I need some case law on the subject of corrected field notes.
The Corrected Field Notes (subsequently patented on) exist, but the original field notes were never canceled. Are the original field notes still valid if they are not canceled?
Was it just a mistake that they had not been marked as canceled?
The Corrected Field Notes make mention of several monuments, one being the oldest original stone in the area, but the corrected notes don't hold the oldest monuments, they end up meeting the monuments for the adjoining block. The adjoining block was designated around 1890ish, but the first on the ground survey happened 20 years after the aforementioned oldest stone was set and overlapped the old stone by about 400 feet. No supporting documentation explains what all the considerations for determining junior/senior rights were.
I know I've got the evidence of the original lines and the corrected lines. But what happens when we don't agree with the corrected version?
This evidence of original lines, is that original monuments of the line or is it new monuments along a line. There is a difference.
The last "corrected survey" I dealt with is still on the table to be drawn and my project had that as the North boundary.
The "corrected survey" was made on one of the last two pieces of property found between already Patented property and was 1st described as 161 1/2 acres in 1911 by J. W. Barker.
During the 2nd ground survey in 1948 it was found to contain 182.4 acres and was close in the same distances and directions of the original description and mentioned the same witness trees and passing references by his son Fred W. Barker.
The corrected survey had turned a 0 into a 9 and made a course distance 896vrs instead of the actual distance of 806vrs.
Anyway to my point, finding just any old monuments along a Patented boundary is not actual proof of that boundary unless they are mentioned in the original survey notes.
You must prove that those new monuments were surveyed into place from original monuments in able to hold them by mention of the original monuments in their descriptions and/or drawings.
Actual original monuments need to be found or relocated with certainty to prove original location.
0.02
I do have original monuments of record dignity.
The surveyor who did the CFN found the same monuments but decided to not honor the original monuments. His notes were patented on and his work is retraceable today. My question is this, do his CFNs(and his newer monuments) hold over the original stones that he ignored?
Do the original monuments of the 1st survey conflict with the boundaries of the senior and adjoining survey boundaries?
If so, that is why he ignored them.
What are these "senior rights" of which you speak? The surveyor was only 35 years old when he did the work. Does it matter if the surveyor that performed the adjoining survey was older by 32 years?
😉
What's up Andrew?
I have been researching this very topic all day today.
http://law.justia.com/cases/texas/supreme-court/1969/b-331-0.html
A survey under a valid location, although unpatented, will prevail over a patent issued under a location subsequently made upon the same land." Whitman v. Rhomberg, 25 S.W. 451 (Tex.Civ.App.1894, no writ).
The Land Commissioner accepted and filed the Dod resurvey, but he did not cancel the Barton survey. (<<<Just because it??s filed doesn??t mean it??s controlling) In any event, a Land Commissioner is not possessed of power to divest title nor to enlarge titles to lands by the ordering and acceptance of resurveys. It has been the consistent holdings of this court that the acceptance of a resurvey can not authorize the inclusion of lands not included in the original survey. Turner v. Smith, 122 Tex. 338, 61 S.W.2d 792, 801 (1933); State v. Post, 106 Tex. 468, 500, 169 S.W. 407, 408 (1914); Texas & P. Ry. Co. v. Thompson, 65 Tex. 186 (1885). Neither should property rights which have already vested be the subject of divestiture by the acceptance of a resurvey by the Commissioner. Carmichall v. Stanolind Oil & Gas Co., 256 S.W.2d 129 (Tex.Civ.App.1952, writ ref.).
https://casetext.com/case/state-v-alford
I am looking for Turner v. Smith, 122 Tex. 338, 61 S.W.2d 792, 801 (1933). Anybody have a copy scanned in?
[USER=24]@Jack Chiles[/USER]
hahaha, you so funny today,
I've been following old farts so long that now it appears that I'm the old fart.
For everyone else wanting to know, here is my attempt.
Headrights are based upon Patents for certain amounts of land allotted to the Patentee.
