Suits to determine adverse claims such as exist in this state were not known to the old chancery practice, but were provided for by statute. The provision of the Code of Civil Procedure is as follows:

"Sec. 738. An action may be brought by any person against another who claims an estate or interest in real property adverse to him, for the purpose of determining such adverse claim." (Compare sec. 254 of old Practice Act, Laws 1851, pp. 92, 93.)

The distinction between the two kinds of action is clear. They are different not merely in form (for we have no forms of action in the common-law sense), but in purpose. In the former case the proceeding is aimed at a particular instrument, or piece of evidence, which is dangerous to the plaintiff's rights, and which may be ordered to be destroyed in whosesoever hands it may happen to be. While in the latter, the proceeding is for the purpose of stopping the mouth of a person who has asserted or is asserting a claim to the plaintiff's property, whether such claim be founded upon evidence or utterly baseless. It is not aimed at a particlar piece of evidence, but at the pretensions of an individual.

The statutory action to determine an adverse claim is an improvement upon the old bill of peace. The statute enlarges the class of cases in which equitable relief could formerly be sought in the quieting of title. It is not necessary, as formerly, that the plaintiff should first establish his right by an action at law. "He can immediately, upon knowledge of the assertion of such claim, require the nature and character of the adverse estate or interest to be produced, exposed, and judicially determined, and the question of title be thus forever quieted." Curtis v. Sutter, 15 Cal. 262, 263; and see Stark v. Stars, 6 Wall. 409.) Nor is it necessary that the adverse claim. should be of any particular character. As said by Baldwin, J., delivering the opinion in Head v. Fordyce, 17 Cal. 151, the statute "does not confine the remedy to the

case of an adverse claimant setting up a legal title or even an equitable one; but the act intended to embrace every description of claim whereby the plaintiff might be deprived of the property, or its title clouded, or its value depreciated, or whereby the plaintiff might be incommoded or damnified by the assertion of an outstanding title already held or to grow out of the adverse pretension." (See also Horn v. Jones, 28 Cal. 204; Joyce v. McAvoy, 31 Cal. 287, 288; 89 Am. Dec. 172.) And the rule may be even more broadly stated, viz., that the action may be maintained by the owner of property to determine any adverse claim whatever. For if the defendant by his answer disclaims all interest whatever, judgment may, nevertheless, be entered against him, though in such case it must be without costs. (Code Civ. Proc., sec. 739; compare Brooks v. Calderwood, 34 Cal. 566, and Scorpion Co. v. Marsano, 10 Nev. 380, 381.)

The plaintiff, therefore, is not required to set forth the nature of the defendant's claim. (People v. Center, 66 Cal. 562; Scorpion Co. v. Marsano, 10 Nev. 380, 381; Jefferson R. R. v. Oyler, 60 Ind. 392.) The pleading is very simple. And it is well settled that the allegations above mentioned are sufficient. (Rough v. Simmons, 65 Cal. 227; Hesser v. Miller, 77 Cal. 192.)

It is argued for the appellant, however, that the complaint contains something beside the allegations above mentioned; that it is really a complaint to reform a deed, and that when so considered, both the complaint and findings are insufficient, because it is neither alleged nor found that the deed sought to be reformed embraced the property in controversy.

The complaint, after the allegations above mentioned, proceeded to set forth the nature of the defendant's claim. It alleged that said claim was founded on a mistake in the description of a deed. The mistake was this:

after reaching a post on the west bank of Moro Slough the description called for the following course, viz.: "thence down the said slough north 72 deg. west 61.50 chains, to a stake in a small slough at a point known as the Bolsita," while it was alleged and found that instead. of "north 72 deg. west," the course should have been "north 12 deg. west."

Now, if it had appeared that the land in controversy was included in the deed as made, so as to pass thereby, the plaintiff could not have maintained an action under the statute to determine an adverse claim. For it has been held that a mistake in the description of a conveyance cannot be corrected in such an action. (Brewer v. Houston, 58 Cal. 345.) In such case the legal title would have passed by the conveyance; and the holder of a mere right in equity to have the conveyance reformed cannot maintain an action like the present against the holder of the legal title. (Von Drachenfels v. Doolittle, 77 Cal. 295.) But, according to the appellant's own statement, this does not appear. And we think that the contrary appears affirmatively. For the description contained in the deed made is given in the complaint and in the findings. And it appears therefrom that the mistake in the course is immaterial. The wrong course is controlled by the direction to go "down the said slough" to a specified point. Courses and distances yield to visible boundaries. (Spring v. Hewston, 52 Cal. 442; Serrano v. Rawson, 47 Cal. 55; More v. Massini, 37 Cal. 436.) It affirmatively appears, therefore, both from the complaint and findings, that there was nothing requiring reformation, and no basis for the defendant's claim.

