Turn the angle -or- use Astro bearing?

I haven't read anything about that case since I took Roy Minnick's Boundary Control and Legal Principles class in the early '80s, but I recall thinking at the time that it was a BS decision to hold astronomic.

Why would one change the basis of bearing in the middle of a description? Seems one would have to presume from the language that they turned the angle and then a bunch of 90's. Other evidence should be needed to rebut that presumption.

Copping-out here....
Search real hard for any monumentation and hold that to determine other corners. See if the existing monumentation has any discernible difference between the two methodologies.

My point, if anything, is that if it appears to be done a specific way either by the original surveyor or a retracing surveyor, follow their footsteps. The amount of misclosure (or precision method) in their own surveys might render which method used as insignificant.

Philosophically speaking, I think that due north would mean geodetic north (but I'm copping out on that one 😉 )

Mr. Karoly...
Glad to see your beginning to use the law library. I've found it to be very informative for the last 35 years. It has been very reassuring to know that there are very few boundary issues that come up in our daily practice that hasn't been litigated, it's a matter of finding the issues relevant to the boundary issue at hand.

In this case, at least at my age I love the word DEPENDS, it can have so many different interpretations depending on use and experience...:-)

DUE means in this case: Richfield points out that in many cases a "due north" or "north" call has been surveyed on other than an astronomical basis (see Currier v. Nelson, 96 Cal. 505, 508 [31 P. 531, 746, 31 Am.St.Rep. 239]; Martin v. Lloyd, 94 Cal. 195, 202 [29 P. 491]; Faris v. Phelan, 39 Cal. 612, 613; Green v. Palmer, 68 Cal.App. 393, 401 [229 P. 876]; Gutha v. Roscommon County Road Com., supra), but in each of the cited cases other parts of the deed or the findings of the court based on admissible extrinsic evidence required a rejection of the astronomical method of surveying the call. In the present case, substantial evidence supports the finding of the trial court that defendants' method of survey was correct.

Richfield points out that in many cases a "due north" or "north" call has been surveyed on other than an astronomical basis (see Currier v. Nelson, 96 Cal. 505, 508 [31 P. 531, 746, 31 Am.St.Rep. 239]; Martin v. Lloyd, 94 Cal. 195, 202 [29 P. 491]; Faris v. Phelan, 39 Cal. 612, 613; Green v. Palmer, 68 Cal.App. 393, 401 [229 P. 876]; Gutha v. Roscommon County Road Com., supra), but in each of the cited cases other parts of the deed or the findings of the court based on admissible extrinsic evidence required a rejection of the astronomical method of surveying the call. In the present case, substantial evidence supports the finding of the trial court that defendants' method of survey was correct.

This and many other similar cases are very interesting in that they deal with something more important than surface boundary issues that Mighty Moe and I deal with every day. That is subsurface trespass issues, mineral valuations and leases written up by attorneys, landmen etc.

Pablo B-)

I read it last night so I may be misremembering but it seems to me they liked the Defendant surveyor's reasoning better than the Plaintiff surveyor's.

Since the line run was a pseudo-section line (the line was never run by the GLO because it is in a Rancho) and section lines were run on true north bearings then this line should be run on a true north bearing.

However, they are not making this a matter of law, just affirming that the trial court had substantial evidence to support its conclusion.

I really don't know why I haven't gone there before.

There is a lot of good sources of information about every topic of interest to us except for the technical details, of course.

I took a class on researching using the Annotated Codes and I thought it would probably be boring but since it is Part 1 I took it (Part 2 is researching case law). I had no idea the Annotated Codes are so useful. They have the history of a given Code Section, when it was enacted, amended, the source of the current code (Year and Chapter of Statutes), cases that have interpreted that Section and explanatory commentary. Section 900 of the California Evidence Code (Expert Witnesses) has about 50 pages of text and information. They are a gold mine of information.

Tom...

I don't know for sure but I am assuming there were no corners set on the parcels in the case since they are aliquot parts inside of a Rancho Grant (on the boundaries of the Grant were surveyed). The aliquots were probably used as a convenient way to lease oil rights but then they had to argue about how to lay them out.

Dave, I just read it and it seems like a reasonable decision to me. I think the case is an argument about how the line should be originally run based on the deed language, rather than figuring out how it was actually run many years before. Experts on differing sides would have done it differently. But absent the manifestation of intent that a staking one way or another would have resulted, I think the parties should be stuck with the technical meaning of the words Due North in that area of the country at that time. Especially because of the earlier lease that described the area in terms of the PLSS.

Some of the language suggests the rebuttable presumption is opposite to what I proposed above, but some seems to suggest not. I'm left thinking that in a retracement the question is a completly open one with no presumption either way, at least if the survey was performed before this decision.

Original survey stakeouts per similar language after the date of this decision should be run Due North, and retracements of them should get the rebuttable presumption that they were run accordingly. But extrinsic evidence is still going to control a retracement many years after the original stakeout.

Tom...

Dave,
We (might) have a similar situation in Colorado. There is a Spanish Land Grant where some land developer broke it out into Sections, Townships and Ranges. It's basically a great big subdivision that is using the same nomenclature as Section and aliquot parts. They even broke all the sections down to small fractional sections. My general feeling is that the use of "due" north and other such terms, should be applied to the time period when the descriptions were written. In this case, it's the 'subdivision' map we refer to and not a metes-and-bounds description. I would wonder what a local surveyor would do at the time the document was created; or in other words, what was normally meant at the time when that kind of language was used in the private sector.

I don't know about the case laws; but I would read very close to the cases one is reading to make sure the same circumstances apply to your particular case. (but now I think I am talking in an area that you are probably more knowledgeable than I)