Lawler v. Rice Cnty.
| Decision Date | 26 November 1920 |
| Docket Number | No. 21986.,21986. |
| Citation | 180 N.W. 37,147 Minn. 234 |
| Parties | LAWLER v. RICE COUNTY et al. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from District Court, Rice County; Arthur B. Childress, Judge.
Action for injunction by James Lawler against the Counties of Rice and Goodhue and others. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendants appeal. Affirmed.
See, also, 178 N. W. 317.
The corners and boundary lines established by the government survey of the public lands are where they were actually marked on the ground by the government surveyors, and the point where a section post or quarter section post was placed on the ground, if satisfactorily established, is controlling and conclusive as to the location of the corners makred by it, although such location may not accord with the courses and distances shown on the plat and field notes.
The evidence sustains the finding of the trial court that the quarter section post in controversy was placed by the government surveyors at the point claimed by plaintiff.Lucius A. Smith and James P. McMahon, both of Faribault, and Arthur E. Arntson and Mohn & Mohn, all of Red Wing, for appellants.
Moonan & Moonan, of Waseca, for respondent.
The counties of Rice and Goodhue started to improve the public highway along the town line which forms the boundary between the town of Northfield in the county of Rice and the town of Warsaw in the county of Goodhue. Plaintiff owns the northeast quarter of section 1 in the town of Northfield, bounded on the east by the town line in question. Alleging that the counties threatened and were about to encroach upon his cultivated land adjoining the highway, plaintiff brought this action to restrain them from doing so. The sole question in dispute is as to the location of that part of the town line forming the boundary between section 1 in the town of Northfield and section 6 in the town of Warsaw. There is no controversy as to the location of the section post which marks the northeast corner of section 1 and the northwest corner of section 6; nor as to the location of the section post which marks the southeast corner of section 1 and the southwest corner of section 6. Defendants contend that the town line runs in a straight line from the southeast corner of section 1 to the northeast corner of that section. Plaintiff contends that the government surveyors, in making the government survey, placed the quarter section post between these two sections at a point about 1 1/2 rods east of such straight line; and that the town line, instead of being straight, runs from the section post at the southeast corner of section 1 to this point, and from this point to the section post at the northeast corner of the section. The court found as a fact that the quarter section post was placed by the government surveyors at the point claimed by plaintiff, and hence that the town line between these sections follows the course claimed by plaintiff.
[1][2] The government survey was made in 1854, but we have more evidence to show where this quarter section post was actually placed on the ground that is usually obtainable in a prairie country after such a lapse of time. A fence was constructed in 1866 from the point where plaintiff claims that the government surveyors placed this quarter section post to, or nearly to, the northeast corner of section 1. Other fences running south, east, and west from this point were also constructed at an early date. From the earliest settlement the landowners on both sides of the line have taken this point as the true location of the quarter section corner, and have located their boundary lines by this point and the two section posts, and have built their boundary fences according to the lines as so located. Mr. F. O. Rice, a surveyor who has been a resident of Rice county ever since 1858, testified that he made a survey of the line between section 1 in the town of Northfield and section 6 in the town of Warsaw for the landowners on each side of it about 1870; that he found and located this quarter section post; that, though the top of the stake had been broken off, he found the bottom of it in the ground, and also found the mound, trench and pits required by the government regulations; and that he remembered the facts particularly because he had never found any other quarter section post so far out of line. The point where he located this post is the point claimed by plaintiff and found by the court as its true location. The highway in question was established as a judicial road in 1887, and was surveyed and platted by Mr. Rice who, in this survey, again located the quarter section post at the same point. Shortly after the road had been laid out and established, the fence built in 1866, or what remained of it, was removed, and a new fence was constructed across the northeast quarter of section 1, approximately 2 rods west of the old fence, and has been maintained as marking the western boundary of the highway from that date until the present time, except that in 1910, by an arrangement between plaintiff and the towns, plaintiff moved the south part of his fence so as to allow an additional 6 feet for the road at that place. The highway has always been traveled along the line established by Surveyor Rice; and the landowners have cultivated their farms up to the boundaries of the highway as so established. The evidence amply sustains the finding of the trial court.
Defendants made no attempt to show where the quarter section post was located on the ground, nor that it was not in fact placed at the point claimed by plaintiff, but put the government plat and field notes in evidence and rely upon the fact that they show a straight line between the two section posts.
The government surveyors who surveyed this town line were required to set a section post every mile to mark the section corners, and to set a quarter section post between each two section posts to mark the intervening quarter section corners. And, as this was a prairie country, they were further required to build a mound about each post, to dig a trench on each side of it, and to dig pits at specified distances from it, to mark the location in a more substantial and enduring manner.
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