Thinking over the oddity of such strong resistance to the obvious idea that a junior survey cannot alter, diminish or extend the lines laid down by a senior survey, it occurs to me that part of the problem that some are having is that they don't actually understand the terms "senior survey" and "junior survey" in the sense in which they were used by the US Supreme Court in its decision in Clement v. Packer.
As a point of interest, would any of the folks who object to the idea that a junior survey cannot as a matter of law alter the lines of a senior survey define what they think the terms "senior survey" and "junior survey" mean?
This isn't a trick question. I just don't think that some posters are using these terms in the usual and customary sense that the US Supreme Court did.
James Fleming's excellent reply
BTW in case anyone missed the excellent post by James Fleming, may I recommend it?
[msg=21894]James Fleming's Post[/msg]
Very few folks surveying in the PLSS probably actually deal with junior and senior surveys since they work mainly with the surveys that resulted in the simultaneous subdivisions of townships and that did not result in junior and senior rights. This is probably a large part of why they do not follow discussions of matters that are elementary and obvious from a metes and bounds state perspective.
Naturally, junior and senior rights can be (and typically are) created by subsequent subdivisions of tracts that were part of some simultaneous subdivision of the PLSS, such as where a 1/4 section was subdivided by metes and bounds.
