POB - Kris Kline - When Is Not a Monument a Monument

[LS_8750]

Dear CLSA,
I'm not buying the points emphasized Mr. Kline's latest POB article. He is cherry picking.

Mr. Kline has never worked in Marin County, based on the content of his discussion, that is for sure.

Mr. Kline fails to recognize that "monuments" mysteriously appear, as if cast down from aliens, in the weirdest of places. But chances are, in the equally weirdest of places, the pedigree of that monument exists somewhere. In some localities across this country, surveyors would actually track down the pedigree of that unknown "iron", or "monument", in the ground.

In some localities, Mr. Kline's assertion is laughable.

Is Mr. Kline asserting that us surveyors are basing our professional opinions on guess work? Could it be that extrinsic evidence might aid in bolstering that "guess work"?

One should be reminded, case law is only as strong as the evidence, and arguments, presented.

No Mr. Kline. Bogus rhetoric.

Cheers.

[Lee Hixson]

Monument pedigree is the issue. I took his article as a counter-balance to the pin cushion argument, that sometimes is emphasized too much. "It all depends." "The contrary may be shown." Don't get sucked in to a particular predisposition.

[William Magee]

My sentiments exactly Lee. Well said.

[dmi]

I find nothing outrageous in the POB article. I would caution that anyone may google case law and collect a bunch of cases that seemingly appear to prove a certain point, but in fact some or all of the cases may not be good law anymore because of more recent rulings.

The article condenses to the following; prove your un called for monuments are in fact acceptable

[Dave Karoly, PLS]

I agree with Dane. There is nothing particularly wrong with that article.

A lot depends on circumstances and local practice.

Sacramento County is loaded with County Spike & Washers in the street PIs. There is really nothing original left. In the northeast urban area the original monuments were stakes on the right-of-way lines, long ago paved over. Any given block will have dozens of maps over several decades that have used the spike & washers. In that situation my opinion is that there is no good reason to reject those because there isn't anything better although they can't be proven.

I have read a lot of case law, it appears to me that California is heavily fact dependent with respect to boundaries. Because of this it is almost impossible to lay down definite rules because every fact set is different. Our Courts look for a preponderance and weight the physical evidence heavily over numbers.