Case Name: BARTLETT VINES, Appellant, v. JESSE WHITTEN et al. Respondents
Court: Supreme Court of California
Jurisdiction: California
Decision Date: 1854-07
Citations: 4 Cal. 230
Docket Number: 
Parties: *BARTLETT VINES, Appellant, v. JESSE WHITTEN et al. Respondents.
Judges: Court. Mr. Ch. J. Murray concurred.
Reporter: California Reports
Volume: 4
Pages: 230–232

Head Matter:
*BARTLETT VINES, Appellant, v. JESSE WHITTEN et al. Respondents.
Sükvet, Pboof of. — A survey may be detailed from memory by a witness, as well as defined by a diagram, and should be excluded, unless the witness be the County Surveyor, or be introduced to rebut or explain a survey of the County Surveyor.
Appeal from the Seventh Judicial District.
This was an action of trespass, quart clausvm fregit. The complaint recited, that the boundaries of the land described in it were according to a survey of one Lusk. The defendants, in order to contradict the survey of Lusk, introduced Nathaniel Squib, a surveyor, but not the County Surveyor.
The plaintiff objected to the witness, but his objection was overruled, and he excepted, and judgment being rendered against him, he appealed.
Aldrich <& McConnell, for Appellant.
John -Currey, for Respondents.»
Disapproved in Doherty v. Thayer, 31 Cal. 145. SeeMlis v» Janes, 10. Cal. 456.

Opinion:
Mr. Justice Heydenpeldt
delivered the opinion of the
Court. Mr. Ch. J. Murray concurred.
The County Surveyor's Act is explicit in excluding, as evidence, the surveys of any other than the County Surveyor, except in those cases where it may be necessary to rebut or explain the official survey.
It is said here, by the respondent, that no survey was introduced in evidence. I cannot see how this position is maintained. To admit in evidence a survey, is certainly not confined to the presentation of a map, or plat. A survey is the result of measurement and calculation, and can be detailed from memory by a witness, as well as defined by a diagram. The witness Squib described a survey he had made, in order to find the lines and corners of Lusk's survey, by which the land in the complaint is described. This was a re-survey. It is the object of the Act, wherever such a step is necessary, * that it shall be performed by the County Surveyor, and a record of it kept in his office.
In order the better to enforce this design, all other surveys are excluded from evidence, except when necessary to impeach that of the County Surveyor, or, in the language of the Act, to explain, or rebut it.
The policy of the Act is, I think, very obvious, and in all respects so commendable, that it ought to be maintained to its full effect.
The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded.