# Morehart v. County of Santa Barbara

> California Supreme Court · May 12, 1994 · 7 Cal. 4th 725

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9553259

## Case

- **Full name:** JOHN M. MOREHART Et Al., Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. COUNTY OF SANTA BARBARA Et Al., Defendants and Appellants
- **Court:** California Supreme Court
- **Decided:** May 12, 1994
- **Citations:** 7 Cal. 4th 725; 29 Cal. Rptr. 2d 804; 94 Daily Journal DAR 6396; 872 P.2d 143; 94 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 3404; 1994 Cal. LEXIS 2490
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Mosk
- **Judges:** Lucas, Mosk
- **Cited by:** 297 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

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## Opinion text

MOSK, J.
I concur in the judgment. I write separately to emphasize the narrowness of our holding with respect to the validation of antiquated “paper subdivisions.”
As amici curiae in this case point out, there exist throughout California many thousands of subdivision lots ostensibly created prior to the state’s first subdivision law in 1893, lots which have never been sold or leased as separate parcels. These subdivisions are the legacies of 19th century would-be developers whose dreams of carving up their land into profitable real estate parcels went only as far as the county recorder’s office. The legal status of those paper subdivisions has not been resolved by the state merger law, nor by the majority’s decision.
Government Code section 66451.10, subdivision (a) (all unlabeled statutory references are to this code), provides that automatic merger does not apply to “two or more contiguous parcels or units of land which have been created under the provisions of this division, or any prior law regulating the division of land, or a local ordinance enacted pursuant thereto, or which were not subject to those provisions at the time of their creation . .-. .” What the statute does not set forth, and what the majority rightly do not decide today, is what constitutes the “creation” of a parcel, subject to the state merger provisions, if that parcel purportedly came into existence prior to the first subdivision law in 1893.
The majority instead hold that, whatever the rule for pre-1893 paper subdivisions, the subdivision lot in question exists because the County of *766 Santa Barbara (hereafter County), in its answer to plaintiffs’ complaint, said it exists. Because of this admission, the majority claim they do not consider “any of the prerequisites to creation of a parcel that preceded California’s first subdivision map statute in 1893 . . . (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 761.)
The majority then address the question whether a parcel created before 1893 is subject to the merger law and conclude that it is, rejecting the County’s contention that section 66451.10, subdivision (a) applies only to subdivisions subject to, or exempt from, post-1893 subdivision law—a position that would effectively invalidate all subdivisions originating before 1893. But the majority are not entirely correct in implying that whether a pre-1893 lot has been created and whether the merger statutes apply to such lots, are entirely distinct questions. For the majority’s position that subdivisions could be created prior to 1893 implies that lots may be created outside of the framework of subdivision statutes or ordinances. Because there were no subdivision laws prior to 1893, the majority’s position may give rise to the inference that all subdivisions recorded before 1893 can be said to be legally “created,” since there was no statute in place by which a subdivision could be judged to have been unlawfully created. Such an inference would, in my view, be incorrect.
Even in its earliest incarnations, California subdivision law has sought to ensure at the very least that subdividers provided accurate maps with sufficient information to give constructive notice of the subdivision to the public and to subsequent purchasers. (See Curtin et al., Cal. Subdivision Map Act Practice (Cont.Ed.Bar 1987) § 1.2, pp. 2-3.) The 1893 statute, for example, provided that the “proprietor” of a subdivision “cause to be made out an accurate map or plat thereof,” which would accurately depict the boundaries and uses of property reserved for public purposes, and which further accurately describe “[a]ll lots intended for sale, either by number or letter, and their precise length and width.” (Stats. 1893, ch. 80, § 1, p. 96.) Moreover, it is an elementary common law rule that a deed conveying real property can be voided if the property description is insufficiently definite to permit the property to be readily located. (Saterstrom v. Glick Bros. Sash. etc. Co. (1931) 118 Cal.App. 379, 380-381 [ 5 P.2d 21 ]; Scott v. Woodworth (1907) 34 Cal.App. 400, 409 [ 167 P. 543 ].)
In this case, the County and amicus curiae County Counsel’s Association of California point to the inaccuracy and lack of information on the one-page map that purportedly created the Naples subdivision in 1888. 1 I doubt whether a subdivision map that does not even meet the standard of the *767 common law, or of the 1893 statute, by accurately depicting and recording a subdivision can be said to “create” that subdivision within the meaning of section 66451.10, subdivision (a), particularly where that subdivision’s only subsequent existence has been on paper. (See John Taft Corp. v. Advisory Agency (1984) 161 Cal.App.3d 749, 756-757 [ 207 Cal.Rptr. 840 ] [purported subdivision lots depicted on United States Survey map filed in 1878, but not recorded with the county, does not create subdivision under the Subdivision Map Act].)
Because of the County’s concession, 2 this court has been spared the task of addressing an issue this case would have otherwise raised: at what point can a map recorded prior to 1893 that purports to create contiguous subdivision parcels be so inaccurate or so lacking in information as to fail in fact to “create” these parcels within the meaning of section 66451.10, subdivision (a)? The answer to that question awaits further judicial—or legislative —clarification.
As County Counsel’s Association of California describes it, “[t]he Plan of Naples is a one-page sketch map recorded in 1888. It depicts approximately 240 rectangular blocks and *767 irregular fractional blocks, of which about 227 are numbered. The blocks numbered 31, 44, 60, 69, 70 and 142 are shown divided into approximately 170 pencil-shaped parcels that are unnumbered. The paucity of information on the map reveals that it does not qualify as a record of survey. For example, it gives no dimensions for any of the parcels or for the vast majority of the blocks, and lacks references to bearings, monuments, relationships to adjacent tracts, scale, compass points, or the date of any survey. (See Bus.&Prof. [Code §] 8764.) The map does show the blocks as being separated by a rigidly rectangular grid of streets drawn in apparent disregard for topography and natural features. The streets, in blind obedience to this plan, run straight across the barrancas depicted on the map and plunge over the coastal cliffs into the sea. Petitioners claim that each of these 240 blocks and 170 parcels must be recognized as a legal parcel for the purposes of the modern Subdivision Map Act”
In addition to the concession made in its answer, the County has made other admissions as to the legal existence of lot 132, most notably in the certificate of compliance issued for the property in 1986, which stated that the lot is a “legal parcel having been created in 1888 in compliance with the provisions of the California Subdivision Map and at that time there was no County of Santa Barbara Ordinance enacted pursuant thereto.” However, this case does not decide whether acts of recognition such as those performed by the County in this case could estop a County from asserting that a parcel had not been “created” for purposes of section 66451.10, subdivision (a).

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9553259. Public record. Not legal advice.