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52 Cal. 672

Penry v. Richards

California Supreme Court

Decided July 1, 1878

California Supreme Court · decided 1878-07-01

The action was brought to recover damages for a trespass alleged to have been'committed by the defendants “in tearing down and destroying a large amount of valuable fence, and in trampling down and destroying a large amount of grain.” Richards was the Mayor, Lataillade, Rynerson, and Pierce were members of the Common Council, and Ames was City Marshal of the City of Santa Barbara.

Relies on O'Farrel v. Harney

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1878-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently December 1933

8 state decisions

201878188018901900191019201930decided

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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¶1relied chiefly upon G’Farril v. Harney, 51 Cal. 125.

¶2*675W- G. Stratton, for Respondent, argued that as the deed referred to the map and not the survey, the map should control, and the monuments, which were not mentioned in the deed, could not be considered.

By the Court :

¶3The deed from the Town of Santa Barbara to Carillo—from whom plaintiff deraigns—described the premises conveyed as a piece of land, within the limits of the town, “ known and described on the official map of said town as Block Mo. 6, and containing one hundred and fifty square yards.” It was competent by parol evidence to identify the map referred to, and when identified, it was the duty of the Court to treat it as constituting a portion of the deed. The map made by Wackenreuder had already been declared by ordinance of the city to be the “ official map,” and even if another map had been referred to as the official map in conveyances made by the town previous to that declaration, there can be no doubt that, in deeds made after the passage of the ordinance, the words referred to the map declared to be official by the ordinance.

¶4The Wackenreuder map having been identified as the map. referred to, that map is found to be entitled on its face a map of the town “ as laid out by Saulsbury Haley.” These words are the equivalent of “ as surveyed by Haley,” and include a reference to the monuments erected by Haley. Thus the deed is to be construed as referring to the monuments; and if the evidence established the points where the monuments had been erected by Haley, such points should have controlled in determining the location of Block 6. The Court below ignored the evidence tending to show the location of the Haley stakes, and decided the case on the theory that the demanded premises were to be ascertained by running the courses and distances from the initial point of Haley’s survey, without regard to the monuments by him erected. This was a violation of well-known principles applicable to the mode of ascertaining the true position of lands described in deeds of conveyance.

¶5Judgment and order reversed, and cause remanded for a new trial.

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