Lying under oath

Many years ago I became a party to a lawsuit between feuding neighbors that had been heard in the local court, had been sent up to the appeals court and had been sent back down to hopefully be resolved. The plaintiff wanted a fence removed and put back where the old fence line and huge trees had stood since Noah was a boy.  The neighbor knew when my client and his wife would be absent for two weeks.  The day after they left, a dozer arrived and cleared a path long the west line of the northeast quarter of the section.  At the north end the new fence was about five feet east of where the old corner post had set.  At the south end, the new corner post was approximately 16 feet east of where the old corner post was still standing supporting fences along the southeast quarter of the section.

During the first trial, the judge hired a land surveyor who occasionally had performed surveys in that county.  This information was not shared with the plaintiff.  I came on scene over a year later.  I searched the old records, section corner reference reports and surveys of record, as usual, then went out and found all but one of the record monuments.  That was the southeast corner of the section.  After tying together all of the found markers, I laid out multiples possible locations of each missing corner, including shooting the ends of the new fence to extend to the south section line.  I scoured each potential location diligently and for a great radius in each case.  I extended the east line and west line south in the assumption each actually ran straight for the full mile and tried unsuccessfully, etc. etc. etc.  I really searched everywhere, including to try to find alternate monuments within 20 feet of found monuments.  Nothing.

Eventually, in court, we were allowed to look and take notes over the survey provided by the LS who had been hired by the court a year earlier.  I drew up the entire section in a sketch with all bearings and distances shown.  I also made note of what monuments he showed as found and those that he had set.  He had noted found railroad spike at one place that I had used, also.  Everything else he had marked as found half inch bar was where I had found nothing or some other type of marker at a different distance along a line.  He showed he had set half inch bars at the center corner, south quarter corner and southeast corner as well as at the north quarter corner.  Once the court recessed for the day, I headed to the site.  It was amazing.  Bars had magically appeared that were not present one week earlier.  His survey indicated they were set something like fourteen month earlier.  The tips of each half inch bar was perfectly shiny.  Not one bit of rust.  The survey flagging had not weathered one bit.

The other LS could not answer any significant questions we had for him.  We finally admitted he had never been on site.  We made note of his date of survey and asked if he had filed the essential reference reports with the State and County within the 30 days called out in the statute.  He was certain he had done so, yet they were not in either required location.  He said, under oath that the set bars were, in fact, set on the date shown on his survey.  I wanted to scream BS to his face.  The southeast section corner half inch bar he had set was approximately sixty feet east of the area where I had began my search.  There were no nails or anything else to serve as references at this corner or any other corner he set.

When all was said and done, the judge ruled the other LS had made a survey on behalf of the court and thus, he must agree with that work.  The judge retired a few months later.  About a year later the other LS sold his business.

A few months later I stopped by the southeast, southwest and south quarter corners where the half inch bars had been set magically.  They were all gone.  I know there is a different monument now marking the southeast corner.  A different survey firm had found nothing while doing a survey in an adjacent section.  Their monument is approximately 60 feet west of where the liar said his bar had been set.