> 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.
LOL! That was a decision of the US Supreme Court in which the justices said that the view that junior surveys alter the locations of senior surveys was obviously wrong.
🙂
Kent
Like I say, quote it for whatever reason you think it says and see if anybody is impressed with it.
I'm not!
Keith
Hear, hear, very well stated. While I very much admire Kent's attention to detail and his unflagging faith in his own decisions, there are other states with different laws from Texas. I salute his ability to define what works on his anthill, but am often offput by his attempt to dismiss the rest of the U.S.
> I salute his ability to define what works on his anthill, but am often offput by his attempt to dismiss the rest of the U.S.
Actually, it sounds as if your argument is with the US Supreme Court. The narrow question is a pretty simple one, namely: is the location of a boundary created by a senior survey altered in any way way by a junior survey? The principle that was obvious to the justices more than 120 years ago is that the junior survey can't alter the lines laid down by the senior survey. So what's new 120 years later?
Kent's cite and opinion on senior surveys is nothing more than a recitation of what all the textbooks say and what I have learned in college and elsewhere. All I would add is: senior conveyances control junior conveyances except if there are circumstances where the senior conveyance is nebulous enough to make it unclear where the senior lines are on the ground.
We don't live in a perfect survey world where there is an original senior survey that can be indisputably created on the ground every time. In these situations it is common to review the evidence along the general location of the original line and render an opinion where the line is. I can easily envision putting small jogs in the line and tying junior surveys together to form your best opinion of where the original line is.
Well, that is part of the problem that I had with Carl's pincushion.
He stated from the get-go that he had discrepancies with the Va markers that he found and relied on only a portion of them to set his rebar.
I don't know his basis of rejection but if one rejects 25-33 % 0f the VA row markers, it would not give me a warm fuzzy feeling to make it fit my survey. So this all came down to expert measuring and data manipulation of fitting the ROW
But that is what professional judgment is all about.
As far as the ROW being Sr., he also stated that the row was 120', so i wonder what was the original R-O-W and if there were additional taking f the R-O-w subsequent to the creation of the lots.
As far as highway markers here, The older ones (30s-60's can be somewhat relied upon for evidence but the ones from 60s-9o's is 'buyer beware'. Recent markers are supposed to be actually surveyed by a PLS and a actual in- ground (non-post) mark set with witness post and recorded in the local courthouse by the state DOT.
funny, I would think that a lifetime desk jockey "surveyor" would be drooling over a Supreme Court case decision. I guess some hold themselves in such high regard that they don't care about actual case law. oh, well, what can you do?
Keith
Keith: I am at a loss. I do not understand what you are having an issue with.
To me, it is a simple closing corner and established procedures to set a monument of the true intersection of the new and existing lines.
Kent is seldom warm and fuzzy, but that can be a virtue.
Thanks, Peter
What's new, or actually the standard as long as I've been collecting data, is local conditions apply.
If you can faithfully recover described monumentation and can prove it is 120 years old, or as is the case in some of the Spanish and French land grants around here, 250 years old, no problem. I'm certain you have run up on a Spanish grant or two in your day, so you have a basis of relevance. This region has developed customary methods of dealing with the fact there is no monumentation with any degree of certainty, and that transfer of real property has occurred without benefit of an 'on the ground' survey for 200 of those 250 years. It wasn't until the 1960's when the value of the land became sufficient to warrant a field survey. At that time, occupation became the standard, and Alabama land law reflects that.
You are thinking, but Alabama is a PLSS state, no problem, just run out the surrounding sections and define what is left. Lots of luck there. With the exception of Veteran's Subdivision on Ft. Morgan Peninsula, I have never seen a single BLM or GLO monument locally. What we get is a pin cushion of PK nails, cotton picker spindles, railroad spikes, and other items set in the pavement, with no distinguishing tags to identify origin of said items. The Manual of Instructions is of no use, as it deals with retracement of the originally staked sections, but some of the more educated C.E's chose to apply it anyway. Did I mention until the law was changed, C.E.'s could do land surveying? That adds another dimension of expert measurement and the application of the 5280 crowd. .
Now, move into the north part of the state, and the local surveyors have developed their own methods to deal with the local situation. Some areas were very well platted and staked by the timber companies, and have monumentation set by foresters.If something was found at a corner, the concrete monument was set as a reference, for the most part they did a good job respecting senior rights of whatever defined boundaries previously. If nothing was found, they set the same type concrete monument as the corner, but nothing to designate what was a reference and what was the corner. Add the fact these monuments were set by other than surveyors and are ignored by some surveyors, held by others, and it gets nasty quickly.
Move over into Florida, and you come into a very well defined and referenced system with original GLO monuments, CCR's, and a board of registrants with some real teeth. Once again, local conditions apply, but apply more in keeping with a standardized procedure dependent on the Manual of Instructions.
