Goodwin v. Scheerer

Citations

• 106 Cal. 690
• 40 P. 18
• 1895 Cal. LEXIS 662

Syllabus

<p>Ejectment—Possession op Plaintiff—Evidence of Ownership.—In an action of ejectment, the possession of the land in controversy by the plaintiff prior to the intrusion of the defendant is, in the absence of any evidence in support of the defendant’s right to the possession, sufficient to authorize a judgment of recovery.</p> <p>Id.—Proof op Prescriptive Title—Burden op Proof.—If the plaintiff shows that his possession has been continued for a period long enough to bar an action for recovery he establishes a title by prescription, and, upon such proof, the burden is thrown upon the defendant to show his right to retain the possession.</p> <p>Id.—Possession op Mission Creek Land—Lease from City to Depend-ant—Failure to Prove Title.—In an action by a plaintiff, who, for more than five years, was the possessor of a parcel of land, claimed by the city of San Francisco, against a defendant who took forcible possession of the land, claiming under a lease from the city of San Francisco, and also against the city and county of San Francisco, where the only proof for the defendants was oral testimony of the lease from the city to the intruder, without proof of the lease, and without any evidence given in support of the right of the city to make the lease, except the oral testimony of a witness that the property was part of the Old Mission, or Channel, creek land reclaimed by the city, and that it had always been understood that it was city property, there is not sufficient proof of any title or right of possession in the defendants, and the plaintiff is entitled to a recovery of the lands.</p> <p>Id.—Judicial Notice—Pueblo Lands.—The court cannot take judicial notice in an action of ejectment that the land in question is part of the pueblo lands which were confirmed to the city of San Francisco by the decree of the circuit court of the United States; nor can the court judicially know that the defendant’s claim to the demanded land is derived through the decree of the circuit