Richard's Rationale?
The BLM has no authority to change/amend valid patent descriptions!!
Read slowly now.
The GLO adopted Independent Resurvey procedures to identify private land boundaries when/where there were very few, if any, original corner monuments and they independently resurveyed the remaining Public Land.
Prior to the 1909 resurvey act, the GLO was actually resurveying (doing it over again) without regard to valid bona fide rights and that practice led to real confusion. Hence the 1909 resurvey act that instructed the GLO to honor the valid bona fide rights and subsequently, in those areas of no original monuments, they debated and created the Independent Resurvey procedures.
The private land boundaries were Dependently Resurveyed first, before the Independent Resurvey of the remaining Public Land.
Those Tract designators on the face of the Independent Resurvey plat is for the administrative use of GLO and now BLM, but the land owners did not have to change/amend their legal descriptions.
And hopefully that is the last time that I will have to explain it to you!!
Keith
Keith
> I simply do not agree that the date of the deed (patent) is that critical!
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> That rationale would be that the Feds (BLM) should do an original subdivision of survey every time so that the survey would precede any deeded land!
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> Wait a minute.......is that the reason that some in BLM insists that they survey the subdivision of sections by Chapter 3 methods only???
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> Nah, couldn't be?
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> And of course it would mean that before every deed was written and title passed, that there would necessarily have to have a survey first!
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> I don't think that is going to work?
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> And pity all those original patent owners and heirs that have depended on their own methods of establishing their boundaries. Those occupation lines mean nothing, since there was no survey prior to their patent!
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> Keith
I am certain we are misunderstanding each other.
Your citation is accepting an erroneously-set center-of-section corner position because it was set before the deeds that relied on it. That section corner being "stubbed" out and not set at the intersection of lines. It specifically states that it would disturb all of the properties that have since relied on that (erroneous) position.
If the patent calls out to the center of section before any monuments are set, then the first/original survey correctly done (not the 'exact' intersection of lines per se, but the first monument set using the appropriate procedures) would control.
These are case laws that accept different center-of-sections based on different circumstances. One being before a survey was made, and one being after a survey was made. It has to do with the implied reliance on the mis-staked center of section after it was staked wrong.
Wrong again, Williams
The judges' decision in the 1988 Nevada federal district court case I cited said that the tract designators 41 & 42 were legal descriptions replacing the original aliquot part descriptions.
So you are misconstruing one state judicial ruling incorrectly identifying a 'C1/4' and refusing to accept the clear decision of a federal district court judge declaring the tract designators were legal descriptions.
Your reasoning is flawed and unsustainable.
My statement above regarding the use of tract segregation and document reformation is accurate and the fact that some deed stakers perpetuate inaccurate record descriptions by failing to adequately research pertinent records is not sufficient to nullify the legality of the tract number as the legal description.
Richard Schaut
adam
"If the patent calls out to the center of section before any monuments are set, then the first/original survey correctly done (not the 'exact' intersection of lines per se, but the first monument set using the appropriate procedures) would control.
These are case laws that accept different center-of-sections based on different circumstances. One being before a survey was made, and one being after a survey was made. It has to do with the implied reliance on the mis-staked center of section after it was staked wrong."
The patents do not call for the center of section, only the aliquot parts of the section.
And I sort of agree, ". . .the first monument set using the appropriate procedures would control."
The rub of course is the argument on "appropriate procedures" and how far is too far!
The Dykes case put an end to how far is too far!
And of course I am looking for case law that supports the theory (bogus in my opinion) that the subdivision of section lines are to be surveyed by Chapter 3 requirements only and any existing corner monuments are simply property corners and not identical with the aliquot part corners.
We may well be talking past each other, but the above should be clear in what I am trying to find out, and you may notice that those who advocate such a bogus theory, are not responding!
Keith
Adam & Keith
I think one of the reasons you guys may be agreeing, yet disagreeing lies in the "erroneous" setting of the corner. How would you define erroneous"? How does your definition really affect whether or not the "erroneous" corner is controlling or not? Doesn't every center of section, 16th, or even quarter corner have some degree of "error" in it?
For example, if the GLO set a north quarter corner "erroneously" by stubbing it in at 40 chains from the NW section corner, not running the random and true as required by law, is it still controlling, or does the fact that it was set by an "erroneous" method, contrary to Chapter 3 methods, make it a legal nullity and therefore it must be "moved" to the "correct" position? Why or why not?
Brian
Your post is the bottom line to this whole bogus theory. We know for a fact that some 1/4 corners along the section line was stubbed in and we know for a fact that some section corners arrived by various methods, yet we do not think twice about accepting them where they are, not where they should be!
