103 P. 914 | Cal. | 1909
Action by the city of Los Angeles to recover possession of a parcel of land claimed to be part of a public street. Judgment went for plaintiff, and four of the defendants appeal from the judgment and from an order denying their motion for a new trial.
The court finds that on June 27, 1884, the defendant Elmira Hall, then the owner of a tract of land including the parcel in controversy, caused to be recorded a plat or map, in which said tract was divided into lots and blocks, and streets were laid out in connection with the plat for the use of prospective purchasers of said lots and blocks. By such recording, she offered to dedicate as public highways of the city of Los Angeles the streets shown upon the map. The strip of land in controversy was shown upon the map as a public street and formed a continuation or extension of Johnston Street, a then public and accepted street of the city. The street was thereupon opened for public travel, and remained so until August, 1894. In December, 1890, the city council, by ordinance, accepted said street so offered to be dedicated as a public street. The offer to dedicate was never withdrawn or rescinded prior to August, 1894.
The appellants attack as unsupported by the evidence the findings that there was an offer to dedicate, and that such offer, if any was made, was not revoked prior to acceptance. We think the evidence fully sustains each of these findings. The questions presented can be best explained by a reproduction of the essential features of the map filed by Mrs. Hall in June, 1884.
The land in controversy is the undesignated strip, 94 links in width, running along the westerly line of lot 21. That this strip, south of its intersection with "Hall Street," as shown on the map, was and is a public street, known as Johnston Street, is not disputed by appellants, but they contend that no street was created north of Hall Street. It seems perfectly clear that the court was at least authorized, if not bound, to *150
[EDITORS' NOTE: MAP IS ELECTRONICALLY NON-TRANSFERRABLE.] *151
conclude, from a mere inspection of the map itself, that its filing constituted an offer to dedicate, as a public street, the whole of the strip bordering on lots 1 and 21. Dedication is, in each case, a question of intention (Harding v. Jasper,
Where rights of individuals have not intervened, an offer to dedicate may be revoked before acceptance by the proper public authorities (Prescott v. Edwards,
A point is made on the refusal of the court below to permit Mrs. Hall to testify that she had not intended to dedicate the alleged street. The position of the appellants is that, inasmuch as the ultimate question, in cases of dedication, is one of intention, the party may be asked to state his intention in performing the acts relied on as evidencing a dedication. Such testimony has, in cases of this character, been held to be admissible for the purpose of throwing light upon the real nature of acts which were in themselves consistent with the intent to dedicate or not to dedicate. (Bidinger v. Bishop,
On the other hand, the rule that the party may give testimony of his actual intent should, we think, be limited to cases where the acts done by him do not manifestly indicate an intent to dedicate. Where they are inconsistent with anything but such intent, he cannot destroy the effect of his own conduct by subsequent declarations that he did not mean to be bound by the necessary import of that conduct. No weight should be given to declarations of an intent contrary to that plainly shown by acts done and acted on long before. "The *153
intention to which courts give heed is not an intention hidden in the mind of the landowner, but an intention manifested by his acts. It is the intention which finds expression in conduct, and not that which is secreted in the heart of the owner, that the law regards." (Indianapolis v. Kingsbury,
It is also urged that the court erred in striking out some of Mrs. Hall's testimony with reference to the preparation of the map. The court's ruling went no further than to strike out her testimony that she had instructed her surveyor to leave a street from Griffin Avenue and that she did not intend to leave Johnston Street open beyond the north line of avenue 28, or to have a line drawn across the space marked "proposed street." If she was entitled to show that she was ignorant of the real condition of the map when it was filed, any testimony which she may have given tending to show such ignorance was allowed to stand. Her instructions to her surveyor were mere hearsay. The exclusion of her testimony as to what she intended the map to represent was correct for reasons already stated.
The judgment and order appealed from are affirmed.
Angellotti, J., and Shaw, J., concurred. *154