Kevin
I did not say that I would ignore the case, nor do I believe any prudent surveyor would. The ruling is just not the same as a US Spreme court decision. Certainly all states look to other state's rulings in areas that have not been covered by their own case law.
just saying the point is nuance.....not nusance
Steve
>
I think Dykes is an Oregon case (not Federal).
Any Surveyor who thinks it should be overturned is unclear on the concept, in my opinion. Monuments don't exist for the Surveyors; they mainly exist for the property owners to know where their property is located. Maybe some take it personally that a County Surveyor didn't use the correct procedure decades ago but at this point it is too late to fix it.
Of course monuments exist for the surveyors. Yes, monuments are for the land owner also so that he can delineate his land boundaries but monuments are evidence to the corner and the surveyor has to be cognizant of that evidence.
Federal, State law? Private surveyors survey under state authority so the law is appropriate for the survey.
It is reasonable for the BLM to reject the aliquot part designator for monuments that were not set according to procedures specified in the manual for placing the designated monument. Rejection of the designator is not rejection of the valid monument.
For instance, in Dykes v Arnold, the county surveyor's notes clearly stated that he went 1/2 mile east of the W1/4 and set a post. He clearly did not intend to set the C1/4, therefore an attorney would be wrong if he described the W1/2 mile of the S1/2 of the section as the 'SW1/4' when the monument set was the NE cor of the W1/2 mile of the S1/2 of the section, not the 'C1/4'.
Descriptions and/or designators do provide guidance when searching for existing monumentation but they do not control the location of the found monumentation.
If the designator does not lead to the established monument, the designator must be rejected and a correction document should be prepared and recorded so that future surveyors are looking in the 'right' place.
That is why tract segregation procedures and document reformation is specified in Chap 6 of the manual and why private surveyor's have state laws that provide guidance regarding acceptance of established monumentation.
Richard Schaut
Dane
I see posters on this board sometimes rejecting corners for a variety of reasons.
In Dykes, if I remember correctly, the County surveyor broke down the section and set a corner that wasn't at the math perfect intersection.
On the other hand, if a surveyor comes off of the SW corner of section 6 and blindly goes 1320' due East and sets the SE corner of Lot7 in a section line that is 75 chains long, I just might not accept his corner due to the fact that it (A) wasn't set using proper procedures and (B) upsets the ownership pattern for the rest of the SW 1/4 that may have previously been established using more appropriate procedures.
If all of the surrounding property owners recognise this as the corner, and it had been there for some period of time and relied upon, I would think long and hard before rejecting it.
It's a case by case thought process and I know for a fact that most BLM surveyors don't blindly reject corners because the absolute perfect Manual prcedure wasn't followed. There's a lot more to analysis than blindly following one portion a manual of any kind.
DJJ
My error!
I do have to correct an error of mine. I have referred to the Dykes court case as a Federal Appeals Court case and it is not. It is an Oregon State Appeals Court case.
Keith
Dane
> Are you saying that BLM rejected some monuments as not controlling federal interests because their belief is that improper methodology was uaed to place said monuments?
Yes, that's correct. In a couple of cases, the methodologies were relatively minor, resulting in positional differences of less than 5 links, and in a couple of cases, 1 or 2 links. In those very minor instances, I'm surprised they didn't just go with the locally accepted monument in the ground.
In the case of at least one survey of a Parcel Map, the private surveyor took an obvious, and obviously wrong shortcut, resulting in positional differences of about 12 to 15 links.
Not only was the methodology of that PM a study in poor technical procedure (or more accurately, ignoring correct procedure for a much more expedient method), the County Surveyor who approved the map was also the private surveyor who prepared the map. That's probably a good example of why the law was changed so that a surveyor can't do private work that would be subject to his/her review in his/her governmental capacity.
I had a few comments concerning the Dykes v. Arnold case that weren't mentioned in the earlier posts.
1. First the C 1/4 was set in 1899. In 2006 when the case was decided the corner had been in the ground 97 years.
2. It was stated that the surveyor "stubbed" in the corner. What I understand is that the surveyor set the C 1/4 at the midpoint between the west and east quarter corner. It is also my understanding, while not "proper procedure" this method was not uncommon in 1899 and this method may have actually been "proper procedure" in some places at earlier times.
3. The land owners had relied on the fence corner at the C 1/4 for the 97 years. The metes & mounds descriptions referred to the C1/4, the court did not interpret this to mean the perfect intersection point which would have to be continually moved every time our survey methods improved.
4. The court notes that the manual doesn't specifically say to reject corners not set by "proper procedures".
5. The court looked to the doctrine of repose to make their decision; and the court was sitting in "equity" not "law".
Another items not listed in the case that I heard was that the west 1/4 was lost and calculated by single proportion by the surveyor that wanted to reject the 1899 C1/4. I find that sometimes interior corners are better evidence of the original position of a quarter corner than the proportioned position.
So there's alot more to consider other than "proper procedures" when evaluating a corner. And there are very few black & white rules in boundary law, they are mostly varying shades of gray.
Evelyn
Dane
My memory of the Dykes case was the County Surveyor set the Center Quarter by stubbing from one of the quarter corners.
It is in a Section with a lot of metes and bounds parcels tied to the center. If the perfect intersection is used then everything was shifted 70' moving houses into road right of ways and moving roads onto private property. The Court recognized reality which is using the stubbed corner makes everything fit and brings peace to the land.
Edit-Evelyn below states the County Surveyor set the center quarter on the midpoint between the east and west quarters which was very common procedure in the 19th century.
Thank you Evelyn for your thoughtful post.
Those among us who fervently believe that their measurements are holy and permits them to reject any and all previous monuments that supposedly represent the same corner as being perpetuated by the precise measurement, are the expert measurers that are often referred on here. And they are wrong!
