11 Professional Land Surveyors of Oregon | www.plso.org CONTRASTING BOUNDARIES interpretation, and indeed all judicial description construction, focuses upon extracting the true intent of the original parties from any given legal description. In so doing, no language can be deleted or ignored, and nothing can be added, yet whenever ambiguity, uncertainty or conict of any kind appears from the existing words, the sole objective is to achieve clarication by reaching an understanding of what those words meant to the parties who chose to use them. As pointed out in the November article, it can be fairly stated that the legal description which SCOTUS approved in 2014 was not entirely free of ambiguity, even if the complete veracity of the voluminous coordinate list which appears therein is conceded. is is true because the 2014 description at least supercially presents conicting intentions, since it initially states that the described alignment is “parallel to the coastline”, yet it concludes by conrming that the OSB has been “immobilized ... and shall not be ambulatory”. In reality, neither of these conicting statements were necessary, the linkage of the described alignment to the coastline is both historically self-evident and clearly illustrated in the description exhibit, while the concluding statement is a mere reiteration of a portion of the aforementioned 1986 statutory amendment, thus both of these passages can be viewed as extraneous surplusage. It could well be argued that this description was unwisely composed, given that the inclusion of unnecessary items which serve to introduce even an appearance of conict is generally regarded as poor practice in description creation. In this instance however, no harm arises from this innocuous ambiguity, as noted in the November article, because this description was created to serve a specic purpose, “freezing” the OSB, and that objective had already been statutorily authorized for 28 years by 2014, so no one cognizant of the law could possibly misunderstand the true intent of the 2014 decree. Clearly, the “parallel” reference appearing at the outset of this description was intended only as general information, a mere nod to the historical origin of the line, and can in no sense be seen as controlling language, dictating that the line must continue to migrate. Indeed, as land surveyors know better than anyone else, virtually every description having any dimensional content includes some degree of ambiguity, when applied in the physical world, as every description must be if it is to hold any value, because numerically dened locations will rarely if ever precisely coincide with the monumentation upon which such descriptive data is intrinsically dependent. Aer adroitly addressing several concerns of a technical nature, which were raised in the March article, the author of the November article very astutely introduced another highly relevant factor into this discussion, which had been substantially bypassed by the composers of both the March and the June articles. As we have learned, when viewed in proper historical context, the OSB is clearly a non-typical boundary, created to serve a unique jurisdictional purpose, distinct in that regard even from inland submerged boundaries, because it segregates lands that will certainly never be unsubmerged, yet even though permanently immersed in oceanic waters, the OSB is pertinent to a select and limited group of title interests. Landward of that line, the bedland title is in each coastal state, while seaward thereof title is in the US, and although we can be fairly sure that no issues related to boundary fences, hedges or walls will ever plague this particular boundary, it nonetheless presents a scenario in which the land rights interests of two, and only two, entities meet. While it may be fairly argued that the manner in which any boundary line was created should have no impact on either the accuracy or the precision with which a land surveyor would retrace or restore that line, and every boundary is worthy of equally high respect, the practical usefulness of any given line is typically a relevant factor in boundary resolution from the judicial perspective. Any boundary location which becomes a source of practical reliance of a mutual nature, supporting valuable or otherwise meaningful use of the adjoining lands, by either the fee title holders themselves or their tenants, will typically nd favor in the eyes of the judiciary. e important additional concept bearing upon the adjudication of the OSB scenario, as the third article correctly pointed out, is that of boundary agreement, and both the great value embodied in that concept and its judicial signicance are in fact quite well displayed here. Although the adjoining parties in this case, who were long embroiled in controversy over oil and gas revenue, are both governmental entities, rather than farmer Jones and neighboring rancher Smith, or home owner Johnson and adjoining business owner ompson in the urban context, they are all nonetheless abutting holders of fee title, with full authority to enter an agreement to amicably settle any boundary uncertainty which may plague them. While such parties cannot act in violation of the Statute of Frauds, by making any deliberate alterations to their mutual boundary in an undocumented manner, they have the authority to put a conclusive end to any boundary uncertainty they are mutually experiencing, and rather than being chastised or penalized, eorts of that kind are typically judicially welcomed and rewarded. Enlisting the services of a land surveyor for that purpose is always a wise choice of course, since proper documentation of any agreed boundary is a valuable asset, and a documented boundary agreement is obviously preferable to an undocumented one. When viewed from this perspective, the approval of SCOTUS for the OSB alignment agreement reached by the US and California, supported as it was by the work of a substantial team of duly authorized surveyors, becomes readily palatable. e High Court was not only open to the adoption of the agreed boundary, the Justices were » continues on next page »
PLSO May June 2016
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