Smith v. Southern Pacific Railroad

The plaintiffs have appealed from a judgment quieting the title of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company to a strip of land less than an acre in area along its right of way in Santa Clara County.

The plaintiffs claim as joint tenants through a deed from one C. N. Anderson executed in 1923, and show a paper title by mesne conveyance from one C. H. Phillips, who was stipulated to be the record owner of the San Martin rancho, of which the strip of land was a part, at the time of its first conveyance as a separate parcel.

The respondent railroad company set up as a defense that the action was…