Keith
Accurate measurements
Accurate measurements are fundamental in providing a sound basis to evaluate evidence. If you don't have any clue as to the precision of your survey, how can you evaluate yours or somebody else's survey?
In your day you probably used 20" or 30" transits with 5 or 8 chain tapes. You probably didn't apply any chaining corrections and you rarely used a plum bob. You probably even dropped a rock or chaining pin for point control while measuring. So the closures you got were more a factor of compensating errors than proper procedure. You have also said that you never adjusted your survey as long as it met the manual closure standards. True, adjustment of your survey would have been a folly as you had no clue what error existed and where it should be distributed. Was it angular or was it distance related? Who knows? And correcting for curvature, get real!
You are so condescending toward accurate measurers when accurate measurements are what the public expect from professional land surveyors. How can you tell if the difference in a corner position between surveys is because of your inaccuracies or because of an error in other survey? Without accurate measurements proper corner evaluation, including determining proper procedures, would be impossible.
William D.
The fallacy of your concept as stated here:
Accurate measurements are fundamental in providing a sound basis to evaluate evidence. If you don't have any clue as to the precision of your survey, how can you evaluate yours or somebody else's survey?
is shown by a picture of two monuments that are finger length apart!
Judgement? Hardly!
You are though, mostly correct in your second paragraph about running line and chaining in my early days. My practices then were the same as was used for the survey of most of the PLSS in these United States.
Obviously there was error and if we would have used your expert measuring concepts; the PLSS would be done now somewhere west of Illinois!
Do you really think that surveyors don't look like fools when the land owner sees two monuments that are a finger length apart?
I like this:
From A. C. Mulford
“For after all, when it comes to a question of the stability of property and the peace of the community, it is far more important to have a somewhat faulty measurement of the spot where the line truly exists than it is to have an extremely accurate measurement of the place where the line does not exist at all."
Keith
PS: Speaking of curves, my field procedures were automatically on the curve!
William D.
Don't confuse accurate measurements with accurate adjudication. But you need one to do the other.
Your experience was probably performing dependent resurveys where the recovery rate of original PLSS corners was about 90-95%. You probably only personally subdivided a few sections in your career and evaluation of other surveyor's work in Montana during your era must have been very little as you surveyed mostly in remote unsettled areas. Heck your era was probably before routine use of EDMs.
Anyways, accurate measurements are much easier now days. Measuring is the easy part. The adjudication of corner evidence is that hard part now due to the practices of previous surveyors and the lack of good records. I don't buy something indiscriminately just because it was there first. I check out the hows and whys before accepting or rejecting corner evidence. Don't you?
Also, don't confuse the methods and standards of GLO performing originals surveys and BLM performing dependent resurveys which you did. They are very different.
Does your opinion of survey standards vary when the question if private land is involved or if public land is involved? Just wondering?
William D.
What is your last name? Do I know you?
As much as you know about my field survey procedures, you must have been one of my chainmen?
Just for your information, surveyors do not adjudicate boundaries.
Do you agree that surveyors look foolish when the landowner sees two monuments that are finger length apart?
Keith
William D.
This is kind of gone off on a tangent.
We have a lot of pride in our procedures; that is great.
However, I don't think I have ever seen a Court case where the court rejected a monument based on bad procedure of any kind. I have seen plenty where the court in effect said we don't care that the procedure is bad the monument has been there long enough. I have even seen where the Court acknowledged it was done wrong but now it's too late to fix it.
Dave
Expert measurers simply can't comprehend the concept in your post.
Period.
Keith
Keith
Where did I say that surveyors adjudicate? Surveyors interpret and render quasi-judicial opinions of corner locations. Of course the courts adjudicate and render decisions but this is based upon the surveyor's opinion on the evidence he or she has recovered.
Also I didn't say that the courts rely solely on accurate measurements in making decisions. But measurements do affect the decision making process of a surveyor whether you want to admit it or not. Past procedures, good or bad, do as well.
Your example shows 2 marks close together. One might be a boundary marker. One might be a GPS corner. Or they both be a reference to a subsurface gas line. A landowner would not know the difference. As a land surveyor, I would only know by researching the records and retracing that record. To do this I would have to, guess what, measure.
I don't want to get into any inane discussion on this subject.
All I can say is that every case depends on the circumstances of the survey, so in other words, it depends...........
William D.
This was you, wasn't it?
William D.
by William D., Friday, March 04, 2011, 08:58 (2 hours, 37 minutes ago) @ Keith
edited by William D., Friday, March 04, 2011, 09:03
Don't confuse accurate measurements with accurate adjudication. But you need one to do the other.
Keith
William D.
I reread your post and this just stuck out like a real sore thumb:
Your example shows 2 marks close together. One might be a boundary marker. One might be a GPS corner. Or they both be a reference to a subsurface gas line. A landowner would not know the difference
Is it the landowners business to know or is just the surveyor who sets double corners and screws up the landowners boundary?
A landowner should know where his/her boundary is by the survey monuments and he/she looks at these double monuments and simply shakes his/her head.
Keith
Have you read the thread above on pincushion monuments?
Have to repost this!
Well stated Gunter!
by Keith, On the Central Coast of California, Saturday, March 05, 2011, 08:38 (2 hours, 17 minutes ago) @ Gunter Chain
I really like this part: ". . . Sure, there is a technical aspect of mere field measurement, which any well-trained technician can do, but there is also the very important component of professional judgement which is what separates the PS from the techie - and this should not be forgotten. . . ."
That oughta stir up the expert measurers!
Keith
Have to repost this!
I am an expert measurer; the key is to expertly measure to the correct place.
Also knowing when to measure and when to lay out is helpful.
