City of Monterey v. Jacks

73 P. 436, 139 Cal. 542, 1903 Cal. LEXIS 858
CourtCalifornia Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 11, 1903
DocketS.F. Nos. 2349, 2350.
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 73 P. 436 (City of Monterey v. Jacks) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
City of Monterey v. Jacks, 73 P. 436, 139 Cal. 542, 1903 Cal. LEXIS 858 (Cal. 1903).

Opinion

LORIGAN, J.

Actions to quiet title.

Monterey at the date of the cession of California to the United States was a Mexican pueblo, and, by special concession from the Spanish crown, was entitled to more than the four square leagues of land generally allotted to pueblos. The city of Monterey was incorporated by an act of the legislature of this state, of date March 30, 1850, (Stats. 1850, p. *545 131,) and thereunder succeeded to all the legal rights and claims of the former pueblo to its pueblo lands. On March '2, 1853, said city, by its attorney, D. R. Ashley, duly retained for that purpose by the city, presented to the United States hoard of land commissioners its petition praying for a confirmation of the pueblo grant to the pueblo of Monterey, and .a decree was made accordingly on January 22, 1856, confirming its title. An appeal was taken from this decree by the United States, which appeal was on June 16, 1858, dismissed, with leave to the city to proceed upon the commissioners’ decree as a final decree of confirmation. In 1857 the original act incorporating the city of Monterey was amended, and by section 7 thereof it was provided as follows: “The trustees may also pay for the expenses of prosecuting the title of the city before the United States land commissioners and before the United States courts, and for that purpose may sell and transfer any property, right, or franchise, upon such terms .and for such price as may by them be deemed reasonable.” (Stats. 1857, p. 55.) On January 24, 1859, said Ashley presented to the trustees of the city of Monterey a claim amounting to $991.50 for services as its attorney in presenting such pueblo claim to the commissioners. The claim was approved and allowed, and, there being no funds in the treasury to pay it, the board of trustees passed a resolution directing that a ■sale of all the pueblo lands of the city, or so much of them as might be necessary to pay the claim of said Ashley, be made at public auction on the ninth day of February, 1859. Due notice of the time for holding said sale was given, and the •same was held at the time and in accordance with the notice, at which sale the entire pueblo tract was bid in by the said D. R. Ashley and the defendant, David Jacks, for the sum of .$1,002.50, being the amount of the indebtedness and the necessary expenses of sale; no one offering to purchase less than the whole, or bid a higher amount. Thereafter said trustees made, executed, and delivered a conveyance of said lands, dated February 9, 1859, but acknowledged February 12, 1859, in favor of said D. R. Ashley and the defendant, David Jacks, and in the conveyance the proceedings taken by the trustees in the matter of such sale were recited. This conveyance was recorded in the county recorder’s office of the *546 county of Monterey, on June 11, 1859. On April 2, 1866, the act to incorporate the city of Monterey was amended to read as follows: “Sec. 2. All sales and conveyances made by the corporate authorities of said city since the eighth day of February, 1859, and which conveyances purport to have been recorded in the county recorder’s office of Monterey County, purporting to convey public lands, or lands confirmed to said city of Monterey, in pursuance of the act of Congress of March 3, 1851, (9 U. S. Stats. 631,) and entitled An act to ascertain and settle the private land claims in the state of California, are hereby ratified and confirmed.” (Stats. 1865-1866, p. 835.) On September 4, 1869, Ashley conveyed all his interest in the land in controversy to the defendant.

During the trial below it was proven by production of the records of deeds from the office of the county recorder of Monterey County that between February 7, 1859, a few days prior to the execution of the deed in question, and the second day of April, 1866, the date of the passage of the act, there was no record of any other conveyance by the corporate authorities of said city, purporting to convey any of the pueblo lands of the city of Monterey, other than the conveyance to said Ashley and Jacks.

The patent of the United States to the city of Monterey was issued November 19, 1891, and includes the land in controversy, to quiet its title to which the plaintiff shortly after-wards brought these suits. There are two cases • submitted upon this appeal, and they will be both disposed of in this opinion. They are precisely similar; the parties are identical •, each is an action to quiet title; both depend upon the same facts and present the same propositions of law, and differ only as to the amount of land involved in each. Judgment in both cases went for the defendant in the court below, and on this appeal it is contended, on behalf of the appellant,—1. That the trustees of the city of Monterey had no power under the charter to sell or convey the entire pueblo lands, or any considerable portion thereof, as a whole, and that the sale to Ashley and defendant, Jacks, was therefore void; 2. That the persons purporting to act as trustees of the city of Monterey, and who executed the deed to Ashley and defendant, were never trustees of the city; 3. That the act of April 2, *547 1866, did not ratify or purport to ratify the sale or deed in question; and 4. That the legislature had no power to ratify or validate that transaction. Errors are also assigned to rulings of the court on the admission of evidence.

The principal point in this ease is relative to the power and control of the legislature over the lands of the pueblos to which municipalities created by the legislature succeeded.

There is no doubt but that by the statute of 1857, amending the charter of the city of Monterey, that municipality was authorized to make some sale or transfer of its property for the very purpose for which it appears the conveyance in question was made, because it is recited in the amended charter that for such purpose the trustees may sell and transfer any property, right, or franchise, upon such terms as may by them be deemed reasonable. That this sale was attempted to be made, and all the proceedings were regularly taken under that provision of the charter, is unquestionable, and certainly they were empowered to make a sale of at least some portion of the lands. If they had done this, there could hardly arise any question as to the validity of such a transaction.

It is insisted by the attorney for the respondent that this sale under such charter provision was valid, independent of any confirmatory act of the legislature. As this, however, involves the power of the legislature to authorize such a sale, which appellant denies, the whole subject will have to be examined, both as to the original and confirmatory power of the legislature over pueblo lands, and we simply here refer to the statute to show that thereunder a power of sale, to some extent at least, was given, and that the confirmatory act of 1866, if effectual at all, was undoubtedly intended to validate the attempted exercise of that power, if irregularly or improperly exercised in making the deed in question, and to the extent that it purported to be made.

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Bluebook (online)
73 P. 436, 139 Cal. 542, 1903 Cal. LEXIS 858, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/city-of-monterey-v-jacks-cal-1903.