Ford v. County of Butte

This is an appeal by plaintiff from a judgment entered in defendant’s favor on a cross-complaint in an action to quiet title to real property.

In 1924 plaintiff entered into negotiations with the county of Butte to sell to the county a piece of property on the Feather River. It was understood that the purpose for which the county desired to purchase the property was to erect thereon a veterans’ memorial building and to provide for recreational activities in and along the river, such as swimming and boating, for veterans’ organizations. The property involved in the negotiations was the eastern portion of Outside Lot 17 of the city of Oroville;'and the sale was consummated in 1925. To facilitate the sale plaintiff executed a deed of conveyance, dated July 11, 1924, to the Butte County Title and Abstract Company; and thereafter, to wit, on April 7, 1925, the title company conveyed the property by deed, as of that date, to the county, and the deed was recorded on April 8, 1925. The county took possession of the property in 1925, and thereafter caused to be constructed upon the southerly boundary thereof, fronting on Montgomery Street, a veterans’ memorial building, and further improved the property just north of the levee of the city of Oroville for picnic and recreational purposes by constructing chairs, tables, etc., in and about the south bank of the Feather River, and a swimming pool in the river itself. No question respecting the county’s title to any portion of said Outside Lot 17 arose until the year 1940, when the Golden Feather Dredging Com

In 1872 a map of the town of Oroville was made by one Edmund, which map is known as the Edmund’s Survey of 1872. This map fixed the northerly boundary of said Outside Lot 17 at approximately the south bank of the Feather River. A subsequent map of the city of Oroville was made in 1900 by one Jasper, which map is known as the Jasper Survey of 1900. This map platted the north boundary of said lot to the thread of the Feather River, some 608 feet north of the line fixed by the Edmund’s Survey. Plaintiff in 1919 received a deed to “All of outside Lot 17 of the City of Oroville, excepting the easterly 54 feet and 8 inches thereof.” Plaintiff’s deed to the title company described the property in the following manner: “All that certain real property situated partly in the City of Oroville and partly outside of said City, County of Butte, State of California, described as follows: All of Outside Lot Seventeen (17) of the Town, (now City) of Oroville, according to the Official Map thereof, filed in the office of the County Recorder of the County of Butte, State of California, January 22nd, 1872, saving and excepting ...” (here follows exceptions, not here involved.) (Italics added.) The deed from the title company to the county of Butte used the same description; and the Supervisors of Butte County in the resolution accepting said deed also used the quoted description.

Plaintiff claims that he intended to convey, and did by the deed convey no more than to the south bank of the river, according to the line fixed by the Edmund’s Survey; that as words of limitation in the description in the deed, Lot 17 was first restricted to the town of Oroville, as distinguished from the city of Oroville, and secondly, Lot 17 was defined as according to the official map filed in the office of the county recorder January 22, 1872. The evidence showed that since 1911 plaintiff had been acquiring the river bed for a mile and a half down stream from the Oroville

The river at the point here involved is non-navigable. Plaintiff makes the contention that the evidence showed that it was navigable; but it seems to be conceded that the disputed area is beyond the point defined as navigable in section 102 of the Harbors and Navigation Code, which defines the Feather River as navigable between its mouth and a point fifty feet below the first bridge crossing Feather River above the mouth of the Tuba River, and therefore the rules applicable to non-navigable streams are applicable here. They may be stated generally as follows: “A grant or conveyance of land bounded by a non-navigable stream carries with it the bed of the stream to its center, unless a contrary intent is manifest from the grant or conveyance itself. In such case the stream is regarded as the boundary or monument, and the purchaser takes to the middle of the monument as part and parcel of the grant. . . .Where the possession of land described in a conveyance would raise a presumption of ownership of the land in front of it to the middle of a stream, it is the exclusion of the presumption and not its inclusion which must be evidenced by the terms of the grant, where the grantor had power to include the land to the middle of the stream. The general rule has been held to apply ‘ although the grant may call for marked corners upon the bank of the stream, and for a line or lines between such corners, which do not correspond with the center of the stream.’ . . . And while an intent to exclude the bed of the stream will not be presumed, but must be clear from the terms of the deed as interpreted by the surrounding circumstances, yet the question whether the conveyance carries title to the center of the stream depends on the intent of the parties, to be gathered from the description of the premises read in connection with other parts of the deed and by reference to the situation of the lands and the condition and relation of the parties to those and other lands in the vicinity. In other words, the presumption that the grantee takes to the center of the stream

Here the intent of the grantor as appearing from the instrument of - conveyance must be held to be by operation of law an intent to convey to the thread of the stream. The instrument of conveyance deeded the property according to the official map of January 22, 1872, which was the Edmund’s Survey; and “When maps, plats, or field notes are referred to in a grant or conveyance they are to be regarded as incorporated into the instrument and are usually held to furnish the true description of the boundaries of the land.” (9 C.J. p. 180, sec. 50; Anderson v. Trotter, 213 Cal. 414 [ 2 P.2d 373 ].) Plaintiff concedes .that the line fixed by the Edmund’s Survey in the map of 1872 was a meander line; and as held in Anderson v. Trotter, supra (citing 9 C.J. p. 181, sec. 51), a meander line cannot be considered a boundary (with certain exceptions not applicable here), but the true boundary is the stream or other body of water on which the land borders. In that case the plaintiffs acquired their titles through patents. The lands were conveyed according to the plat of a survey thereof made by one Tucker in 1875, which describes the lands as extending to and abutting upon the waters of Clear Lake. The Tucker survey ran a meander line, described on the plat as the meander line of Clear Lake, and the plat filed with the United States surveyor-general

Therefore the deed in the present case, by operation of law, conveyed title, not to the meander line which cannot be considered a boundary, but to the thread of the stream. See, also, Hendricks v. Feather River Canal Co., 138 Cal. 423 [ 71 P. 496 ], and Kirby v. Potter, 138 Cal. 686 [ 72 P. 338 ], both involving lands along the Feather River, wherein it was held that the boundary of the lots involved there was not the meander line established by the government survey lines, along the bank of the river, but that the true boundary of the lots was the thread of the stream. Plaintiff makes the bare statement in his reply brief that “There is a difference

Moreover, and aside from the wording of the conveyance, there is ample evidence to support a finding that plaintiff’s intent was to convey to the thread of the stream. Plaintiff knew that the county purchased the property as a site for a veterans’ memorial building and public park and picnic ground. The river at this point contained a deep pond which had been used as a swimming hole for many years. Since plaintiff knew that the land was to be used as a public park, he must also have known that use of the large swimming hole upon which the land fronted would inevitably be a prime feature of the park. In fact he states in his reply brief: “It was the intention of the plaintiff, and the same intention of the defendant, that the county should have all the rights of boating, swimming and picnicking along the bank of the Feather River.” (Italics added.) In the situation disclosed here, plaintiff must have known that the county wanted and expected to obtain plaintiff’s rights in the stream as well as in the land south of the south bank; and he does not claim that he did anything to dispel the public expectation. Nor did he make any claim to the land nor any objection to the county’s use of the land or water, until his dredger began operating there. Under all these circumstances, it would seem that a finding that he intended to convey that portion of the property to the county would not be unwarranted, and that the trial court’s judgment that defendant owns to the thread of the river is correct.

The judgment is affirmed.

Peters, P. J., and Ward, J., concurred.

A petition for a rehearing was denied March 1, 1944, and appellant’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied March 30, 1944. Carter, J., and Schauer, J., voted for a hearing.