Owens v. T. Miller & Sons Building Supply Co.

101 So. 2d 773, 1958 La. App. LEXIS 577
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedMarch 17, 1958
DocketNo. 4558
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 101 So. 2d 773 (Owens v. T. Miller & Sons Building Supply Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Owens v. T. Miller & Sons Building Supply Co., 101 So. 2d 773, 1958 La. App. LEXIS 577 (La. Ct. App. 1958).

Opinions

TATE, Judge.

The central question of this litigation involves fixing a boundary. Defendant appeals from judgment sustaining plaintiff’s contentions as to the location of the boundary.

Plaintiff Owens owns record title to Lot Five of Block One of a Gayle Subdivision in Lake Charles, while title to Lot Four immediately north thereof is held by the defendant Miller corporation. Alleging that the north line of his Lot Five (and therefore the boundary between it and defendant’s Lot Four) was a fence line, plaintiff initially filed a jactitory action claiming that his title was slandered by defendant’s wrongfully claiming to be the owner of the northern 6}4 feet of his lot, a strip within plaintiff’s fence line.

Defendant answered, admitting the slander and claiming ownership of the contested strip; and by reconventional de[774]*774mand alleging that a boundary had never been judicially fixed, the defendant requested that same be done — in effect, converting this action into a boundary suit. To this reconventional demand, plaintiff filed a plea of ten years’ prescription under LSA-C.C. Art. 853, which plea will be discussed in a concurring opinion.

On the merits, the controversy concerns an attempt to ascertain the correct boundary line between plaintiff’s Lot Five and defendant’s Lot Four of Block One according to the Mandell 1934 survey (P-D-l, Tr-19), by which the Gayle subdivision in question was first laid out. The plat of this survey did not denote directions nor specifically tie in the subdivision lines with any governmental section lines, although the caption indicates that the Gayle subdivision thereby laid out was located in Blocks 13 and 14 of the earlier Evans subdivision of the NW!4 of the NEy4 of S.8, TIOS, R8W.

Specifically, the dispute between the surveyors respectively relied upon by the opposing parties arises from the differing location by these two surveyors of the north line shown by the Mandell 1934 survey as the starting point or line upón measurements from which the boundary lines within the Gayle subdivision were laid out by Mandell:

A. Surveyor D. W. Jessen, upon whose testimony and his 1950 (P-4) and 1957 (P-5) surveys does the defendant rely, fixed the Mandell north line as along the north line of Section 8, which upon laborious measurement (commencing with a recognized government corner several blocks west of the Gayle subdivision and laying out said section line in accordance with several other fixed points some distance away) he ascertained to be — at the location in question — 31 feet south of an extension of the mid-line of the Missouri-Pacific Railroad right of way.

B. Surveyor F. N. Shutts, upon whose testimony and his 1943 (D-6) and 1956 (Tr-18) surveys the plaintiff relies, found the north line used by Mandell to be six feet further north than Jessen had, or 25 feet south of the railroad mid-line. Shutts testified that surveyors in the Lake Charles area commonly accepted the north line of Section 8 to be 25 feet south of and parallel to the railroad right of way mid-line and that the neighboring subdivisions were laid out recognizing such to be the case; but, he added, whether or not the ideal north section line was actually 25 feet south of the railroad mid-line (rather than 31 feet as established by Jessen), the north line actually used by Mandell was 25 feet distant from the mid-line.

Shutts based this conclusion upon the circumstance that the Mandell 1934 survey showed the north line used by it to be an extension of the north line of the High Mount subdivision, which had been laid out by the Shutts firm and which was 25 feet (rather than 31) south of the Missouri-Pacific mid-line; and also upon the fact that the lot boundary stakes, block and street lines, and the occupation fences within the Gayle subdivision were correctly situated accepting the Shutts (25') line, whereas accepting the Jessen (3F) line such artificial monuments were all approximately & north of where according to the Jessen surveys they should be by ideal location.

Jessen based his opposing conclusion that the Mandell north line should be located 31' south of the railroad mid-line (rather than 25/ south as contended by Shutts) upon his belief that it coincided with the north line of section 8 — based upon a 1918 survey (P-3) of the Evans Subdivision (Blocks 13 and 14 of which were re-subdivided to form the .Gayle subdivision with which we are here concerned), which indicated the Evans north line (and therefore Gayle’s north property line) to be based upon the north section line of Section 8; and upon Jessen’s probably correct assumption that in laying out the Gayle subdivision Mandell must have intended to use as a starting point Gayle’s north property line according to his title — ; [775]*775and upon Jessen’s laborious establishment of, according to him, the correct or ideal north section line of Section 8 as 3F south of the railroad mid-line at the block in question.

We think, however, that the District Court correctly accepted the Shutts line and survey as correctly establishing the boundary lines of the Gayle subdivision and of the lots therein belonging to the parties to this lawsuit.

For, as stated above, the Mandell 1934 survey does not tie in any of its lines or bounds with any governmental section lines or natural or artificial monuments other than that its north line is shown to be an extension of the north line of the High Mount subdivision; which without contradiction is 25 feet south of the railway mid-line, and which therefore corresponds with the Shutts rather than the Jessen line. And, as testified by Shutts and corroborated by the plats of the various Shutts and Jessen surveys introduced in evidence, the stakes or stobs and the fences fixing the boundaries of the various lots within Block One of the Gayle Subdivision, as well as the block and street lines pertaining thereto, indicate that the north line used by the Mandell 1934 survey in laying out the subdivision — pursuant to which plat the lots in the block were sold and purchased — was indeed an extension of the High Mount line rather than the theoretically correct ideal section line six feet south thereof established by Jessen.

As stated recently by our brethren of the Second Circuit in Hall v. Bairfield, La. App., 92 So.2d 753, at page 756:

“In the re-establishment of lines and corners of a given subdivision monuments within such subdivisions should be accepted as correct locations in preference to a subsequent survey. Barker v. Houssiere-Latreille Oil Company, 1925, 160 La. 52, 106 So. 672, and monuments, either natural or artificial, used to mark either lines or corners, are to be considered more reliable than courses or distances, and prevail in case of conflict.”

“The object in all boundary questions is to find some certain evidence of what particular land was intended to be conveyed,” City of New Orleans v. Joseph Rathborne Land Co., 209 La. 93, 24 So.2d 275, at page 281.

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Bluebook (online)
101 So. 2d 773, 1958 La. App. LEXIS 577, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/owens-v-t-miller-sons-building-supply-co-lactapp-1958.