116 Cal. 689 | Cal. | 1897
Plaintiffs agreed with defendants for the purchase of certain land, and deposited with the latter five thousand dollars as earnest money pending investigation of the title. This action was brought to recover such deposit, plaintiffs claiming that the title was not good or satisfactory; defendants denied the defects alleged, and filed a cross-complaint to compel specific performance of the contract. The court below held with the plaintiffs. The facts of the case are numerous and have not much interdependence; a somewhat extended statement of them is necessary to an understanding of the dispute.
The contract of the parties bore date August 27,1887; by its terms F. S. and J. R. Spring, the defendants, agreed to sell to plaintiffs all that tract of land in Ala
The premises conveyed by the deed of the sheriff to Grogan were therein described by monuments, courses, and distances, “ containing three hundred and four acres more or less,” excepting therefrom (1) a strip of land one hundred feet wide in the middle of which ran the track of the Central Pacific railroad extending across the tract a distance of more than half a mile, (2) another piece fifty feet wide and one thousand feet long, in the eastern part of the tract, adjacent to the strip first reserved, and which had been conveyed to the railroad company for purposes of a station, (3) twenty-two blocks of land “ situate in the town of Decoto” and known and designated by numbers and letters upon a map of Decoto entitled “ Plan of Decoto Land of the Decoto Land Company, Alameda Valley.” It is thus seen that the subject of the treaty between plaintiffs and defendants was a tract containing three hundred and four acres, less the portions owned by the railroad company and twenty-two specified blocks, excepted in the deed of the sheriff to Grogan, and diminished also by a further ex
On November 6, 1869, the tract—by which term we designate the entire body of three hundred and four acres—was owned by Ezra, John, and Adolphus Decoto, brothers, and ¡on that day they entered into a written contract with one Brown by which they authorized him to enter upon the land and lay out the same in lots, blocks, and streets, and to negotiate sales of lots—reserving several of the[blocks to the Decotos; they agreed to execute deeds to the purchasers of lots from Brown, they to receive the proceeds of the sales up to the sum of $42,000, and convey to Brown the remaining land after sales of that amount had been made. Brown, on his part agreed, among other covenants, that he would “ cause said lands to be platted and divided into lots and blocks and streets for sale.” January 8,1870, Brown assigned his interest in such contract to the Decoto Land
The only sale made in the year 1870 was evidenced by a deed to one Hastings, in which the Decoto Land Company and the three Decoto brothers joined, of four lots in block C “in the town of Decoto” as laid down on the said map. Block C was one of the twenty-two blocks excepted from the contract between plaintiffs and defendants. On January 10, 1871, the Decotos conveyed by deed to said company the entire tract, described by metes and bounds, excepting therefrom in favor of the railroad the strips of land already mentioned, and reserving also said twenty-two blocks; the excepted portions were described by reference to said map in the recorder’s office. Contemporaneous^ with this deed, and to secure a portion of the purchase money unpaid, the company executed to the Decotos a mortgage on the premises, described in the same manner and with like exceptions as in the deed. About the same time the Decotos and said company joined in a deed of nine of such excepted blocks, described by reference to the map, to F. S. Spring, one of the appellants here; such nine blocks lay in an oblong body on both sides of the railroad, intersected by several cross streets, and extended from the eastern boundary of the tract westerly about half the width thereof, and included a majority of the lots afterward sold in the nascent town. All the deeds and contracts above mentioned were recorded in the county recorder’s office at or near the respective times of their execution. July 28, 1871, the Decoto Land Company conveyed eighty-
