Vandetta v. Yanero, 13349
| Decision Date | 04 December 1973 |
| Docket Number | No. 13349,13349 |
| Citation | 157 W.Va. 220,200 S.E.2d 674 |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
| Parties | Felix VANDETTA and Agnes Vandetta v. James YANERO et al. |
Syllabus by the Court
1. 'Where a deed or other writing purporting to transfer title to real estate, applied to the subject-matter, shows a manifest omission in the description, and there is sufficient data furnished by the instrument to supply the omission, it may be supplied by construction.' Syllabus Point 1, Napier v. Coal Co., 97 W.Va. 247, 124 S.E. 915 (1924).
2. Where an erroneous conclusion of law is incorporated into a surveyor's report, and the entire report is then used as evidence by the circuit court, this Court will not reverse the circuit court on the basis of the surveyor's error when it is evident that the circuit court's findings of fact and conclusions of law were not based on the alleged error, and there is ample other evidence from which the circuit court could arrive at the same conclusion.
James A. Esposito, Fairmont, Franklin D. Cleckley, Morgantown, for appellants.
Ross Maruka, Fairmont, for appellees.
This is an appeal from a final order of the Circuit Court of Marion County, West Virginia, adjudicating a boundary dispute between neighbors on land bordering State Route 19, formerly known as the Fairmont-Weston Turnpike. The Vandettas, plaintiffs below and appellants here, contend that as a result of platting the metes and bounds described in three pertinent deeds of conveyance they own a narrow strip of land in undetermined width which would, if their ownership were established, preclude egress or ingress from State Route 19 to the residential property of the Yaneros, appellees here and defendants below.
The first deed of conveyance, dated 1899, conveyed a tract currently owned by both the parties in this case. The 1899 deed conveyed a tract of land which was described in general terms in the following language:
'. . . a certain parcel of land . . . Lying on the North West side of the Fairmont and Clarksburg pike . . . bounded as follows: Beginning at a mile post gone. . . .' (Emphasis supplied)
From the 1899 tract the Yaneros' predecessor in title received an out conveyance in 1927 described as follows:
'. . . A certain parcel of land . . . Lying on the Northwest side of the old Fairmont and Clarksburg Pike . . . bounded as follows: Beginning at an Iron Pin on the Westerly side of the old county road. . . .' (Emphasis supplied)
Finally, in 1931, the plaintiffs' predecessor in title received from the tract conveyed in 1899 all of the remaining land except that which had previously been conveyed to the Yaneros' predecessor in title in 1927.
After voluminous, confusing testimony by three surveyors, the circuit court, on motion of the plaintiffs, appointed Robert S. Watson, a professional engineer, to make an independent survey report. Watson discovered both minor and major inaccuracies in the metes, bounds and calls within the 1899 and the 1927 deeds of conveyance. For example, the 1899 deed contained a closure error of 1:06 feet, the 1927 deed lacked a call for a fifth side without which the closure error would be 1:10.7 feet, while the standard rural property closure error is 1:2000 feet. In addition all of the measurements were made in slope feet rather than horizontal feet, which made accurate ground measurement of the property exceedingly difficult, and finally, due to the magnetic field movements, the calls, determined between thirty and seventy years ago, were no longer accurate. Mr. Watson thereupon divised a reformed plat of the two adjacent properties based upon common boundaries with other properties, some of the descriptive language within the various deeds, a natural monument, and the location of the various improvements on the properties such as fences and residential buildings. The plat shows that the Vandettas do not own, as they claim, a strip of land between the Yaneros' property and State Route 19.
Under the appointed surveyor's report and the inaccuracies in the several deeds of conveyance, the circuit court determined that the deeds were fit subjects for reformation. This action of the circuit court finds precedent in Napier v. Coal Co., 97 W.Va. 247, 124 S.E. 915 (1924) which held:
'Where a deed or...
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...are embodied in deed calls and such natural monuments are given superiority over the calls in the event of a conflict. Vandetta v. Yanero, W.Va., 200 S.E.2d 674 (1973); Blain v. Woods, 145 W.Va. 297, 115 S.E.2d 88 (1960); Matheny v. Allen, 63 W.Va. 443, 60 S.E. 407 Thus, we have a concurren......
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