Main v. Legnitto

• Decision Date: 17 November 1964
• Citation: 41 Cal.Rptr. 223,230 Cal.App.2d 667
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: F. J. MAIN, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. A. L. LEGNITTO and Louise A. Legnitto, Defendants and Respondents. Civ. 21852.

Page 223

41 Cal.Rptr. 223

230 Cal.App.2d 667

F. J. MAIN, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. A. L. LEGNITTO and Louise A. Legnitto, Defendants and Respondents.

Civ. 21852.

District Court of Appeal, First District, Division 1, California.

Nov. 17, 1964.

Gardiner, Riede & Elliott, San Rafael, for appellant.

Haizlip, Jacobsen & Ring, San Francisco, for respondents.

SULLIVAN, Presiding Justice.

In this action to quiet title we are called upon to determine whether a crescent-shaped area shown on a recorded map as a cul-de-sac at the end of a road in the Town of Fairfax was intended by the subdivider to be a 'highway' within the meaning of Civil Code section 1112 so as to pass title to the center line thereof.

The basic facts are not in dispute. On September 17, 1913, a subdivision map entitled 'Manor,' including the property here in controversy, was recorded in the Office of the County Recorder of Marin County by Fairfax Development Company, a corporation, the then owner of all the land shown thereon. Thereafter, the above corporation by deed dated September 18, 1913, conveyed to P. K. Brown, defendants' predecessor in title, certain property in the subdivision described in the deed and shown on the map as Block One (1). All intermediate conveyances in defendants' chain of title made similar reference to the map in their description of the property. The following facsimile of the pertinent portion of the original map received in evidence by the court below will assist in understanding the property involved. ¹

NOTE: OPINION CONTAINS TABLE OR OTHER DATA THAT IS NOT VIEWABLE

As can be seen, the map thus prepared and recorded by Fairfax Development Company delineated several strips and parcels of land described as roads. It also contained a declaration that the roads and avenues 'marked respectively as: Marin Road, Bothin Road, Pacheco Road, and San Rafael and Olema Road, with exception of strips marked '1' reserved', are intended for public use and are hereby offered for dedication to the public to be used as public roads and highways.' Immediately below the foregoing offer of dedication there appeared a certificate of the chairman of the Board of Supervisors of Marin County dated September 15, 1913, certifying that 'the said Board has approved the map upon which this certificate is indorsed, and reject [sic] the offer expressed thereon to dedicate to the public the strips and parcels of land shown thereon as intended for public use, * * *' (Emphasis added.)

The present litigation focuses upon the crescent-shaped area at the northeasterly end of Marin Road, including the strip marked '1' strip reserved.' ² It is the northwesterly half of this area (including the strip) adjacent to defendants' property located in Block 1 which is more precisely the parcel here in controversy.

Plaintiff grounds his claim of title to the entire (and not merely one-half of the) crescent-shaped area upon a judgment and decree quieting title entered on April 25, 1960, in an action brought in the Superior Court of Marin County by plaintiff herein as plaintiff against Fairfax Development Company, a dissolved corporation and others as defendants in which it was determined that plaintiff was the owner in fee simple and that said dissolved corporation 'its stockholders and successors including Ruth Holt Borton and Hazel Holt Agnew, are wholly without any interest * * *' Defendants herein were not parties to that action. Plaintiff's claim of title is thus based on the contention that plaintiff is the successor in interest of the Fairfax Development Company, the original subdivider of the property.

Defendants claim ownership of approximately one-half of the crescent-shaped area lying northwesterly of the center line of Marin Road and base their claim thereto on their ownership of the adjacent property in Block 1 which, they urge, carries with it the ownership of such half of the crescent.

The trial court found and concluded that the crescent- shaped area was intended by Fairfax Development Company to be a portion of Marin Road, a public highway; that defendants were the owners of all of Block 1 adjoining the crescent-shaped parcel; that in each of the conveyances from Fairfax Development Company and the intermediate grantors to defendants it was the intent of the grantor to, and said grantor did, convey to each successive grantee title in fee simple to the portions of the land adjoining said Block 1 shown on the map as public highways to the center line thereof; and that title in fee simple to all of the crescent-shaped area lying northwesterly of the center line of Marin Road was vested in defendants. Judgment quieting title in defendants was rendered accordingly. ³ This appeal by plaintiff followed.

