Alspach v. Landrum

McCOMB, J. From a decree in favor of defendant and cross-complainant, hereinafter referred to as defendant, and against plaintiff and cross-defendant, hereinafter referred to as plaintiff, in an action to quiet title to real property, plaintiff appeals.

These are the essential facts :

Plaintiff filed an action to quiet title to 115 acres of land described in the tax collector’s deed mentioned below. Defendant filed- an answer and a cross-complaint seeking to quiet title in himself to the same property.

At the time of the trial plaintiff offered, in support of his title, the following documents: (1) a deed of mineral rights in the property from Robert F. O’Brien to Southern Trust Company, a corporation; (2) a quitclaim deed from the [903]Security-First National Bank of Los Angeles, as successor to Southern Trust Company, to Mr. Alspach of the mineral rights in the property; (3) a quitclaim deed dated October 24, 1945, to the property executed by Lucile A. Whipple to Mr. Alspach; and (4) a tax receipt from the tax collector of Los Angeles County showing the property in question and other property assessed to Mr. Alspach in the year 1946.

On behalf of defendant there was received in evidence: (1) a stipulation that in the year 1938 the property described in the cross-complaint was deeded to the state of California for taxes; (2) a deed dated April 15, 1941, executed by H. L. Byram, Tax Collector, County of Los Angeles, State of California, to Mr. Landrum, describing the property in question.

There are three questions presented for our determination: First: Did plaintiff introduce evidence which would have sustained a finding that the title to the property in question was vested in him?

This question must be answered in the negative, and is governed by these pertinent rules of law:

(1) Plaintiff in a quiet-title action must depend on the strength of his own title and not on the weakness of that of defendant. Thus, if he fails to prove title in himself he is not entitled to recover. (Swann v. Carson, 56 Cal.App.2d 502, 504 [132 P.2d 863].)

(2) In the absence of evidence of either (a) possession by plaintiff or his predecessors of the property in dispute, (b) a deed to plaintiff from the person under whom his adversary claims, duly signed, acknowledged and recorded, together with proof that plaintiff purchased and paid for the property, or (c) a sheriff’s deed under a foreclosure of a mortgage, and evidence of possession under the deed, it is necessary for plaintiff, in order to show ownership, to introduce evidence of a patent from the government and mesne transfers to himself, or of a certificate of purchase from a governmental authority in order to establish a prima facie case. (See 22 Cal.Jur., 1925, p. 178, § 49, notes 4, 5, 6, and 7.)