Snell v. Stelling

Citations

• 83 Wash. 248
• 145 P. 466
• 1915 Wash. LEXIS 707

Syllabus

<p>Stipulations — Operation and Effect — Actions—Issues-—-Boundaries. In an action of ejectment and to quiet title, a stipulation setting forth two deeds, with descriptions of the disputed boundary line, by courses and distances, and reciting that by mesne conveyances, the plaintiffs had succeeded to the right and title conveyed by one of the deeds, and the defendants the other, eliminates the claims of all title by adverse possession by either side to the lands described in the deeds, and reduces the action to- one in its essence to restore a lost boundary as contemplated in Rem. & Bal. Code, §§ 947-949.</p> <p>Adverse Possession — Disputed Boundary — Mistake. Where neither of two adjoining landowners intends to claim beyond the true boundary line set out in their deeds, possession by mistake to an erroneous line does not work a disseisin as against the other under the seven-year statute, Rem. & Bal. Code, §§ 786, 788, by possession under color of title and payment of taxes.</p> <p>Boundaries — Lost Lines — Establishment—Actions — Survey-— Parol Evidence. Where two deeds, executed at the same time, describe the dividing boundary line between the tracts conveyed by courses and distances, and there is no defect or patent or latent ambiguity in either description intimating that the lines would not coincide, if completed surveys were made, in an action reduced in its essence to restore the lost boundary, it is error to attempt to establish the location of the boundary line by oral evidence until after commissioners have been appointed under Rem. & Bal. Code, § 948, to make a survey and plat to restore the lost boundary, if it can be done; oral evidence being admissible only after it is found that, by a complete survey, the two descriptions of the boundary in dispute do not coincide.</p>