Roman Catholic Bishop of Sacramento v. Suisun-Fairfield Cemetery Dist

Filed 5/4/06 Roman Catholic Bishop of Sacramento v. Suisun-Fairfield Cemetery Dist. CA1/4

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 977(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 977(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 977.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION FOUR

Respondent Roman Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Sacramento (diocese) brought a quiet title action against appellant Suisun-Fairfield Cemetery District (district) to resolve a dispute over ownership of certain cemetery property. After a court trial, the diocese was granted title to the disputed parcel. It was also awarded the principal and interest of a district-collected endowment fund. The district appeals the subsequent judgment, contending that the trial court erred when concluding that (1) the public cemetery district was created for the purpose of maintaining private property owned by a religious institution; (2) it was not the fee owner of the cemetery pursuant to an implied-in-law dedication or (3) an implied-in-fact dedication; (4) the diocese acquired title to the cemetery property through adverse possession; and (5) the public was not entitled to restitution. The district also contends that the trial court erred by ordering it to turn over an endowment fund to the diocese. We affirm the judgment.

I. FACTS^[1]

St. Alphonsus Catholic Cemetery (St. Alphonsus) is located in the City of Fairfield in Solano County adjacent to several other cemeteries. In 1863, all these cemeteries were part of a 20-acre plot, which--in a series of conveyances--was divided into separate sections for use by the Masons, the International Order of Odd Fellows, the Methodist church and the Catholic church.^[2] The legal description of the properties purportedly conveyed in a series of deeds between 1864 and 1871 were inconsistent, making the record title to the Catholic section--at best--ambiguous.^[3] Despite this, since 1873, the bodies of many Roman Catholics have been buried in this consecrated cemetery affiliated with the local parish.

In the early days, families tended the gravesites at their local parish cemeteries. As these cemeteries began to be neglected, counties took over their maintenance, funded by tax assessments. In 1924, the district was created to provide cemetery care and maintenance for various cemeteries in its jurisdiction, including the Catholic section and adjacent cemeteries. (See Health & Saf. Code, §§ 9000-9007.) Taxes were levied to pay cemetery maintenance costs which were in turn regularly included in the district's annual budget. In later years, the district owned some of the cemeteries adjacent to the Catholic section, but some of them remained privately owned.

For many years since its formation, the district maintained the cemeteries including the original Catholic section. This maintenance included mowing and watering lawns, as well as performing routine care of the grounds and irrigation systems. The district also held the exclusive right to open and close graves at the cemetery and to collect and retain a fee for this service from the decedents' estates. Since 1985, the district has used some of these fees to offset some of the expenses of care and maintenance of St. Alphonsus through an endowment trust fund. The remaining costs were paid by public taxes, sometimes supplemented by a county augmentation.

The district did not receive any funds from the sales of burial plots. The parish church within the Sacramento diocese was responsible for St. Alphonsus until 2000, when the diocese took over that role. In that time, the parish, its agents, or the diocese collected income from the sales of cemetery plots. However, neither the parish church nor the diocese set aside funds to pay for cemetery maintenance. The income from sales of cemetery plots was deposited into the parish church's general fund, some of which was paid to the diocese.

Over time, district officials became concerned about the use of public funds to maintain private property. (See Cal. Const., art. XVI, §§ 5-6.) In October 2000, the district filed an action against respondent Roman Catholic Bishop^[4] of the Diocese of Sacramento, seeking injunctive and declaratory relief. The district asserted that St. Alphonsus had been impliedly dedicated as a publicly owned cemetery because it had maintained the cemetery with public funds. It sought reimbursement of its maintenance costs from the diocese, as well as a declaration of its ownership rights.

In November 2000--soon after the district's action was filed--the diocese instructed the district to cease all maintenance activities and grave openings and closings at St. Alphonsus. At that time, the diocese took over responsibility for the cemetery from the parish church. It has provided maintenance and grave services to the cemetery since then. The diocese has its own endowment care trust fund to pay the costs of maintaining its cemeteries throughout the diocese. It sought to obtain the district's St. Alphonsus endowment fund to add to its endowment fund, without success. Soon after, the district dismissed its complaint without prejudice to encourage a negotiated resolution to this dispute.

In 2002, the district acquired title to the Methodist section of the cemetery adjacent to the original Catholic section.^[5] The district and the diocese learned that the legal description of the original Catholic section appeared to differ from its apparent physical boundaries. The diocese sought to include this title issue within the scope of their settlement discussions. The district refused, claiming that it owned the original Catholic section of the cemetery as a result of its acquisition of the Methodist section. (See fn. 3, ante.)

