Have a difference of opinion right now w/ another surveyor over the location of a boundary. He is strictly relying on a remote tie that is at odds with all of the local evidence. Does anyone know any refrences to court cases where a remote point of beginning call has led to boundary disputes? Ca cases would be preferred but anything could be helpful. Thanks!
Are you referring to a "Point of Reference", or a "Secondary Point of Reference", not the True Place of Beginning?
The point of beginning for any description has no more weight than any other point on the survey or legal description.
There is Swartzwald v Cooley, 39 Cal.App.2d 306 (1940). While it deals with a point of beginning at a mean high tide line, there is a more specific call to a State Highway later in the description which was dispositive of location.
Another recent case was similar in a qualifying call to a State Highway, but commencing at a remote section corner. It involved a winery and an adjacent driveway. I could cull through the records for that one.
What is often critical are additional calls within the description, even if adjoiners' deeds utilize the same point of commencement. Diehl v Zanger, decided by Justice Cooley in Michigan speaks to improvements and reliance upon same. That is quoted with vigor to this day in most jurisdictions.
Lookup Kaiser v. Dalto.
The boundary sections of the winery case (2014?) are not published/not citable. They only published the section dealing with Attorney fees {}#%^^}#^#*{]]}%^*%##!!!
The California Court's treat location very heavily as a question of fact. In my opinion remote POB ties yield to better evidence of location at the boundary itself. The ties were often calculated and are intended to get you in the vicinity. They are very popular in some counties, like Placer.
Kaiser v. Dalto, 140 Cal 167 (1903)
Bullard v. Kempff, 119 Cal 9 (1897)
The case Warren refers to is Belle Terre Ranch v. Wilson (2015). I have the PDF which includes the unpublished section but I can't upload it from my iPad. I'm on vacation, computer is at home.
Okay, the Courts website still has it online:
http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/archive/A137217.PDF
roger_LS, post: 420711, member: 11550 wrote: Have a difference of opinion right now w/ another surveyor over the location of a boundary. He is strictly relying on a remote tie that is at odds with all of the local evidence. Does anyone know any refrences to court cases where a remote point of beginning call has led to boundary disputes? Ca cases would be preferred but anything could be helpful. Thanks!
The classic Texas case is the 1867 decision of the Texas Supreme Court rendered in Stafford v. King (30 Tex 257) in which the court held that the footsteps of the original surveyor were the true object of inquiry and that the most forceful evidence was that showing where lines had actually been run and corners marked and would control over some erroneous tie to a remote monument.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc ="s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjq7Muw6PrSAhUB54MKHcrFCPgQFggcMAA&url= http://txls.texas.gov/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Stafford_v_King_30_Tex_257.rtf&usg=AFQjCNFI0mFI4MS-LZfe4iKS_rBeQvRHZA&sig2=PmYEXD_iWvOsSBY8MCAMz w"
Stafford v. King is one of the fundamental cases of Texas boundary law and is probably the single most cited boundary case in the decisions of other Texas courts after 1867.
Warren, Dave & Kent, thank you all! Very much appreciated!
Many times a "Point of Commencement" is only to help you get close enough o find the POB. However I have given weight to a POC with a three course tie, each a monument. A description to iron pins but commencing at a subdivision concrete monument is no to be ignored.
Are you unwilling to give a professional opinion without some judge having made it under the same circumstances, many years ago?
Paul in PA
In the Old Line State, we have Delphey v Savage: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2307761/delphey-v-savage/
Paul in PA, post: 420775, member: 236 wrote: Many times a "Point of Commencement" is only to help you get close enough o find the POB. However I have given weight to a POC with a three course tie, each a monument. A description to iron pins but commencing at a subdivision concrete monument is no to be ignored.
Are you unwilling to give a professional opinion without some judge having made it under the same circumstances, many years ago?
Paul in PA
The lawyers refer to that as being "on all fours," a case that matches your case on the facts and the law. Such a thing is almost a unicorn but it happens on rare occasions.
I had one I called "the church lot" in a small rural town. The 40x80 church lot had a remote tie to a 1/64th corner, it was the first Deed in the block (not a subdivision block) delivered in 1929. In 1949 the local surveyor shifted the church Lot to a more convenient location (about 15' southeast) then Deeds were delivered all around it like a metes and bounds puzzle. I think the Title Company must've written the Deeds because the surveyor's map doesn't exactly match the Deeds, he kind of adjusted things for better layout, not a lot, a foot here, straighten out that bearing there, then he set pipes and all the lots have been occupied to the pipes ever since. I had no problem after 60+ years recognizing the reality of the situation and holding the pipes. Don't need no Judge to hold my hand.
What has been very beneficial to me thru the years had been relying upon the best available evidence.
Given a pile of deed descriptions, original survey notes and drawings to work from, weeding out the general from the more immediate relative information has been my key to following the footsteps.
