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5 Cal. 40

Castro v. Gill

California Supreme Court

Decided July 1, 1855

California Supreme Court · decided 1855-07-01

Action brought for the possession of certain land, leased by plaintiff to defendant, James M. Gill, and described in the complaint as situate in the County of Contra Costa, known as the Peninsula, “ Punta del Potrero,” and bounded by a straight line constituting the base of said peninsula, .and the low water mark of the shore, connecting the ends of said straight line and shore surrounding the peninsula.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1855-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 14 later decisions — most recently July 1980

1 district · 13 state decisions

4018551860187018801890190019101920193019401950196019701980decided

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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Heydenfeldt, J., delivered the opinion of the Court.

¶1Murray, C. J., concurred.

¶2First, The record shows what is the verdict; and the affidavits of jurors will not be taken to contradict it. It is not shown otherwise by the record, that the Judge misinterpreted the first finding which the jury made.

¶3Second, The declaration describes the land by a certain, name, and this is as good a description as one by metes and bounds, if it can be rendered sufficiently certain by the evidence. The fact that the name (a Spanish one) can be translated into English so as to mean nothing, does not alter or affect its potency as a name descriptive of a place.

¶4Third, Without deciding that notice to quit was necessary, it is a sufficient answer that the objection is too late; it should have been made upon the trial at nisi prius.

¶5Fourth, The Court correctly refused the charge. A party’s possession is not always confined to his actual enclosure. See Plume v. Leonard & Thompson, decided by this Court.

¶6Fifth, The Court also correctly refused the charges mentioned in the fifth point. It is not for the jury to determine whether the fact of prior possession is evidence of title—it is so declared by law. Nor is it the province of the jury to determine that “ the possession was of such a character as from which a grant could be fairly presumed.”

¶7There is no error in the record brought to our notice by the assignment, and the judgment is affirmed.

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