Clark on Surveying and Boundaries

Don't pay a lot because after the class is over you are going to want to get rid of the modern edition, purge everything in it from your brain, then purchase a 2nd edition as your go to copy.

I have a getting starting with GIS from Clarke, most of the College books I used were Wolf / Chilani

James Fleming, post: 444436, member: 136 wrote: Don't pay a lot because after the class is over you are going to want to get rid of the modern edition, purge everything in it from your brain, then purchase a 2nd edition as your go to copy.

Yep - you sure don't want one that's been "Robollarded".

Scott Ellis, post: 444437, member: 7154 wrote: I have a getting starting with GIS from Clarke, most of the College books I used were Wolf / Chilani

Different Clark(e)

https://www.pearson.com/us/higher-education/program/Clarke-Getting-Started-with-Geographic-Information-Systems-5th-Edition/PGM177505.html

https://store.lexisnexis.com/products/clark-on-surveying-and-boundaries-skuusSku7679

Jim in AZ, post: 444439, member: 249 wrote: Yep - you sure don't want one that's been "Robollarded".

I would like everyone to know that Paden coined the term "drinking Robillardian Kool-Aid" for a seminar in 1999. 😉

How did Robillard screw things up?

Guy Townes, post: 444430, member: 11463 wrote: The book is a requirement for a college course.

This must be an extremely advanced course on boundary law to require that book as a text. If it isn't Masters degree level I think I'd drop. Clark is now really a book for lawyers.

Your professor is jerking your chain a little. The 7th Edition was published in 1997, so the 8th is the only edition published after 2000. I don't own a copy of the 8th, but last I knew, it was available only in electronic (pdf?) form. It's available through most state bar association sites and lexis. I don't recall if it can be found on Amazon or other bookseller sites.

Although there is plenty of useful info in the later editions (at least up through 7), I agree with those who have said that the earlier editions will provide info that better reflects the law for most US jurisdictions. Unless you've read a few hundred boundary cases, it can be difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff in the newer versions. Mr. Robillard seems to have a pretty limited view of what surveyors are able to understand and what they should consider in practice and tends to look for cases as examples to support those opinions. Some of those cases are the minority opinion among jurisdictions, or even the minority opinion within the jurisdiction they originated in. Occasionally, the case he uses indicates something very different if the excerpted part is read in the larger context of the full case. And with increasing frequency as the editions advance, he espouses opinions without a basis in current law. He's tended to move from what the law does tell the surveyor toward what he believes the law should tell the surveyor.

Same goes for the pair of titles that many used to refer to as "the Brown books" (Boundary Control and Legal Principles and Evidence and Procedures for Boundary Location).

To my knowledge, none of his present or former coauthors has criticized Mr. Robillard's opinions publicly, but one can see very different philosophies by reading their works separate from those in collaboration with Robillard. Wilson has several books that he has authored on his own over the past several years which are excellent. When you read the editions of Clark which were coauthored by Robillard and Bouman (at least 5th through 7th), compare the chapter on Words & Phrases with that on Interpreting Deeds. They cover the same material but seem to have been written by different authors coming from two very different perspectives of what the surveyor is capable of or should do.

Mark Mayer, post: 444489, member: 424 wrote: This must be an extremely advanced course on boundary law to require that book as a text. If it isn't Masters degree level I think I'd drop. Clark is now really a book for lawyers.

It used to be required for one of the upper division (3rd or 4th yr) courses at Ferris. I wouldn't describe it so much as more advanced than I would more comprehensive than the "Brown books" in that it covers the material found in both of those and several chapters addressing specific issues of the PLSS.

Because of its evolution over the past 30 or 40 years, it's unfortunate that it has become the go to survey reference for attorneys and is the only text on boundary law directly marketed to the legal profession. And that could lead into a discussion on the potential benefits of teaching boundary surveying as a para-legal program rather than as part of an engineering program, but that's for a different thread.

Guy Townes, post: 444430, member: 11463 wrote: Hello, does anyone have an extra one of these they would like to sell? The book is a requirement for a college course. I believe the 8th Edition is the most current but I talked with my Professor and he said any edition newer than the year 2000 would probably fine. I'm finding older ones on Ebay for a reasonable price, but they are MUCH older.

Thanks!

Not sure you are aware, but if not it may be of worth noting that even though the 7th edition was published in 1997, there have been annual cumulative updates up to the publication of the 8th edition in 2016. In effect this means the 7th edition has been continually published up until 2016 providing one gets the cumulative supplement. Mostly the cumulative updates have provided citations and insight into cases that have been published by the courts since the 1997 hard bound book printing.

I'll assume you already know that the book is a legal treatise listed in American Jurisprudence and as such is often cited by the courts, and being as you've only asked if someone has a book for sale and not my or anyone else's opinion, I'll refrain from providing my somewhat positive insight on the book and simply ask what you would be willing to pay for 7th edition with 2012 cumulative supplement?

