Regus

Plaintiffs Bertha and Robert Regus instituted action charging six defendants with conspiracy to defraud plaintiffs of a strip of land 25 feet wide by 390 feet long which plaintiffs contend should have become vested in them as a result of a transaction involving an exchange of properties.

Plaintiffs acquired certain property on Stewart Avenue in Baldwin Park, California, in 1952, a portion of which was purchased from Tony and Rosalie Vitale, deceased parents of defendants Sam Vitale and Mary “Vitale” Sobieski. Early in the year 1955 an escrow was opened by defendant Heil as escrow clerk whereby Tony and Rosalie Vitale agreed to exchange certain property with plaintiffs. The Vitales were to grant property fronting on Stewart Avenue to plaintiffs and plaintiffs were to pay the sum of $750 to the Vitales and join in a grant of their interest in property not on a street to defendant Gladstone Holmes, Inc., a tract developer, which was purchasing contiguous land from the Vitales.

A dispute arose as to the boundary limits of the property to be acquired by the plaintiffs. Defendant Bell was employed by Tony Vitale to survey the lands in question. Plaintiffs called upon an engineer,…