The earliest date of survey determines the Senior Headright.
When a Junior Headright survey conflicts and intrudes across the boundaries of the Senior Headright boundary locations, it is not a valid survey and a Corrected Survey is made to yield and adjoin the Senior Headright boundary.
When it is satisfied that the survey has no conflicts, the Patent is issued.
That does not necessarily mean that there are no conflicts out there today.
In following the original survey notes and the corrected survey notes, there are many situations when after on a year or couple of years later the next surveyor could not find the original monuments or reference or any evidence on the ground and did the best they could and still created gaps and gores.
Every one of this type of survey is very different, yet are just as frustrating as the other when trying to understand how it could have happened.
In many ways, it is very similar to today's situation when we go out and find pincushions, several monuments where there should be only one, except in the case of these original surveys creating gaps and gores, the monuments are usually very far apart.
The difference is probably due to the fact the original surveys had errors numbered by lengths of chain and the drawings were very small and many lines were never actually measured on the ground to obtain a complete survey closure.
When the rate for a survey was $3 per mile, the budget did not pay another $3 to survey that mile again.
They were probably very happy to receive any $3 for every mile they could account for that they did not physically measure.
0.02
arctan(x), post: 421976, member: 6795 wrote: I need some case law on the subject of corrected field notes.
The Corrected Field Notes (subsequently patented on) exist, but the original field notes were never canceled. Are the original field notes still valid if they are not canceled?
Was it just a mistake that they had not been marked as canceled?The Corrected Field Notes make mention of several monuments, one being the oldest original stone in the area, but the corrected notes don't hold the oldest monuments, they end up meeting the monuments for the adjoining block. The adjoining block was designated around 1890ish, but the first on the ground survey happened 20 years after the aforementioned oldest stone was set and overlapped the old stone by about 400 feet. No supporting documentation explains what all the considerations for determining junior/senior rights were.
I know I've got the evidence of the original lines and the corrected lines. But what happens when we don't agree with the corrected version?
Can you post the GLO File No so that we can examine the file jacket? Were the Corrected Field Notes for a school section in a block of surveys made under alternate scrip, by any chance, with patents having been previously issued on the original field notes filed for the even-numbered sections? If so, you may just have a mislocated patent.
arctan(x), post: 421983, member: 6795 wrote: I do have original monuments of record dignity.
The surveyor who did the CFN found the same monuments but decided to not honor the original monuments. His notes were patented on and his work is retraceable today. My question is this, do his CFNs(and his newer monuments) hold over the original stones that he ignored?
Is this a case where the excess in alternate sections located under a land scrip granting only a specific number of acres were segregated in the adjoining school sections? There was a time period when I believe that was the practice of the GLO and I seem to recall a statute that required just that. That is, when a block was identified as containing large amounts of excess, the Commissioner of the GLO may have required corrected field notes be filed for both the School survey and the odd-numbered survey located under the same scrip to place the excess in the school section.
Does the file for the odd-numbered companion survey give a clue and was this same practice followed throughout the block?
Andy Nold, post: 436738, member: 7 wrote: I have been researching this very topic all day today.
http://law.justia.com/cases/texas/supreme-court/1969/b-331-0.html
A survey under a valid location, although unpatented, will prevail over a patent issued under a location subsequently made upon the same land." Whitman v. Rhomberg, 25 S.W. 451 (Tex.Civ.App.1894, no writ).
The Land Commissioner accepted and filed the Dod resurvey, but he did not cancel the Barton survey. (<<<Just because it??s filed doesn??t mean it??s controlling) In any event, a Land Commissioner is not possessed of power to divest title nor to enlarge titles to lands by the ordering and acceptance of resurveys. It has been the consistent holdings of this court that the acceptance of a resurvey can not authorize the inclusion of lands not included in the original survey. Turner v. Smith, 122 Tex. 338, 61 S.W.2d 792, 801 (1933); State v. Post, 106 Tex. 468, 500, 169 S.W. 407, 408 (1914); Texas & P. Ry. Co. v. Thompson, 65 Tex. 186 (1885). Neither should property rights which have already vested be the subject of divestiture by the acceptance of a resurvey by the Commissioner. Carmichall v. Stanolind Oil & Gas Co., 256 S.W.2d 129 (Tex.Civ.App.1952, writ ref.).
https://casetext.com/case/state-v-alford
I am looking for Turner v. Smith, 122 Tex. 338, 61 S.W.2d 792, 801 (1933). Anybody have a copy scanned in?
