> [...] there was a very old mesquite fence in line with it, and I do mean old. Pretty strong evidence, right? Fortunately the rancher came by and told me he had moved the very old fence to match the new monument!
One very good habit to have is checking fence posts for multiple staple holes. In that case, there pretty much had to have been evidence of an earlier set of staples driven into the post when the fence was originally constructed.
COME ON!!!
I think you're thinking of the late Richard Schaut.
> What your refer to here may come under the heading of "absurd result." Generally the rules and laws handed down for us to use are not allowed to make an absurd result. What this means in terms we understand, distances, is hard to nail down exactly because usually the Courts don't make decisions in those terms.
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> An example could be a 100 year old subdivision with several rows and columns of 200' square lots. The original surveyor did a good job getting all of the monuments within 0.5' of the mathematically exact position. Say one monument in the middle is 25' off. Although the rule favors original monuments in this case the rule would cause an absurd result and good judgment may call for setting a new monument. Obviously there could be other considerations at play such as partition walls and structures built in reliance on the monuments.
I have never heard the term 'absurd result'. However I would tend to reject such a 25' off monument anyway. My argument, is that I am evaluating all of the evidence to determine the original positions of the corners. If I have seen that in a particular subdivision, all of the monuments appear to fit to each other within a 0.5-foot tolerance more or less: I would consider a monument that is 2' or more out of that surveyors standard precision and accuracy to be strong evidence that the monument is no longer in its original position. In an evaluation of all of the evidence, sometimes we need to consider existing monuments that may have been moved are for some other reason are no longer in the original position as established by the original survey.