Should not the same rationale hold for other corners, like the interior of section subdivision corners?
It is obvious that the section lines were run before patenting and the interior subdivision corners were not necessarily run before patenting......so does this translate into only the Government surveyors can run the interior corners by original survey procedures in Chapter 3, or was that procedure left to the county surveyors and/or private surveyors. And we could guess at the percentage of these surveys being conducted after the patent or deed...as being high!
It would be nice in a ideal world, where all corner monuments are in, before the land is patented or deeded, but that is only irrational naive belief.
We are dealing with the simple concept of once the section is subdivided, before or after the patent or the deed, that the corner monuments will control the subdivisions within that section and there are no double sets of corner monuments.
We can only imagine the chaos that would be created if in fact every aliquot part of the section had to have a previous survey and with the differences of opinion being expressed, there would be multiple corner monuments for every subdivision corner.
Again, the Rivers case in Florida shows this multiple corner theory very well.
Keith
Adam & Keith
Brian,
I am referring to the case Keith posted a link to earlier. I am referring to a corner that was not set following the BLM manual of instructions. A corner monument that may have been set at 1,320+/- north of the S 1/4 corner irrespective of the location of the other three exterior corner locations, is one I would be referring to as "erroneous". I know that is not a perfect term.
The case, as I read it, says that a monument set erroneously and afterward was relied on to set property corners for the first time would hold. But the same case references another case that decided that a erroneously set corner was not acceptable when a boundary called to the corner before a monument was ever set there. I would contend that the implication on a deed that calls to the 'center of section' is that it is calling to a center location as per appropriate subdivision rules (at the intersection of opposing quarter-corner lines.
I agree that there is error in every monument. I contend that if a monument was "properly set" respective to the opposing quarter-corner lines is correct with any error later found to the math. I would even argue that if I don't have a reason to believe that it was set with improper procedures it is again acceptable. The 'first monument' set with per the blm 'wins' in my opinion.
Did that clarify what I mean by erroneous?
Tom
Adam & Keith
The art of surveying does leave judgements to the land surveyor and it cannot be left to the expert measurers. There were many occasions where I accepted private monuments where I knew that it was set at some 1320 ft. distance and not exactly at the midpoint as it should be.
Is there a fallacy among some who will not question any 1/4 cor. or sec. cor. location, yet demand that 1/16 sec. cors. be exactly set per Manual requirements?
Or, is it simply a survey premise that once the corner monument is established and used as the true corner, it should be the legal corner monument?
Or, does it take only the Federal Government to establish the corner monuments as some seem to think.
Why is it, that a private surveyors establishment of a corner with a monument out of place cannot be accepted as the true corner?
The procedure of dashed lines to show the true position of the section center lines and the found corner monuments off line is the practice of someone who does not have a clue about land surveying!
Keith
Mr. Schaut
Around devoting time to a pressing project, and fitting in a few rare days of vacation, I did read it again, very carefully. I had started crafting a reply that involved a lot of cut-n-paste from the case so that I would be sure to quote it accurately, but I see that since I started that process, Keith has already posted most of the pertinent portions of the opinion.
The bottom line is that the court recognized that Derrick had the authority to subdivide the sections as contemplated by Congress. The court recognized that during the time period of Derrick's work, there was not just one ubiquitously known and accepted method for setting a C 1/4, but indeed several, each claiming some level of officialdom through sanction by either the main office of the GLO (US Surveyor General) or by various Surveyors General of different states and territories. The court recognized that Derrick had utilized one such method to set this C 1/4, and that the method he used was the method in common use in that region at that time. The court noted Derrick's experience as one of the GLO deputy surveyors who had performed many of the original GLO surveys in the area, thereby settling the matter of qualification.
(Note: The court misidentified the method used as "stubbing in" which most surveyors recognize as measuring from one direction. But the court went on to describe the method in more detail, which is more properly understood to have been a careful setting of the midpoint between the E 1/4 and the W 1/4 by traversing from the W 1/4 to the E 1/4 on a random line, noting the falling and making a proper correction at the midpoint.)
The court did not presume qualification to write descriptions of either boundary lines or of corners, as you agrue in a post below, but exercised it's authority to recognize the true lines and points as established and described by one both qualified and authorized to do so.
Although the corner as established on the ground by Derrick was not at the intersection of the lines between opposite exterior 1/4 corners, nor was it purported to be, it was and is the only correct and original C 1/4 of that section and cannot by any credible argument, be seen otherwise.