Rivers v. Lozeau explained by Don Wilson

I will try to use better language in the future.

clearcut

That explanation makes sense to me. I don't think Florida has a BLM survey office anywhere near it. I believe the only BLM survey office near Florida is the one referred to as "Eastern States", which is in Virginia. That probably explains why other Federal surveyors, and surveyors under contract, survey the Federal lands around here. I don't think the BLM does much "managing" of land in Florida, but based on the Rivers case, they apparently do stop by occasionally to break something. 😛

Pseudo

Perhaps it's "legal", just not "binding" upon the US government, as Dave Karoly says below?

Keith seems to indicate above that the north line of the 40 was not monumented by BLM on the dependent resurvey which would make that part of the court's statement of facts inaccurate. Apparently they were set by an FS state licensed employee subdividing the section from the BLM resurvey.

This is cool-GLORECORDS has the plat and field notes. The 1983 survey did not subdivide section 15. There is a later one in there, I will look at it next.

> Keith seems to indicate above that the north line of the 40 was not monumented by BLM on the dependent resurvey which would make that part of the court's statement of facts inaccurate. Apparently they were set by an FS state licensed employee subdividing the section from the BLM resurvey.

Keith's recitals of fact should be checked. He may be right but I kinda believe the court based solely on his track record.

Even more cool-they now have a lot of California notes and plats in there.

That's how it is in Utah!

The GLOrecords site only has a plat and notes for the section exterior.

The west quarter was set proportionally from some Moorhead Engineering field notes from 1948. There is a nail and washer in the State highway to the north, that may not have been the Moorhead monument.

Let me see if I can make a link.

I don't know if this works:
http://glorecords.blm.gov/details/survey/default.aspx?dm_id=11788&sid=llqzqnyo.osd

Or go to glorecords.blm.gov and search under surveys T14S R24E Tallahassee Meridian. That brings up a list of surveys. They have the plats and field notes.

Seems like we have to dig this stuff out every year or so. The N line of the SE 1/4 SW 1/4 was not surveyed in the resurvey. The case was based upon protraction using the resurvey. The resurvey made the west line of the SW1/4 SW 1/4 about 35 ft+ - shorter than a normal looking section. The line the court case was based on was never run by the govt. What makes it worse is that there was not even a protracted line drawn on the resurvey plat but the court was convinced that a normal protraction was the original line anyway. Every time I dig into this my blood boils.

You are right, The BLM did not divide the section. The BLM "reset" the W. 1/4 corner about 60 feet from where it had been apparently "well established" and currently monumented by the locals (including a state highway running through that 1/4 corner). The NFS then used the new BLM survey to resurvey their lands, moving the boundary about 30 feet. In the Rivers case, the owner seems to have accepted the NFS/BLM survey as their northern boundary, and tried to adjust their south aliquot/offset lines to match ...

Last time I checked, no one has ever filed a corner record for any these section and 1/4 corners relied on, as has been required by state law for about 40 years, anytime the corner is recovered/used.

I am attempting to scan the field note page on the west 1/4 cor. of sec. 15 and having difficulty!!

Have things going on today and might not get to it.

Keith

to me this case relates more to expert witness testimony than anything else. Morehead failed to make an adequate case in support of their determination and the court ruled with the BLM experts, right or wrong.

it speaks more to the lack of expert witnesses.

The notes are here...

http://glorecords.blm.gov/details/survey/default.aspx?dm_id=11788&sid=llqzqnyo.osd <

I think you are right and it speaks to the actions of land surveyors and how we affect these decisions.

The USDA-FS set monuments at the north line of the Lozeaus 28.71' south of the Moorhead monuments for the same 1/16th corners. Instead of dealing with the problem where it was located they elected to sue their neighbors to the south. A little bit of digging reveals that the dependent resurvey didn't set the 1/16th corners in question.

If we had an expert doing a proper analysis then the case outcome may have been different.

If we use the Moorhead survey as the original survey as to the interior deed boundaries then the occupation and boundaries line up. The problem with the north line of the 40 should be left where it is and not be allowed to cascade through the entire 40 causing unnecessary havoc.

Let the Lozeaus take on the USDA-FS and see where that leads to. I would limit the question of the correctness of the Moorhead survey to its survey of the 40's exterior boundaries.

It keeps coming up because it is published in standard educational materials and discussed uncritically in CEU seminars. The linked course has one Iowa case and four from the southeast a few of which are very old.

Don Wilson uses it in his book. I don't see it in my 4th edition of Brown (1990s) but there is no table of cases so it could be in there. I notice that legal sources written by Attorneys typically have a table of cases.

April Fools Day

Perfect day for such a deed.

April Fools Day

I see what you did there.

I like to get linebender going on this court case......he knows a lot about it!