Rancho Santa Margarita v. County of San Diego

The appellant corporation is the owner of approximately 131,000 acres of land in the county of San Diego. This was originally a Spanish grant which had never been officially surveyed and divided into sections. In 1927 appellant caused a survey to be made dividing the real property into sections, which were numbered with townships and ranges to conform to a general official survey of adjoining sectionized property. A map was made and filed with the assessor of San' Diego County, who used it in making the subsequent assessments of the property.

The board of supervisors of San Diego County employed a corporation known as Tax Factors Inc. to make a survey and appraisement of all of the real property in San Diego County. R. B. Hunt, an employee of Tax Factors Inc., had charge of the valuations of all rural properties in the county, including that of appellant. In September, 1929, he waa appointed deputy county assessor and continued to act as such during all times material to this action.

• The method employed by Tax Factors Inc. in arriving at its valuations of real property may be briefly summarized as follows: Airplane photographs were made from an elevation of about 2,000 feet.…