Ames v. Eldred

Decided July 1, 1880

California Supreme Court · decided 1880-07-01

<p>Appeal from a judgment for the plaintiff, in the Seventeenth District Court, County of Los Angeles. Sepulveda, J.</p> <p>. The facts are stated in the opinion.</p>

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““The only question in this case is as to the sufficiency of the declaration of homestead. Referring to the valuation of the premises, the declaration states ‘that the actual cash value is $5,000 and over.’ Section 1263 Civil Code provides that the declaration must contain an estimate of the actual cash value. “To say that a piece of property is of the value of $5,000 and over, is not to give an estimate of the actual cash value: it is not to say whether the property is worth $5,000 or $50,000. (Ashley v. Olmstead, 54 Cal. 616 .)””

quoted by 1 later decision, including In re Morse

Relies on Ashley v. Olmstead

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1880-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 15 later decisions — most recently January 1965

5 federal appellate · 8 state decisions

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Myrick, J.:

¶1' The only question in this case is, as to the sufficiency of the declaration of homestead. Referring to the valuation of the premises, the declaration states “ that the actual cash value is $5,000 and over.” Section 1263 Civil Code provides that the declaration must contain an estimate of the actual cash value.

¶2To say that a piece of property is of the value of $5,000 and over, is not to give an estimate of the actual cash value: it is not to say whether the property is worth $5,000 or $50,000. (Ashley v. Olmstead, 54 Cal. 616.)

¶3. Judgment reversed and cause remanded, with directions to sustain the demurrer to the complaint.

¶4Thornton, J., and Sharpstein, J., concurred.