COURT TELLS PARTIES WHERE TO DRAW THE LINE
Fall 2008

The California Court of Appeal has addressed a sometimes perplexing problem in determining where a boundary line is.  In Claudino v. Pereira, Alan Claudino owned land (Lot 1) adjoining that of Patricia Pereira (Lot 2) in the rural Campo Seco area of Calaveras County.  An 1867 act of Congress authorized a judge of the county where the land was located to claim, in trust for the occupants, federal public lands settled and occupied as an unincorporated townsite.  In 1868, the California legislature enacted implementing legislation which authorized county judges to survey lands which inhabitants of any unincorporated town could claim under the federal act.  Any lots or parcels claimed by any person were to be designated on a plat drawn from the survey.  The plats, together with the surveyor’s field notes, were to be recorded and become a public record.  According to the statute, the lot numbers shown on the plat would then provide a sufficient legal description of the parcels shown, “and such plats, field notes and records, and certified copies thereof, shall be prima facie evidence of the contents and correctness thereof….”

The lands now owned by Claudino and Pereira were surveyed in 1870, and the plat and field notes of the survey were recorded.  The common boundary line was depicted as a straight line on the plat.  In spite of that, the surveyor’s field notes recorded with the plat described the common boundary as commencing at a point at the northwest corner “in the gulch” and thence “northwesterly, down said gulch” to the next corner, a point that is also “in the gulch.”  The plat of the properties showed that the common boundary line was a straight line between them, but the original surveyor’s notes from which the map was prepared showed that the boundary line was the meander line[1]of a gulch between the properties. 

A dispute arose, and Claudino sued Pereira to establish that their common boundary was the meander line of the gulch, not a straight line between the corners of the property, as Pereira claimed.  Each side had a survey expert who testified to conflicting interpretations of the original survey.  Claudino’s expert testified that “down the gulch” was a reference to a natural monument which should therefore be followed to establish the boundary.  Pereira’s expert testified that “down the gulch” was an imprecise reference to a direction, not a boundary, and that the map, which depicted a straight line was the superior reference to the location of the boundary line. Claudino also produced the testimony of a historian who had researched and found that historic boundaries in the area were often market by stone walls, which in this case, followed the line of the gulch.  In addition, she testified that she found an assessment record from 1860 which described the assessed land as being bounded by the gulch, not a line through the gulch.

The trial court sided with Claudino, finding that the meander line of the gulch established the boundary between two parcels. The judge relied in part on the field notes from the survey, and taking exception, Pereira appealed.  The Court of Appeal affirmed.  First, the court ruled that the description of the common boundary lines was ambiguous due to the conflicting interpretations of the line’s location.  Second, the Court rejected Pereira’s argument that the plat was inviolate in depicting the line’s location.  The Court discussed a wide range of cases touching on various facets of the problem but came back to the point that the location of the line as described in the documents was vague, so the trial court was justified in relying on extrinsic evidence of the meaning of the documents to determine its location.  Perhaps Pereira’s strongest argument was that her deed referred to the plat in describing the land conveyed to her, and therefore, the plat should control.  The Court of Appeal, however, rejected this position, noting that the reference is not adequate under the original Township Acts unless it is read with reference not only the plat but the field notes of the surveyor who drew the plat. 

Lost in the Court’s discussion is any reference to California’s time honored but oft forgotten rules of interpretation of conveyances found in Code of Civil Procedure section 2077, which reads:

The following are the rules for construing the descriptive part of a conveyance of real property, when the construction is doubtful and there are no other sufficient circumstances to determine it:

One — Where there are certain definite and ascertained particulars in the description, the addition of others which are indefinite, unknown, or false, does not frustrate the conveyance, but it is to be construed by the first mentioned particulars.

Two — When permanent and visible or ascertained boundaries or monuments are inconsistent with the measurement, either of lines, angles, or surfaces, the boundaries or monuments are paramount.

Three — Between different measurements which are inconsistent with each other, that of angles is paramount to that of surfaces, and that of lines paramount to both.

Four — When a road, or stream of water not navigable, is the boundary, the rights of the grantor to the middle of the road or the thread of the stream are included in the conveyance, except where the road or thread of the stream is held under another title.

Five — When tide water is the boundary, the rights of the grantor to ordinary high-water mark are included in the conveyance.  When a navigable lake, where there is no tide, is the boundary, the rights of the grantor to low-water mark are included in the conveyance.

Six — When the description refers to a map, and that reference is inconsistent with other particulars, it controls them if it appears that the parties acted with reference to the map; otherwise the map is subordinate to other definite and ascertained particulars.

While the Court of Appeal did not refer to this statute, either because the parties did not rely on it or because the Court was referring to the Township Act instead, the Court’s decision appears consistent with the language of rules four and six of the statute.  Claudino v. Pereira is, thus, not as definitive as it could have been, but it does contribute to the legal literature for those who struggle with the oftentimes perplexing issue of determining where to draw the line between two parcels of land.

Steven Ray Garcia

Mr. Garcia is a Director with the firm’s Title Insurance Department. 

Email:  srg@kpclegal.com

[1] By its nature, water seeks the low point on land, and when if finds that low point in sufficient quantity so as not to completely percolate into the soil, it either pools or flows, depending on the characteristics of the low point.  If the water flows, the line it follows is called the meander line.  Typically, water flowing through a gulch will not run all year, leaving the meander line of the gulch as evidence that it was there.  Given the characteristics of water and its seasonal flow, the meander line is usually not a fixed course but moves within a course or gulch.  There is a specific body of law dealing with flowing water of this type (Keys v. Romley (1966) 64 Cal.2d 396), and coincidentally, where a boundary line is described as being a meander line, disputes often arise as to the line’s location, particularly if the line moves so as to add land to one parcel (called accretion where it occurs through gradual processes and avulsion if it occurs as a result of a sudden event) and remove it from a neighboring parcel.