I have both Turner v. Smith (1933 Texas Supreme Court) and Smith v. Turner (1928 Appeals Division-reversed) in a large PDF of Texas cases but I have no way to extract them small enough to post here. I can post them tomorrow morning because I have Acrobat at the office and will be able to extract just the pages needed and the file size will be much smaller. The Microsoft print to PDF driver makes pictures, not text which results in large files.
Andy Nold, post: 436738, member: 7 wrote:
I am looking for Turner v. Smith, 122 Tex. 338, 61 S.W.2d 792, 801 (1933). Anybody have a copy scanned in?
Here's Turner v. Smith (61 SW 2d 792)
Thank you. Writing a surveyors report on Block 76, PSL. Piper and i have been discussing some interesting theories. I had a real epiphany while sorting through reems of GLO records around 9:30 tonight.
And here's Article 5323 of the Revised Civil Statutes of 1928, the constitutionality of which was one of the matters before the court in Turner v. Smith.
Smith v Turner is the Appellate Division opinion which was reversed by Turner v Smith (Texas Supreme Court). I don't have Watts v. Alco Oil & Gas Corp (1976) which distinguished Turner v Smith.
Here are both Watts v. Alco Oil Gas Copr (540 SW2d 557) and Frost v. Socony Mobil Oil Co (433 SW2d 387) to which the former refers on the subject of adjoiner calls.
Suppositious (opinion text) or Supposititious (in the Westlaw headnote)?
So apparently, if I understand it correctly, the basic issue is the original survey established an erroneous location for the adjoining block on the west then called for that block. The Court ruled that the "suppositious" location of the block line would hold over the true location, apparently a substantial distance to the west. This left a vacancy.
Chief Justice Cureton dissented...
"In so far as the opinion of the majority of the court in the above case holds that there exists a vacancy between the west line of the Yates survey and the east line of block 194, and that the surveys in block 194 should be constructed eastward by course and distance alone, without giving effect to calls for adjoinder on the south with block 178, I respectfully dissent."
This note at the end of his dissent is unusual:
"My reasons for the above conclusions will be stated in a formal dissenting opinion which I will file as soon as its preparation may be completed."
The 1936 decision in State v. Sullivan 92 SW2d 228; 127 Tex 525 lays out the situation in which a grossly mistaken call for adjoiner based upon supposition or ignorance is not to be given controlling effect in constructing a metes and bounds description.
I looked up "supposititious" in the Dictionary (yes we still have one). First the Westlaw headnote editor has the correct spelling. Either the case text computer entry clerk mistyped the word or the original opinion misspelled it. I don't have access to a printed Texas reporter (in which the typesetter may have misspelled the word or the Justice misspelled it in the original opinion) or a printed Southwestern reporter so don't know if those have it correct or not.
Near the end of the opinion "plea" is misspelled "prea."
Supposititious: 1. Fraudulently substituted for something else; spurious; counterfeit. 2. Of the nature of a supposition; hypothetical. (Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary 1959)
Here's the 1936 decision in State v. Sullivan 92 SW2d 228 in which the court held that a call for adjoiner, even with a line that was marked on the ground, should be rejected as controlling when the facts strongly support the conclusion that the call was made by mistake or conjecture.
In my opinion, there is nowhere else for this to go (Block 76) than a lawsuit. The section lines are 1400 feet apart. In my personal professional opinion, I think Newton was on spot. Sucks that so many corporations have drilled multi-million dollar horizontal wells on the wrong boundaries.