As Jeff (clearcut) said, you could get the 7th and the 2016 cumulative supplement. I don't know that it would be much less expensive, but it might be.

Clark has been referred to by many courts, but so have other survey texts/treatises.

I hope my review didn't come across as characterizing the recent editions of Clark as trash. They aren't. What I meant to get across is that the primary author of the recent editions of Clark and of the "Brown books" since the 3rd of BCLP and the 2nd of EPBL has increasingly provided more and more opinion that is not really in harmony with the law of most US jurisdictions and that, without the benefit of having read a great deal of relevant case law, it is difficult to pull out and discard the inaccurate info from among the treasure trove of good info that is in those books.

At what amount of inaccurate info in a book should caution be advised when referring to the book? 30%, 10%, 5%...? Does that info need to be such that it is inaccurate for all jurisdictions, nearly all, most, half...? Does it need to be such that it has no legal support, weak legal support in one or two jurisdictions, fairly good legal support which is only applicable to a minority of jurisdictions...?

I haven't cataloged it, but my gut feeling is that the most recent editions I've seen of any one of those particular titles includes something close to 10% of principles stated that are either not accurate for the majority of jurisdictions and maybe about 2% or less that are just plain wrong for all or nearly all jurisdictions. For a book written to a national audience, I would expect something well under 5% of principles to not be fully applicable to any specific jurisdiction as presented in the book, but to still be applicable substantially as presented to many or most jurisdictions and at least to have a solid basis in law reflecting or closely reflecting most jurisdictions. Even if I find close to 90% of the material to be good and accurate, that remaining 10% is enough for me to feel that advising caution is more than warranted.

I own several editions of each of those titles and would not have spent the money on newer editions if I thought they were of no value. It's just that they've gotten to the point where they need to be read and relied on with caution and only after verifying that the principles considered and as stated properly reflect the law in the jurisdiction where you are performing work. All texts by any author should be compared to the law of one's jurisdiction, but it has become increasingly important with Clark, BCLP, and EPBL with each new edition.

Although earlier editions are dated, and the law as stated in a few instances, while accurate at the time, may be obsolete now, on whole, the older editions will espouse practices which are better supported by law and overall, be more in harmony with the current state of boundary law in most jurisdictions.

One of the things I appreciate about the law as it pertains to boundaries is that it is almost entirely built on the history of land usage and ownership and principles of basic sense. Of all areas of law, it is among the least affected by the whims of legislation and the political philosophies of the judiciary. Thus, many of the old editions of oft-updated titles, and many no longer in print are still very relevant to modern practice.

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Hodgman%2C%20Francis%2C%201839-

Francis Hodgma's little book...
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Hodgman%2C%20Francis%2C%201839-

As briefly as I can render it, it appears to me that the books since the 1950s have gotten a few key things wrong:
1) The Deed description has been given exclusive control in matters of location. This is incorrect; the description is one piece of evidence of location but extrinsic evidence is not only admissible, it is required.
2) Experts may not testify to the ultimate issue of fact: this has been wrong since before some of these books were published.
3) The parol evidence rule prohibits the surveyor from leaving the description if it is unambiguous: This is wrong, one of the major exceptions to the parol evidence rule is in the application of the Deed to the subject matter (e.g. the land). The Courts have long recognized that monuments disappear, physical circumstances change, and in order to get the best answer the best available evidence is admissible.

An example, the Deed description conveys "Blackacre." Grantee testifies that he was supposed to get both Blackacre and Whiteacre. The initial presumption is that a Deed only conveys what is included in the Description, hence Whiteacre is not included in the writing, it is not conveyed. This has been confused with location. The location of the boundaries of Blackacre is a question of fact and is answerable by a wide range of evidence.

James Fleming, post: 444436, member: 136 wrote: Don't pay a lot because after the class is over you are going to want to get rid of the modern edition, purge everything in it from your brain, then purchase a 2nd edition as your go to copy.

Interesting. My only copy of Clark's is a Second Edition, originally owned by one Hugh Southmayd who was a county surveyor in Kenosha County, Wisconsin.

Mark Mayer, post: 444489, member: 424 wrote: This must be an extremely advanced course on boundary law to require that book as a text. If it isn't Masters degree level I think I'd drop. Clark is now really a book for lawyers.

The class is called "Advanced Boundary Analysis." It is an upper division class for my Bachelors degree.

SellmanA, post: 444683, member: 8564 wrote: Interesting. My only copy of Clark's is a Second Edition, originally owned by one Hugh Southmayd who was a county surveyor in Kenosha County, Wisconsin.

This is no longer the case- just for kicks I snagged a Third Edition from eBay earlier this week. The table of cases vanished and they moved the citations from footnotes to in-line, and it also appears they removed a lot of the good stuff that resided in the footnotes when they did. I'll take the 2nd, thank you.

I'll shut up for now.