jury were proper.
Whether the trial court erred in its refusal to allow amendments to the statement on motion for a new trial regarding the inclusion of evidence.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“Whether it embraced the land or not was a question for the jury upon all the testimony.”

“In a disputed case, we think the plaintiff is entitled to have his statement prepared in such a way that this court can determine for itself whether the evidence tends to show the facts as claimed, or not.”

“Judgment and order denying a new trial affirmed.”

Synopsis

APPEAL from Fourth Judicial District, San Francisco County.

This was an action of ejectment. Foley settled upon the Foley tract in 1849 and in June, 1853, sold to Welch. Clyne had been a tenant of Foley’s, both living on the premises, and after the sale remained as the tenant of Welch. Subsequently Clyne asserted ownership, wherefore proceedings were. started to dispossess him. He died in the midst of these, so that renewed proceedings were had against his executors ; judgment was recovered against these in 1863: See Brooks v. Crosby, 22 Cal. 42. According to the testimony in the present case, immediately after that decision was rendered, and before the sheriff had executed the writ of restitution, which was executed August 10, 1863, in the morning before daylight the defendant Jansen, an adjoining proprietor, entered upon a part of the premises involved in the controversy, removed the fence which, ever since 1850, had been the common boundary between this property and his, which was to the south. He put up another fence farther north than the one removed, on the line of Napa street. The strip between the lines respectively of the old and the new fence was the subject of the dispute succeeding. Jansen was dispossessed and brought forcible entry and detainer, in which he was unsuccessful: Janson v. Brooks, 29 Cal. 214. Jansen entered again, and, Brooks having meantime conveyed to Valentine, this suit was begun. At the trial one William P. Humphreys testified for the plaintiff that in 1853 he was county surveyor of San Francisco county; he identified his survey, brought out from among the official records of the surveyor’s office, marked “1605; July 11, 1853, surveyed for Mr. Jansen as per diagram,” which survey was referred to as fixing the boundary lines in the deed from one Thorne to Jansen, through which deed the defendant held his undisputed property. Subsequently the same witness produced from among old private papers of his the field-notes from which the official survey already in evidence had been made out. The admission of these field-notes in evidence was assigned as error. In the same connection the court instructed the jury that if they believed from the evidence that, when that deed was delivered to Jansen, the latter was aware of its contents, then his accepting it and putting it upon record were competent evidence tending to show what land he claimed as his own, and that the land adjoining on the north was otherwise owned and occupied; the court charging also, at the defendant’s request, that such acceptance did not work an estoppel to claim some other description to be the true one, if the fact so was. The other points in the case on which the decision turns are sufficiently made to appear by the decision itself.

SAWYER, C. J. This is an action to recover land, both parties relying on prior possession dating many years back. The questions are the usual issues of fact arising in such cases, relating to possession, abandonment, etc.

We think the survey, traced copy with corrections, and field-notes, in connection with the testimony of Mr. Humphreys, the surveyor, were properly admitted. We think, also, that there was no error in submitting the deed from Thorne to defendant, carefully guarded as it was by the charge of the court and the critical instructions given at the request of defendant’s counsel. Thus guarded, we are of the opinion that the taking of the deed, with the description contained in it, is a circumstance which the jury were entitled to consider with the other evidence relating to the location of the respective claims. We cannot say that the deed from Foley and wife to Welch was void upon its face for uncertainty. There are several descriptions in it, which may, upon applying it to the land, for aught that appears upon the face of the deed, identify it perfectly. Whether it covers the land or not, as in most cases, must depend upon other evidence. It rarely happens, we apprehend, that it can be ascertained by the court, upon inspection of the deed, without other evidence, whether it embraces the land in question or not. Whether it embraced the land or not was a question for the jury upon all the testimony. There was no error in admitting the deed at the time it was offered in evidence.

We think the judgment-roll, writ of possession, and return showing Brooks was put in possession in the case of Brooks [528]v. Crosby, executor, etc., was relevant and admissible for the purpose for which it was introduced — that is to say, to prove the existence of such a judgment, and that Brooks was put in possession under it: Brooks v. Calderwood, 34 Cal. 566; Moon v. Rollins, October Term, 1868. Suppose no other title had been shown, it would then have appeared that Brooks, plaintiff’s grantor, was put in possession under this judgment, that is to say, that he was in possession under color of right at least, and that Jansen afterward entered and ousted him. Without any other testimony, this would have made out a prima facie case and entitled plaintiff to recover. This would make it necessary for Jansen to show some superior title or possession, prior t'o any of the plaintiff. The fact that both parties actually endeavored to show a possession antedating the proceedings in that case cannot affect the question of relevancy. Both parties might have failed on this part of the ease. But even if the matter was irrelevant to the issues, the use to which it could be put was so clearly limited, and the real questions on the other evidence as to prior possession was so carefully and distinctly put to the jury, and the jury so well guarded on this point in the general charge of the court, as well as the. clear and carefully prepared instructions given at the request of counsel, that it is scarcely possible that the jury should have made any improper application of the testimony. We think there was no error in rejecting the deed from Shear to Center.

Valentine v. Jansen

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