72 W. Va. 321 | W. Va. | 1913
The action, is ejectment. Plaintiffs failed, and bring error.
The issue at the trial was reduced to a narrow one, defendants having disclaimed all beyond a line M. to E. on the official surveyor’s map. So the issue was whether that line was the true division line between the parties, or whether it was another line parallel thereto as claimed by plaintiffs.
According to the deed on which plaintiffs relied this division line was not governed in its location by natural landmarks or monuments directly on it, but must be located solely by various courses and distances calling for stakes, and running from natural objects in distant parts of the survey of plaintiffs’ tract, except that one end of the line should conform to the line of an ad-;joinder. Plaintiffs, however, sought to have certain marked trees recognized as controlling the boundaries, though the deed called •for no such monuments, but only for stakes, in relation to the lines which plaintiffs claimed should be located by marked trees. In order to reach the marked trees several courses and distances set forth in the deed must be materially changed, thereby giving plaintiffs a much more extended boundary of land than a survey according to usual methods and rules would give them.
The testimony of the official surveyor, as well as that of two other surveyor’s who located the line by survey, establishes that the line M. to E. is the boundary line of plaintiffs’ land according to proper survey from the calls of plaintiffs* deed. As to this there is indeed no contradiction.
■ The jury found a verdict simply for defendants, but in view of
An instruction told the jury that plaintiffs were bound by the calls in the deed on which they relied and that in. arriving at the true boundary line between plaintiffs and defendants the jury must be governed by the calls in the deed, and that plaintiffs could not change the calls in the deed to show that those.calls meant something other than what was set forth in the deed, but in running the calls and lines the rules for the proper surveying of the land must be adhered to. Plaintiffs say that this instruction took from the jury all consideration of marked trees by which plaintiffs would locate the calls mentioned in the deed. They maintain that marked trees may so influence the location or lines called for in a deed as in a sense to change them from what is set'forth ¡therein. That this is sometimes true can not be denied. Under evidence properly tending to connect marked trees with the survey from which the deed was made, the instruction would be erroneous. “When a deed mentions the course and distance of a line, without any other description thereof, parol, evidence is admissible to prove marked trees, not in the course or termination of that line, to be the true line intended.” Baker v. Seekright, 1 Hen. & M. 177. “To pursue the proper descriptions of mir land boundaries would render men’s titles very precarious, not only from variations of the compass, but that old surveys were often inaccurate; and mistakes often made, in copying their descriptions into the patents; leaving out lines, and putting north for south, and east for west; and in copying those description^ into subsequent conveyances: Whereas, the marked trees upon the land remain invariable, according to which neighbors bold their distinct lands. On this ground, our juries have uniformly, and wisely, never suffered such lines, when proved, to» be departed from, because they do not agree exactly with descriptions in conveyances.” Herbert v. Wise, 3 Call. 240. “In an action in ejectment parol evidence is admissible to prove that the calls for course and distance in a deed are mistaken, and do not des-'
But in this case there is another phase to the subject. The testimony by which plaintiffs would in a sense change the lines called for in the deed does not come up to the standard of legal weight sufficient to give it such effect. The deed distinctly calls for stakes, not marked trees as controlling the location of the lines. Of course after the lapse of so many years from the date of the deed the stakes can not be found if indeed they ever were placed on the ground. Plaintiffs have no right to go to marked trees by the terms of the deed, for the deed does not call for such objects on the disputed line, and the lines leading to it in each direction from known and designated starting points. Indeed the call for stakes supports a presumption that marked tress have nothing to do with the survey. But under principles which we have quoted, plaintiffs might show by pertinent parol testimony that marked trees bore relation to the lines of the survey from which the deed was made. Yet in order to do so, other reasonable principles would have to be observed. “The mere circumstance that lines and corners are known to have been run or marked, or are found marked near where the courses and distances mentioned in the deed run, is not conclusive that they are the lines and corners of the land referred to in the deed. And when there is no such approximation in the courses or length of the lines, or the marks on the corners, to the description in the deed, as to warrant the presumption that they are the boundaries of the land to which the deed relates, such marked lines . should be disregarded.” Western Mining &c. Co. v. Coal Company, 8 W. Va. 406. Now. plaintiffs’ claims are grossly inconsistent as to many lines with what a survey from the calls of the deed unquestionably proves. Three surveyors agree that a proper survey according to the deed locates the disputed line as M. to E. There is no evidence to the contrary. Then can this well proved location of the line from
In view of the conclusion which we have reached as to the insufficiency of the testimony on which plaintiffs sought to rely, to change the plainly stated calls of the deed, it would seem that other questions raised by the assignments of error become immaterial and demand no discussion. The judgment will be affirmed.
Affirmed.