Many remote references are less reliable than other recovered monuments and references because many of them are scaled or represent information of less quality and is given to merely get one in the near vicinity to start looking.
0.02
Paul in PA, post: 420775, member: 236 wrote: Are you unwilling to give a professional opinion without some judge having made it under the same circumstances, many years ago? Paul in PA
That's quite a presumptuous statement, Mr. Paul in Pa. Shame on me for utilizing the great resources of this forum! To answer your question, though it's none of your business, an opinion has already been given, just more curious than anything else. I've got a bad situation where a surveyor is running a line 4' through my clients' 75 year old garage based on a 1908 (probably calculated) tie to an edge of a street some 1200 feet away. These are standard size town lots but all done w/ metes and bounds, I've got a pattern of old fencing and other improvements in the local area like old walls and splits in concrete pours that demonstrate very clearly where the lines were originally established. But they don't fit by 7' to this remote tie 1200' away, so according to this other surveyor, they must all be wrong. It's pretty bad.
Dave Karoly, post: 420807, member: 94 wrote: Don't need no Judge to hold my hand.
Lovely quote.
Here's another:
"Them's coffee table deeds".
(credit to SH)
N
A Harris, post: 420847, member: 81 wrote: What has been very beneficial to me thru the years had been relying upon the best available evidence.
Given a pile of deed descriptions, original survey notes and drawings to work from, weeding out the general from the more immediate relative information has been my key to following the footsteps.
Many remote references are less reliable than other recovered monuments and references because many of them are scaled or represent information of less quality and is given to merely get one in the near vicinity to start looking.
0.02
I work exclusively with mineral survey retracements. The mineral surveyor was required to tie the mineral survey to a PLSS corner within two miles of the mining claim. While I have never used the tie from a section corner to reestablish a lost mineral survey corner, I won't say that I would never use such a tie.
While we are in different states, I follow pretty much what A Harris does. The best available evidence for a mineral survey boundary almost always would not be the tie to a remote, obscure section corner, esp. for situations where there is local evidence of the boundary.
I found this humorous note at the end of the field notes for Colorado mineral survey 16100, approved January 3, 1903. The U.S. Deputy Mineral Surveyor, O.F. Shattuck wrote,
Note: - This survey does not show the positions of the various conflicting claims as surveyed, patented and fully identified on the ground, but, as required by the Hon. Commissioner of the General Land Office, fictitious positions are show according to ties give to far distant, poorly established, shifting monuments, supposed to be corners of the Public Survey.
This survey occurred during the 5-year period where the G.L.O. arbitrarily held the ties to section corners over the positions of monuments and evidence of the true boundaries. A classic case of Cadastral Mayhem caused by "strictly relying" upon the record.
I don't see a difference between the other surveyor "strictly relying on a remote tie" and the above note on the "fictitious position" based on a far distant PLSS corner in MS 16100.
roger_LS, post: 420876, member: 11550 wrote: That's quite a presumptuous statement, Mr. Paul in Pa. Shame on me for utilizing the great resources of this forum! To answer your question, though it's none of your business, an opinion has already been given, just more curious than anything else. I've got a bad situation where a surveyor is running a line 4' through my clients' 75 year old garage based on a 1908 (probably calculated) tie to an edge of a street some 1200 feet away. These are standard size town lots but all done w/ metes and bounds, I've got a pattern of old fencing and other improvements in the local area like old walls and splits in concrete pours that demonstrate very clearly where the lines were originally established. But they don't fit by 7' to this remote tie 1200' away, so according to this other surveyor, they must all be wrong. It's pretty bad.
That ain't boundary surveying.
roger_LS, post: 420876, member: 11550 wrote: That's quite a presumptuous statement, Mr. Paul in Pa. Shame on me for utilizing the great resources of this forum! To answer your question, though it's none of your business, an opinion has already been given, just more curious than anything else. I've got a bad situation where a surveyor is running a line 4' through my clients' 75 year old garage based on a 1908 (probably calculated) tie to an edge of a street some 1200 feet away. These are standard size town lots but all done w/ metes and bounds, I've got a pattern of old fencing and other improvements in the local area like old walls and splits in concrete pours that demonstrate very clearly where the lines were originally established. But they don't fit by 7' to this remote tie 1200' away, so according to this other surveyor, they must all be wrong. It's pretty bad.
Roger, I began with "Many times a "Point of Commencement" is only to help you get close enough (t)o find the POB." which appears to support your survey opinion, which you did not give the first time around. Your quote of me was not a statement by me but a question from me.
Once I held a POC which I never even looked for, because it was referenced in four adjacent deeds. To honor this unfound point was to hold the preponderance of found markers for all four deeds. Perhaps you have similar evidence to use in your case.
Perhaps I should detail an example, you have deeds for 4 100' lots with points of commencement 1200', 1300', 1400' & 1500' away, that POC is now found to be 4' long or short for all 4 lots. Markers found show that all the original footsteps reference from the same POC but at a similarly different distance.
Paul in PA