Georgia as a metes and bounds state has it's own methods and procedures, but are different than South Carolina's. Pennsylvania, Indiana and Ohio all have different rules that apply, as the PLSS was developing and there are areas of metes and bounds with senior rights that predate the PLSS, and areas that fit the Manual quite nicely.
In every example, if a surveyor comes into the area and does not bother to honor local conditions, they do not do their job of representing the public domain.
The case you cite was an example of a state issue escalating to the federal level. In today's world, if the same case with the same facts made it's way into the Alabama court, occupation and taxation would hold above anything else. In the case it did not stipulate who occupied and farmed the 120 acres in question.
Keith
Keith has surveyed the wide open spaces. It's a much different world in metropolitan areas and 50' wide lots in suburbia. Though I strive to accept each monument that is pre existing to my arrival it is not just done with a blind eye. Each acceptence is based upon other factors that change from site to site. Pincushions can and do happen and will continue to take place as long as I am surveying.
Not every surveyors mark that we come across has been placed with competence and a best effort. When these are discovered, they simply get rejected.
> What's new, or actually the standard as long as I've been collecting data, is local conditions apply.
>
> If you can faithfully recover described monumentation and can prove it is 120 years old, or as is the case in some of the Spanish and French land grants around here, 250 years old, no problem. I'm certain you have run up on a Spanish grant or two in your day, so you have a basis of relevance. This region has developed customary methods of dealing with the fact there is no monumentation with any degree of certainty, and that transfer of real property has occurred without benefit of an 'on the ground' survey for 200 of those 250 years.
Well, you're overlooking the real issue, then. The issue deals with the case where the lines of a senior survey may be determined. In a situation such as the one you described where nothing may be determined, you are left to other avenues.
In case you've missed it, though, there are some posters who have asserted that even in the case where the lines and corners of a senior survey may be determined with certainty, the marks of any junior survey will alter them. This is the point of view that many posters insisted on in the example Carl gave. That isn't a local issue so much as it is a fundamental misunderstanding of legal principles.
Andy
Kent is better at insults then at actual retracement procedures and it does not behoove you to follow that lead!
Would you give us a short explanation of that Supreme Court case that would support what Kent is implying? If you can?
Keith
Andy
> Kent is better at insults then at actual retracement procedures and it does not behoove you to follow that lead!
> Would you give us a short explanation of that Supreme Court case that would support what Kent is implying? I
Keith, you beg to be insulted. The initial post in this thread is an abundantly clear statement of what the members of the US Supreme Court thought to be an "obvious" principle and you dither around claiming to wonder what they meant because you haven't the personal integrity to acknowledge the error of your endlessly ignorant monologues on the subject.
Can anyone quote from this case, the argument that
supports senior corners only and ignore junior corners?
Below is what I posted before and I fail to read supporting documentation from the case that supports arguments that are being presented in this thread.
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.
Pincushion corner monuments, in the huge majority of circumstances, are silly and if you think about it for a minute and a half; you might realize that the huge majority of corner monuments that you are setting now....are junior monuments.
Do you really want to believe that your junior corner monuments are subject to move by an expert measurer that comes along and finds it "off line" by my finger nail distance?
That is not land surveying as contemplated by any statute law or case law!
Think about it.
Keith
Kent
If you want to hang your argument on a Supreme Court case that settles an argument on 120 acres, based on a 1793 survey, go for it.
Keith
Here you go
Here you go:
>It is unquestionably true that a junior survey cannot control or enlarge the dimensions of a senior survey. We understand this to mean that when the location of a survey is or can be ascertained and determined by its own marks upon the ground -- its own calls and courses and distances -- it cannot be changed or controlled or enlarged or diminished by the marks or lines of an adjoining junior survey; [...]
>
>
> CLEMENT V. PACKER, 125 U. S. 309 (1888)
Here you go and anybody who chooses, can try that
argument in a court room now.
Are we naive enough to believe that this case is controlling law and there has never been another Supreme Court case that says different?
Keith
LOL!
> Are we naive enough to believe that this case is controlling law and there has never been another Supreme Court case that says different?
So, you're, like, thinking that some subsequent US Supreme Court has found that senior surveys are controlled, extended, or reduced by junior surveys?
🙂
Kent
I am sure that if I took the time, and I am not going to, I could find a subsequent Supreme Court case, that is in fact opposite of your interpretation of your 1888 case.
I could search for words, like you do, to support any argument that I could come up with; even if I had to go back to 1889?
Keith
Keep in mind,
that this whole argument is based on a corner monument that was found to be 0.14 feet into the State ROW.
And Kent attempts to use a 1888 Supreme Court case that involved 120 acres to prove his point.
Keep that in perspective.
Keith
