Consumers Cooperative Ass'n v. United States

156 Ct. Cl. 53, 1962 U.S. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 44
CourtUnited States Court of Claims
DecidedJanuary 12, 1962
DocketNo. 552-58
StatusPublished

This text of 156 Ct. Cl. 53 (Consumers Cooperative Ass'n v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Consumers Cooperative Ass'n v. United States, 156 Ct. Cl. 53, 1962 U.S. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 44 (cc 1962).

Opinion

Jones, Chief Judge,

delivered the opinion of the court:

This suit involves a timber sales contract.

The defendant contracted to sell plaintiff the merchantable timber on the SW% and the S% of the NW% of a section of land in Lane County, Oregon. The defendant owned the land which is described in finding 2.

Both parties apparently thought the boundaries were a little different on all four sides from the locations that were finally determined to be correct by a survey made by the defendant some six years later.

In the meantime, pursuant to the terms of the contract the plaintiff had cut the timber and planted new trees as required by the contract terms. In doing so plaintiff had cut certain timber on a 200-foot strip on section 34 below the actual southern boundary of section 27, which strip belonged to two different private owners. Naturally when the two private owners learned of the trespass they were unhappy and filed suit against the plaintiff for double damages which were authorized under Oregon law. The total sum claimed was $60,000. The two suits were settled for $15,000 each, a total of $30,000. There was an added expense of attorneys’ fees and some court costs. The plaintiff sues defendant for these amounts.

Who was primarily responsible for the mistake in the boundary locations and the damages flowing therefrom? That is the basic issue in this lawsuit.

The facts are somewhat complicated, but have been clearly stated in the trial commissioner’s findings which we have approved without substantial change. Even with the facts clearly stated, they are not all on one side and it is not easy to assess the blame.

Briefly, pursuant to an Act of Congress1 and regulations [56]*56thereunder, the Bureau of Land Management of the Department of the Interior caused a pre-cruise or inspection to be made of section 27 and other sections to determine whether merchantable timber existed thereon. This having been determined in the affirmative, the defendant in accordance with the usual custom made a more detailed cruise to determine the appraised value of the merchantable timber to be made the subject of bidding by interested parties.

In April 1950, the defendant assigned a cruiser who with the aid of a compassman conducted the more detailed cruise of the property involved in the instant sales contract. It was his responsibility to locate the boundaries of the quarter section for the purpose of determining the volume and appraised value of the timber thereon. He was prohibited, however, by instructions of his superiors from blazing the boundaries of the tract. This was in keeping with established Bureau policy, which policy was known to purchasers in that area.

The day before the cruise commenced, defendant’s cruiser met plaintiff’s surveyor and logging engineer, whose duties were to lay out roads and cutting lines in plaintiff’s logging operations. At the time, plaintiff was conducting logging operations on section 28, which it owned and which lay just west of section 27. Plaintiff’s agent advised defendant’s cruiser of some field notes of a surveying firm which had run the line between the two sections. Defendant’s cruiser obtained the field notes which indicated a certain yew tree as the corner between the two sections. Upon investigation, he assumed the yew tree was the comer.

The appraisal cruiser of the area estimated the volume of Douglas fir timber on the part of section 27 involved to be 2,305,000 board feet and appraised it at $16 per M. (A small amount of red cedar was appraised at $1.15 per M.) The appraised stumpage value of the total was computed to be $37,066.75. (See finding 9.) The plaintiff was the successful bidder at that figure.

A contract was dated August 17, 1950, but signed by the parties in early November 1950, as described in finding 12.

A small map was attached to the contract. This map showed certain reserved parts of the areas of section 27. It [57]*57showed certain blazed and posted lines of the reserved areas. This map showed San Antone Creek as being included in the area covered by the contract. The creek, however, ran down near the bottom of the disputed strip, thus curving down to include a considerable portion of section 34, which was privately owned.

The map was a reasonable facsimile of a drawing made by the defendant’s cruiser at the time he made the cruise described above. He had placed San Antone Creek within the quarter section covered by the contract. His measurements indicated that the south boundary line of the quarter section lay just south of this creek, thus indicating that the disputed strip was within the quarter section covered by the contract.

Defendant’s cruiser had blazed and posted the southern and western boundaries of certain reserve areas in section 27. The contract map showed a large dot at the northwest corner and also one at the southwest corner of the quarter section embodied in the sales contract.

Other parts of section 27 had been cruised by the same cruiser in 1950 and 1951, and plaintiff had completed the cutting on another part of section 27. Apparently most of the contracts in the area were carried out with both parties assuming the same erroneous boundaries.

There is an irreconcilable conflict in the evidence as to whether the purported south section line of the pertinent quarter section was blazed by anybody but it is evident that plaintiff used the bottom of the bend in San Antone Creek as indicating the lower cutting line and that this conforms generally to the south boundary line indicated on the contract map.

Plaintiff’s surveyor and logging engineer spent several days trying to locate the northwest corner of the quarter section and also the northwest corner of section 27, but was unable to do so, and decided to risk going ahead with the cutting.

Plaintiff performed all its obligations under the contract.

In 1956, the Bureau of Land Management caused a survey to be made of section 27 and other nearby sections. This survey indicated that plaintiff had cut and removed timber [58]*58from the 200-foot strip on section 34 owned in part by Ralph Johnson and in part by the Long-Bell Lumber Company.

Plaintiff had left uncut a strip to the north of the tract involved, substantially equivalent to the strip which it had cut south of the true line from timber owned by the private parties.

It had cut to the east of the true tract line a strip belonging to the defendant and had previously cut a strip to the west of the tract involved. The plaintiff’s counsel asserted in open court that these issues had been settled either by suit or negotiations along with other disputed matters that had arisen. The defendant’s counsel did not controvert this statement by plaintiff’s counsel.

This leaves the single issue as to the timber cut by plaintiff on the strip owned by Johnson and Long-Bell whose claims were settled with these private owners for $30,000, plus court costs and plaintiff’s attorneys’ fees.

If this were a case where the defendant described the property by metes and bounds, blazed the exact lines and marked the corners by monuments, we would probably hold that plaintiff would be entitled to recover the entire damages— except its attorneys’ fees.

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Bluebook (online)
156 Ct. Cl. 53, 1962 U.S. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 44, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/consumers-cooperative-assn-v-united-states-cc-1962.