In February 2002, the diocese brought an action against the district to quiet title to the Catholic section. It asked for the cloud on its title to be removed, for possession of the endowment fund,^[6] and for a declaration that no public dedication or gift of public funds had occurred. In April 2002, the district answered the complaint, asserting inter alia that it was the owner of the disputed property. It also filed a cross-complaint against the diocese, seeking to quiet title to the disputed property in its own name. It also asked the trial court to award damages in its restitution cause of action and sought to obtain injunctive and declaratory relief. In its cross-complaint, the district admitted that when it was formed in 1924, it did not hold any cemetery land.

The diocese demurred to the cross-complaint. The trial court sustained the demurrer to the cross-complaint's first cause of action relating to the gift of public funds. It overruled the demurrer to the third cause of action for an implied-in-fact dedication, paving the way for trial on the dedication issue. The diocese answered the district's cross-complaint in July 2002.

In the summer of 2004, the case was tried to the court. In October 2004, the trial court issued a tentative decision in favor of the diocese. In December 2004, the trial court filed its statement of decision.

The trial court rejected the claim that the diocese held paramount record title to the original Catholic section of the cemetery, but found that it had been vested with the fee simple absolute to this section^[7] by adverse possession. It concluded that the district held no interest in the original Catholic section but for part of a pedestrian walkway and bicycle path and an access easement crossing St. Alphonsus. The trial court rejected the district's claim that the diocese had impliedly dedicated the Catholic section to the public. It found no grounds for restitution to the district, instead awarding the part of the district's endowment fund associated with St. Alphonsus to the diocese. In May 2005, judgment quieting title in the diocese was issued accordingly.

II. OWNERSHIP OF CEMETERY

A. Factual Finding

The district challenges the diocese's ownership of the cemetery property in various ways. First, it contends that the trial court erred when it found that the public cemetery district was created for the purpose of maintaining the diocese's private cemetery property. The trial court ruled that since 1924, the district knew that it was expending tax money for the benefit of privately owned cemeteries including St. Alphonsus.

On appeal, it is unclear to us whether the district challenges the trial court's ruling as an erroneous factual finding or an incorrect legal conclusion. It appears to assert that the issues in this appeal are almost exclusively legal ones for our independent review. It also seems to argue that the trial court's ruling was erroneous as a matter of law, suggesting that this raises a factual question. Regardless of how the district would characterize the trial court's ruling that it knew since 1924 that it was spending tax money for a private benefit, we are satisfied that the issue is a factual one. As the focus of this inquiry is about human affairs, we find that the question is a factual one to which the substantial evidence rule applies. (See, e.g., Crocker National Bank v. City and County of San Francisco (1989) 49 Cal.3d 881, 888 (Crocker); Harustak v. Wilkins (2000) 84 Cal.App.4th 208, 212 (Harustak).)

When we review factual findings on appeal, we view the evidence presented in the trial court in the light most favorable to that court's judgment. We will not reweigh the evidence, but indulge all intendments and reasonable inferences favoring the trial court's findings of fact. We will not disturb those findings if substantial evidence in the record supports them. (Berniker v. Berniker (1947) 30 Cal.2d 439, 444; see In re Marriage of Arceneaux (1990) 51 Cal.3d 1130, 1133; McCarthy v. Tally (1956) 46 Cal.2d 577, 581.) Instead, we look to see if any substantial evidence--contradicted or uncontradicted--will uphold the disputed findings of fact. (Berniker v. Berniker, supra, 30 Cal.2d at p. 444; Boeken v. Philip Morris, Inc. (2005) 127 Cal.App.4th 1640, 1658, cert. den. ___ U.S. ___ [126 S.Ct. 1567].) The whole record on appeal must be evaluated to determine whether substantial evidence supports the trial court's findings. (Kuhn v. Department of General Services (1994) 22 Cal.App.4th 1627, 1633.)

The district argues that the trial court's factual finding was erroneous as a matter of law, because it would have been illegal for a public cemetery district to expend public money for a private benefit. (See Cal. Const., art. XVI, §§ 5-6.) However illegal it was for the district to be created to maintain private cemeteries--some of them, operated by religious institutions--the evidence in the record on appeal supports the trial court's conclusion that public funds were, in fact, spent to maintain the Catholic section. There was evidence that the district was created for this purpose--to maintain all the cemeteries, including the Catholic section. A member of the parish was on the district board for many years between 1962 and 1984. The evidence in the record on appeal supports the finding that the district actually maintained the Catholic section using public funds and a service fee it received for opening and closing all graves within that section. This practice continued until November 2000. The district's counsel herself told the trial court that â€