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11 N.M. 555

Rush v. Fletcher

New Mexico Supreme Court

Decided August 28, 1902

New Mexico Supreme Court · decided 1902-08-28

McMillan, Associate Justice. The boundary line between Texas and New Mexico was definitely established by a joint commission in 1859, and was retraced by a United States surveyor in 1883. The court will conclusively presume that this line as established, and the retracement thereof are correct, and is powerless to correct even manifest errors therein •if there were any. Revised Statutes of the United States, sec. 2395; Stoneroad v. Stoneroad, U. S. Sup. Ct. 1895.

Relies on Waldo v. Beckwith · Territory v. Hicks · Zanz v. Stover

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Affirmed · Decided 1902-08-28

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently September 1982

6 state decisions

20190219101920193019401950196019701980decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1OPINION OF THE COURT.

BAKER, J.

¶2This is a controversy over the right to the possession of and title to two tracts of land, situate in Eddy county, Territory of New Mexico, tried by the 'Court without the intervention of a jury.

¶3Appellant asks a reversal solely upon the grounds of alleged erroneous findings of fact by the trial court and the omission to find certain facts from the evidence.

¶4In the finding of each fact the trial court was confronted with conflicting testimony. Each finding of fact ns warranted by the evidence. It is an universal rule that a finding of fact by a trial court, like the verdidr of a jury, will not be disturbed unless it is clearly against the weight of evidence or not supported by sufficient evidence. Gale v. Salas, 66 Pac. 520; Waldo v. Beckwith, 1 N. M. 97; Badeau v. Baca, 2 N. M. 194; Territory v. Webb, Id. 147; Territory v. Maxwell, Id. 250; Territory v. Hicks, 6 N. M. 596; Territory v. Trujillo, 7 N. M. 48; Torlina v. Torlicht, 5 N. M. 148; Zanz v. Stover, 2 N. M. 29. For the reasons given the findings of fact, by the trial court in this case will not be disturbed.

¶5The discussion of the evidence in this opinion, upon-which the several facts were found by the trial court, could not serve as a precedent nor in any way serve the litigants in this case, nor could it be of aid to the profession. This case depends almost entirely upon the evidence of, surveyors, Numyer and Reed, each being corroborated on various points by other witnesses. We are-not only of the opinion that the trial court’s several' findings of fact were supported by sufficient evidence, but we are also of the opinion that they were established’ by a preponderance of the evidence. It was not necessary-for a just conclusion of the controversy that the court-should have found “where the monuments were located' east of the lands in controversy designating the line between the State of Texas and the Territory of New Mexico,” nor “the correct location of the Texas line as shown by the natural and artificial monuments in the neighborhood of the tracts of land in controversy.”

¶6There being no error, the judgment of the lower-court is affirmed.

Mills, C. J., McFie and Parker, JJ., concur.McMillan J., having tried the case below, did not. participate in this decision.
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