Geraghty v. Gray

SCHOTTKY, J. This is an appeal from a judgment quieting appellants’ title to property in Yuba County which adjoins that of respondent. The real issue in the case is not the metes and bounds description set forth in plaintiffs’ complaint, but the actual physical location of the section corner common to Sections 20, 21, 28 and 29, Township 16 North, Range 6 East, M.D.B.&M. The section corner was found by the trial court as being located at the point claimed by defendant. Plaintiffs contend that the trial court should have found the section corner to have been located at a point some 300 feet southerly on a tangent from the location claimed by defendant. Plaintiffs’ motion for a new trial was denied.

[345]The record shows that sometime in 1952, defendant, Claude C. Gray, purchased a parcel of property from Mr. and Mrs. William Bushby. This property adjoined and partially surrounded certain property of the plaintiffs known as the “Cleopatra Mine.” Plaintiffs also owned other lands in the sections immediately to the north of the section containing the lands of the defendant and the Cleopatra Mine. Thereafter, plaintiff Samuel Gunning arranged to have Mr. Bushby bring defendant Gray up to the location of the section corner in question. Gray testified that Gunning stated where the corner was and took a picture of Gray and Gray’s son with Gray’s foot touching the corner. At the spot indicated there was a square iron stake with appropriate markings indicating the section corner together with a rock mound surrounding it.

Thereafter, Gray proceeded to have his northerly boundary line (which was the section line) surveyed by Mr. Dewey of the California Engineering Service so that a boundary fence could be put up. After the completion of this survey, Gray, sometime in May, 1954, discovered that the above mentioned section marker had been removed. He reported this fact to the Tuba County sheriff’s office and upon advice of California Engineering Service replaced the removed marker with an unmarked pipe in the original hole.

Mr. Von Geldern, one of plaintiffs’ surveyors, made a survey of the Cleopatra Mining Claim in 1954. Von Geldern located a point which he believed to be the corner section common and dropped a pin there. About this time his men found a rock mound nearby. There was no pin in this mound, but Von Geldern testified that he was able to drop a pin there without any resistance. This is the point now claimed by plaintiffs to be the true section corner common and is located on a tangent approximately 300 feet southwesterly from the point claimed by the defendant and found to be the true location by the trial court.