Ocean Shore Railroad v. Spring Valley Water Co.

This is an action by plaintiff to quiet title to a right of way claimed by it through land of the defendant Spring Valley Water Company situated in the counties of San Francisco and San Mateo. The defendants answered jointly, setting up abandonment of the right of way by plaintiff and its reversion to the Spring Valley Water Company; ownership by defendant State of California of a right of way for a public highway established over the lands, and a contract right of the defendant Lake Merced Golf and Country Club to purchase part of the land, and that the right of way claimed by the plaintiff intersects both of the latter. Judgment went for defendants, from which plaintiff appeals upon a bill of exceptions.

The principal issue raised by the pleadings and considered at the trial was whether or not there was such an abandon ment of plaintiff’s right of way that the title thereto merged again into the title of the defendant water company.

Plaintiff introduced in evidence a deed by defendant water company conveying the right of way described in the complaint, for an expressed consideration of ten dollars, to plaintiff’s predecessor in title, “its successors and assigns forever.”…