Stephen Johnson Field

“ Confirmation established nothing more; it did not change the character of the grant to Flugge as one of specific boundaries, nor that to the Fernandez as one of quantity. The surveyor in surveying the claim upon the first grant was still under as great obligations to follow the boundaries which it specified, repeated in the decree of confirmation, as though the second grant had never been issued or confirmed. ”

“ The statute of limitations of California, passed in 1863, provided in substance that no action for the recovery of real property or its possession should be maintained, unless the plaintiff his ancestor, predecessor, or grantor was seized or possessed of the premises within five years before the commencement of the action, or the property was claimed under title derived from the Spanish or Mexican governments, which had not been previously confirmed by the United States or their legally constituted authorities ”

“ Certain it is that to the enforcement of an estoppel of this character, such as will prevent a party from asserting his legal rights to property, there must generally be some degree of turpitude in his conduct which has misled others to their injury. Conduct or declarations founded upon ignorance of one's rights have no such ingredient, and seldom work any such result. ”

“ The present is not a case of conflicting patents issued upon a confirmation of two floating grants within exterior boundaries embracing land capable of satisfying both. It is a case where one of the grants upon which a patent has issued, and that the earlier one, has specific boundaries, or such descriptive features as to render its limits easily ascertainable. With the right of the grantee to the land thus designated the claim of the donee of the second and floating grant could not interfere. ”

“ No two persons would ever agree as to the precise point where their slope commenced or ended. Between the base, or any supposed slope, and the line of Sutter's land, many leagues intervened, and no western boundary of the tract is given. If we look at the map to which the grant refers we find the land represented as lying on Feather River, with its northern boundary on the 'faldas' of the Sierra, with no other descriptive features to indicate either its northern or southern line. ”

“ Both claimant and surveyor seem to have acted on the supposition that the erroneously designated parallels of latitude should govern the location, instead of the natural boundaries indicated on the map. ”