Clement v. Packer (US Supreme Court)

What title is and where boundaries are are two separate questions. If an owner has title to the west 50 feet that is his title. Once the west 50 feet is located by monuments at 49.85 feet and they are accepted for what they were intended that is where the west 50 feet is located.

Interesting case Kent...thanks for the link!

I'll have to chew on that sucker for a while.

Loyal

Thanks Kent for your link to the case.

Do you have a paragraph or so to explain the case?

Keith

> What title is and where boundaries are are two separate questions. If an owner has title to the west 50 feet that is his title. Once the west 50 feet is located by monuments at 49.85 feet and they are accepted for what they were intended that is where the west 50 feet is located.

The US Supreme Court was obviously dealing with boundary litigation and the matter I quoted that the court thought obvious pertained to boundaries.

> Do you have a paragraph or so to explain the case?

So, you want a real short summary of the case? It would be "anyone who thinks that junior surveys control the lines of senior surveys is wrong."

Some times Kent, you are just laughable!

You must rely on this case to support your opinions, so some pertinent facts could be pointed out by you?

Keith

Let's look at a hypothetical case

Let's say, early in the 20th century, a surveyor named Kent McMillan cut the Northwest Quarter out a section of land in Montana. 10 years later a surveyor named Keith Williams does a survey and cuts out the Northwest Quarter of the Northeast Quarter of the same section.

Fast forward to 2010 and you are surveying the Northwest Quarter for a plat. You find what you believe to be, original evidence for both surveys and both parcels of land are fenced with old barbed wire and fronted on the north line by a county road which was there when both surveys were done. The original property was agricultural until your client's project was approved for residential development.

You find the pipe that Mr. Williams set, at the Southwest Corner of his survey, to be at the split between the 2 points McMillan set but it's a foot east of the line. You find the center quarter, that McMillan set on line between the north and south quarter corners but it is 2 feet south of the line between the west and east quarters.

Here's the question:
Does the junior monument bend the senior line?

Happy Saturday! It's a beautiful day here in the Pacific Northwest, I hope it's just as nice in your neck of the woods.

I'm heading out for some fresh air.(see below)

Dugger

Let's look at a hypothetical case that misses the point

> Let's say, early in the 20th century, a surveyor named Kent McMillan cut the Northwest Quarter out a section of land in Montana. 10 years later a surveyor named Keith Williams does a survey and cuts out the Northwest Quarter of the Northeast Quarter of the same section.

Well, the case that Douglas raises misses the point entirely. In the PLSS, presumably both of the quarter sections were only protracted, and both from the same survey, the original subvidivision of the township. So there is no junior or senior survey involved. I guess you have to survey in a metes and bounds state to know what a junior survey is.
🙂

Answer to the question

Absolutely!

Let's look at a hypothetical case

Well, there are your answers.

> You must rely on this case to support your opinions, so some pertinent facts could be pointed out by you?

Okay, you asked for a case that demonstrates the settled principle of law that a junior survey cannot alter the lines of a boundary created by a senior survey and you can't be bothered to actually read the opinion of no less an authority than the US Supreme Court?

Now you want all your food pre-chewed, too, so I obligingly gave you the one sentence summary of the relevant point that the court made. LOL!

BTW, it hadn't occurred to me that the confusion that many folks in the PLSS continually seem to have about the immunity of the lines of senior surveys from alteration by junior surveys is the result of them not actually understanding what a junior survey or a senior survey is. This is evidently the case.

The term survey in the relevant usage refers to boundaries that were laid down and used as the basis of some transfer of title or conveyance of interest out of common ownership. A junior survey is a survey made in connection with a subsequent conveyance from that common grantor.

For example, in the example that Carl gave the other day, the survey that defined the boundaries of the state highway within which the State acquired some paramount title was the senior survey to the later subdivision that attempted to locate lots adjoining the state highway for the purpose of conveying pieces of the grantor's remaining land to various private owners.

That is correct, Kent, the intent of the subdivision was to tie into the senior right of way line. In Virginia, monuments hold only in absence of evidence of contrary intent (Spainhour v. Huffman, 377 S.E.2d 615, 237 Va. 340 (Va. 03/03/1989).

Carl established the senior line, established the line of the subdivision, and held the intersection of the two.

As far as being professional goes, I think Carl has acted professionally. He has identified a descrepancy, put his client and others on notice by means of a plat and by staking on the ground. Here in VA builders try to build right up to the setback lines. Carl has told his client that if he uses the pipe he runs the risk of potentially building inside the setback line, which can be a very costly mistake to rectify.

I have worked in DJ's and Carl's areas of Virginia quite extensively and have to agree with both.

VA R/W monuments are usually set very well. And DJ is right that the lots are sometimes "engineered" for the house to be as little as 0.10' off the setback.

I think it takes a weak mind to accept every monument they find as the "true corner", but it takes a mind just as weak to want to rest in the comfort of "perfect math" every time they lace up their boots.

Every bit of evidence in every survey should be examined & weighted accordingly. I would always use a bit of common sense in every survey. For example, what is the boundary survey for? The construction of a 100 floor high rise, or Jim Bob's double-wide?

If they were WV R/W monuments you would have a different case altogether as sometimes you are lucky if they work within a foot of each other.

Pretty clear Kent

Some folks have the idea that they are to apply A SINGLE boundary location rule even to the point of exclusion of good reason and common sense. A license to express a PROFESSIONAL opinion is not a license to wreak havoc in the community because the expression of the professional opinion is not based upon complete fact set of the evidence or is done in ignorance and/or misapplication of the law.
zof particular interest to me is that the court held essentially that if was first surveyed as a block, it is to be located as a block. Can it be clearer than that?

Thanks Kent

BTW why would you need a hypothetical,when the case cleary states the facts and what ought to have occurred?

Let's look at a hypothetical case that misses the point

> Well, the case that Douglas raises misses the point entirely. In the PLSS, presumably both of the quarter sections were only protracted, and both from the same survey, the original subdivision of the township. So there is no junior or senior survey involved. I guess you have to survey in a metes and bounds state to know what a junior survey is.
> 🙂

So then we are in agreement?

If I own a section of land and I sell a quarter of it. 10 years later I sell a quarter of a quarter of it. Both surveys I hired, hold the same respect, equal as if I had sold the parcels simultaneously, 70 plus years later?

What would happen to the same section had it been in Texas?:-) Both parcels were sold as an aliquot part, but were in a metes and bounds state? There is a portion of Texas that was divided into sections, right?

Douglas

Pretty clear Kent

> BTW why would you need a hypothetical,when the case cleary states the facts and what ought to have occurred?

You'll have to ask Douglas Radar Casement.
🙂

Pretty clear Kent

> BTW why would you need a hypothetical,when the case clearly states the facts and what ought to have occurred?

Because in a hypothetical, you can make the facts up as you go and what ought to happen can be what ever you want.;-)

Douglas Radar Casement

Well, I can't say that I have analyzed this case in depth, but it is a real stretch for Kent to attempt to prove his belief that junior corner monuments cannot bend senior lines.

This case is about 120 acres, with surveys going back to 1793and other surveys in the mid 1800's.

Kent, if you want to use it as your proof, have at it.

If that is the best you can come up with, then quote it all the time and see who you impress with it.

Keith