Howes v. Reeves

BABNABD, P. J. — The plaintiff brought this action to quiet her title in and to certain cabins located on two cabin sites in a national forest, including the furniture in the cabins. The named defendants filed separate answers denying the plaintiff’s ownership of the property in question and asserting ownership in themselves, respectively. The court found in favor of the defendants and entered judgment that defendant Beeves is the Permittee-lessee of one of the lots in question and the owner and entitled to the possession of the cabins, improvements, and furniture thereon, and that the defendant Howes is the Permittee-lessee of the other lot and the owner and entitled to the possession of the cabins, improvements and furniture situated thereon. From this judgment the plaintiff has appealed.

The question presented is whether the evidence supports the findings that the appellant is not the owner of the articles in question and that the respective respondents are the owners thereof. The question of ownership depends upon whether these articles were or were not owned by one Edgar IT. Howes at the time of his death in 1935. The appellant is his widow and it is not disputed that she has succeeded to such rights in the property as he possessed at the time of his death. The respondent, Edgar T. Howes, is a son of Edgar IT. Howes and, for convenience, we will refer to the latter as Mr. Howes.

[682]The cabin sites, on which the property here in question is situated, are known as lots 231 and 233 of a certain tract in the San Bernardino mountains, a part of a national forest. Prior to 1916, Mr. Howes leased from the forest service a cabin site in this tract known as lot 232, under a written permit calling for an annual rental of $15. On this lot he erected what is referred to as the “large cabin”, with other improvements. In 1916, he leased under a similar permit lot 233 in this tract, on which .he erected two smaller cabins. For some years he maintained the cabins on both lots as a mountain home for the joint use of all of his family, including his son, one of the respondents here. In 1926, he married the appellant, who is his second wife. A month or two later, his son Edgar T. Howes also married and went east on his honeymoon. A month later the forest service wrote to Mr. Howes advising him that under its rules allowing only one site to a permittee and his family he could not hold both lots 232 and 233, that it would be necessary to cancel the permit for one of the lots, asking him to advise them “which one you will give up” and telling him there was nothing to prevent a relative “outside of your immediate family taking the other lot”. He replied asking them to have the lease for lot 233 “put in name of ” Edgar T. Howes. A new permit or lease for lot 233 was issued in the name of Edgar T. Howes and it remained in his name until 1937 when, at his request, a permit was issued to his brother-in-law, the respondent Reeves. In 1927 a third cabin was built on lot 233 by Mr. Howes. All three cabins on that lot were one-room cabins, used for sleeping purposes.