Boundary Evidence and Rules of Construction: Hierarchy, Monuments, and Original versus Subsequent Surveys
The hierarchy
When a description's calls conflict, courts apply a settled order of precedence: natural monuments, then artificial monuments (including adjacent boundary lines of senior parcels), then courses and distances, then area or quantity. A called-for monument outranks an uncalled-for one. Senior rights and calls for adjoiners carry great weight because they tie the parcel to an earlier, fixed line.
Construction rules a candidate must recognize
Specific controls over general. Written words control over printed forms, so a typed exception beats boilerplate. Deeds are construed as a whole, in favor of the grantee in most jurisdictions, and against the grantor who selected the language. A description that cannot be applied to the ground is void; one merely ambiguous may be explained by extrinsic evidence of a latent ambiguity.
Original versus subsequent surveys
The original government survey is conclusive. If the deputy surveyor placed a corner in the wrong place, that wrong place is nonetheless the legal corner. A subsequent survey is a retracement: it finds, preserves, and perpetuates, and it does not correct. Mass-produced errors, fraudulent plats, or mathematical blunders do not authorize a later surveyor to relocate an accepted original corner.
Worked example
A deed reads "beginning at the large oak at the northwest corner of the Smith tract, thence N 10 degrees E 400 feet to an iron pin, thence 400 feet to the river." The oak is gone but a stone with the original bearing tree scars remains. Ground measurement puts the pin at 412 feet. The monument and the adjoiner call control; the 400-foot distance yields. A "more or less" qualification on distance strengthens that result.
The trap
Questions invite you to prefer precise modern measurement over rough original monuments, or to treat a metes-and-distances closure error as a boundary problem. It is not. Retrace the monuments, then report the discrepancy.