Prior to the action for foreclosure, F. S. Spring made divers sales of lots in the nine blocks conveyed to him in January, 1871; his deeds of such lots described them as being in the town of Decoto, or by reference to said map; neither he nor any of the purchasers from him were parties to that suit. After the sheriff’s deed, J. R. Spring made, or agreed to make, conveyances, seven in number, to as many different purchasers of lands in the tract outside the excepted twenty-two blocks; some of his deeds described the premises conveyed by reference directly to the map; others by metes and bounds, and some of the latter included portions of streets marked on the map; one may be noted specially: It was executed July 8, 1883, by J. R. Spring, to the trustees of a school district, and granted block 102, “ marked on a sketch map made for the late Decoto Land Company, .... together with the right of way on H street to the railroad, and a right of way to the Bell Ranch road.” The latter road bounded the Decoto tract on its easterly side. On this block a public schoolhouse was built, and school was kept. Said deeds of J. R. Spring appear to have covered all, or nearly all, the parcels excepted from the contract with plaintiffs as “ lots, or parts of lots, streets, or parts of streets, heretofore conveyed and sold, or contracted to be sold.’’ F. S. Spring, in the years from 1875 to 1887, also made a number of sales out of his excepted blocks near the railroad station, his conveyances referring more or less
1. It is said by defendants that the contract recognizes some dedication of streets, but provides for the sale of all the land owned by them; that the case “ does not involve the sale of a certain ranch, farm, or parcel of land, with boundaries defined or definable. .... This was not a contract to sell all the land within the outside boundary of the sheriffs deed. It was a contract to sell within that boundary only so many acres as the appellants owned at the time of the sale”; and, upon this view of the contract, it is claimed, as we understand the defendants, that they have the right to an ascertainment by the court of the acreage to which their title may be proved perfect, whether little or much, and to be paid therefor by plaintiffs at the contract rate. We dissent from such a construction of
2. The owners of the land offered to dedicate all the streets marked on the plat. Appellants contest this conclusion with much vigor, but it seems to result from the evidence. The Decoto brothers, by their contract with Brown, in 1869, expressly assented to the platting of the land into lots, blocks, and streets for sale; provided for their own participation in the benefits of the scheme and the reservation to themselves of some of the platted blocks. When Brown’s assignee had fulfilled Brown’s agreement relative to the survey and plat, the owners signified their approval of such performance by joining in the conveyances to Hastings, to the railroad company, and F. S. Spring, all referring to the map for purposes of description. The intent of the owners to dedicate was fairly apparent, whether or not Brown was in strictness their agent. (People v. Beaudry, 91 Cal. 213; Griffiths v. Galindo, 86 Cal. 192.)
3. We think, also, that the evidence does, not bear out the further contention that the offer made was “repudiated, as a whole, by the owners, and was afterward renewed only as to the special streets expressly contemplated by the terms of the contract.” Although in the deed made by the Decoto brothers to the Decoto Land Company the tract was described as a whole by its exterior confines, a mode of description regarded as in
4. It is said that if any of the deeds of lots made by either J. R. Spring Or F. S. Spring operate indirectly toward a dedication of streets in other parts of the tract, “such dedication must be accepted by respondents as a necessary part of the exceptions of the contract of sale.” This is a corollary of the proposition that the parties agreed for the sale of whatever land within exterior limits defendants had good title to, and falls with that theory of the contract for reasons already stated. But it remains to consider whether those conveyances and the concomitant formation of a village community did have such tendency—it being borne in mind that there
Language is used in San Leandro v. Le Breton, 72 Cal. 170, which justifies the contention of respondents regarding the effect of a plat exhibiting streets and sales of lots with reference thereto; but the doctrine has been modified by subsequent decisions; Cerf v. Pfleging, 94 Cal. 131; Schmitt v. San Francisco, 100 Cal. 302. The present attitude of this court upon the question is reflected in Archer v. Salinas City, 93 Cal. 53: “Whether the owner, by making sales according to such map or designation, has made the offer with reference to other streets than those by which the lots sold are bounded, is a fact which the court must determine from the circumstances of each case, such as the number of sales, their proximity to the streets claimed to have been dedicated, the use to which the land has been put, the
5. Appellants further maintain that even allowing the dedication of all the streets laid out on the map, yet respondents had notice of the fact and contracted to buy subject to that easement. This Is asserted on the evidence that in the course of the negotiation Kosh
The judgment and order appealed from should be affirmed.
Belcher, C., and Searls, C., concurred.
For the reasons given in the foregoing opinion the judgment and order appealed from are affirmed.
Harrison, J., Garoutte, J., Van Fleet, J.
Hearing in Bank denied.