Plaintiff directs his main attack against the trial court's finding that the Fairfax Development Company intended to convey title in fee simple to the northwesterly half of the crescent. The sole evidence of this intention, argues plaintiff, are the subdivision map and the original deed to defendants' predecessor P. K. Brown which not only fail to support such an intention but clearly show a contrary one. While considerable evidence was introduced at the trial as to the use made of the crescent-shaped area from 1913 up to the present, ⁴ the parties are in agreement that no extrinsic evidence was received bearing on the subdivider's intent in respect to the map and deed. As plaintiff correctly points out, if P. K. Brown, the first grantee of Block 1 and defendants' predecessor in title, did not take title to the northwesterly half of the crescent by the first deed, there could be no other source from which defendants could trace their title. It will be recalled that the subdivider's deed to Brown dated September 18, 1913, described the property by reference to the map. ⁵

We therefore face the pivotal question whether the map shows on its face that the crescent-shaped area was intended to be a 'highway' within the meaning of Civil Code section 1112 so as to pass title to the center line thereof. Since no extrinsic evidence bearing upon the intent of the subdivider was introduced in the court below, the interpretation of the map and the deed is a question of law and it is our duty to make the final determination in accordance with the applicable principles of law. (Estate of Platt (1942) 21 Cal.2d 343, 352, 131 P.2d 825; Meyer v. State Board of Equalization (1954) 42 Cal.2d 376, 381, 267 P.2d 257; McDougall v. Palo Alto etc. School Dist. (1963) 212 Cal.App.2d 422, 431, 28 Cal.Rptr. 37.) ⁶

Section 1112 of the Civil Code provides: 'A transfer of land, bounded by a highway, passes the title of the person whose estate is transferred to the soil of the highway in front to the center thereof, unless a different intent appears from the grant.'

It is well settled that where land is conveyed by a deed describing the property conveyed as a specifically numbered lot or block as designated on a map, which map also shows such property to be bounded by a street or highway, the grant will be considered as extending to the center of the street or highway, unless it clearly appears that it was intended to make a side line instead of the center line the boundary. (Anderson v. Citizens Savings & Trust Co. (1921) 185 Cal. 386, 393. 197 P. 113; Brown v. Bachelder (1932) 214 Cal. 753, 756, 7 P.2d 1027; Gramer v. City of Sacramento (1935) 2 Cal.2d 432, 438, 41 P.2d 543; Allan v. City & County of San Francisco (1936) 7 Cal.2d 642, 646, 61 P.2d 1175; Neff v. Ernst (1957) 48 Cal.2d 628, 635, 311 P.2d 849; Los Angeles High School District v. Swensen (1964) 226 A.C.A. 691, 694-695, 38 Cal.Rptr. 214; see also Speer v. Blasker (1961) 195 Cal.App.2d 155, 159, 15 Cal.Rptr. 528; City of Redlands v. Nickerson (1961) 188 Cal.App.2d 118, 124, 10 Cal.Rptr. 431; Loma Vista Investment Inc. v. Roman Catholic Archbishop (1958) 158 Cal.App.2d 58, 62, 322 P.2d 35; Pinsky v. Sloat (1955) 130 Cal.App.2d 579, 582, 279 P.2d 584; McIntire v. Wasson (1954) 125 Cal.App.2d 371, 377, 270 P.2d 32; City of Los Angeles v. Fiske (1953) 117 Cal.App.2d 167, 170-171, 255 P.2d 445; Severo v. Pacheco (1946) 75 Cal.App.2d 30, 35, 170 P.2d 40.) 'The highway is a monument, and in legal contemplation the thread of the highway is the monument, unless a contrary intention clearly appears.' (Moody v. Palmer (1875) 50 Cal. 31, 36, quoted in Anderson v. Citizens Savings & Trust Co., supra.) As the court said in Anderson, '[p]utting it in another way, the fee in the half of the street upon which the lot abuts is in fact a part of the lot, so that a conveyance of the lot conveys the fee in the street as a part of it.' (P. 393, 197 P. p. 116.) The application of the above rule does not depend on the actual existence or use of the designated areas as streets at the time of the conveyance since '[b]y such a description a street is created as between the grantor and the grantee, regardless of whether or not there is an existing dedication as between the grantor and the public.' (Anderson v. Citizens Savings & Trust Co., supra; Brown v. Bachelder, supra; Neff v. Ernst, supra; McIntire v. Wasson, supra [applied even though the roads on the map were called 'parcels' and 'private']; Los Angeles High School District v. Swensen, supra [applied to areas designated as alleys].)

Contrary to plaintiff's claim, it is therefore of no moment that in the instant case the Marin County Board of Supervisors rejected the offer of dedication made by the subdivider on the face of the recorded map. As we have said before, the crucial question is whether the subdivider intended to designate the crescent-shaped area as a street or highway on the map.

An examination of the subdivision map convinces us that, as the trial court found, the subdivider Fairfax Development Company intended the crescent to be a part of Marin Road. Such area appears on the map as a cul-de-sac at the northeasterly end of the road. There is no line or...