But

As above stated, it was not necessary for the complaint to set forth the nature of the defendant's claim. the unnecessary allegations merely show that the defendant's claim was based upon a harmless error of description, and do not change the character of the action.

And the judgment does not undertake to reform the deed, but merely quiets the plaintiff's title.

We therefore advise that the judgment and order denying a new trial be affirmed.

FOOTE, C. and VAN CLIEF, C., concurred.

The COURT. For the reasons given in the foregoing opinion, the judgment and order denying a new trial are affirmed.

[No. 11996. Department Two.-June 13, 1889.]

N. W. SPAULDING, APPELLANT, v. GEORGE L. BRADLEY, RESPONDENT.

FINDINGS-SUFFICIENCY OF EVIDENCE-REVIEW ON APPEAL.-If the evidence sustains the finding of the court below upon a material issue which is decisive of the case, and this finding and others not objected to support the judgment, it is immaterial whether other findings objected to are sustained by the evidence or not. ALCADE GRANT-SUFFICIENCY OF DESCRIPTION-EVIDENCE-When the description of two lots conveyed by alcalde grants represents them as one-hundred-vara lots numbered 15 and 25 as marked on page 4 of District Record "B," which record shows the location of the premises described in the grants, there is no patent ambiguity in the description; and if there is no evidence tending to discover a latent ambiguity, an objection to the grants as uncertain and ambiguous in the description of the premises conveyed is properly overruled.

ID.-EFFECT OF ALCALDE GRANT-STREET-EMINENT DOMAIN.-A grant of lots made by the alcalde of San Francisco in 1848 passed an absolute title thereto; nor could any portion thereof be appropri ated to the use of the public as a street, except upon due compensation paid or secured in pursuance of proceedings prosecuted for that purpose.

DEDICATION OF STREET.-To constitute a dedication of land for a street, there must be a manifestation of the owner's intent to dedicate it to a public use, and an acceptance and use by the public for the purpose intended and manifested by the owner.

ID. EVIDENCE OF DEDICATION.-A description in an unverified complaint in ejectment of a lot the whole of which is recovered in the action, which represents the lot as commencing near the northeast corner of Union and Polk streets, without anything in the record of the action to identify the starting point, does not indicate that Polk Street extended across the lot, or was used by the public LXXIX. CAL.-29

across it, or prove any intent of the plaintiff in ejectment to dedicate any part of the lot to be used as a public street. STREET ASSESSMENT INVALID OPENING OF STREET.-A street assessment levied for the opening of a street across a private lot which had not been dedicated to the public or condemned for public use, and of which there was no user by the public until after the grading was done for which the assessment in question was levied, is invalid, and cannot be enforced.

DEED EFFECT OF QUITCLAIM ESTOPPEL.-A quitclaim deed conveys the absolute fee-simple title, if the party executing it had such title, and does not imply any precedent interest or easement in the releasee, or any admission or estoppel of the releasor to that effect.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of the city and county of San Francisco, and from an order refusing a new trial.

The facts are stated in the opinion.

William H. H. Hart, and J. M. Wood, for Appellant.

R. B. Wallace, for Respondent.

VANCLIEF, C.-This is an action to foreclose a streetassessment lien for $707, upon lot No. 17, southeast corner of Union and Polk streets, San Francisco, for grading Union Street from Larkin Street to the westerly line. of Franklin Street by order of the board of supervisors made August 13, 1877. The work of grading was done by J. S. Dyer under contract dated October 4, 1877, and was commenced on or about the ninth day of October following, and completed prior to May 26, 1880; and the assessment therefor was levied on the twenty-seventh day of May, 1880. The plaintiff sued as the assignee of J. S. Dyer.

The trial court gave judgment for the defendant, and the plaintiff appealed from the judgment, and also from an order denying his motion for a new trial made on his bill of exceptions. Counsel for appellant makes no point on the appeal from the judgment, unless he claims by implication that the findings of fact do not support the judgment.