Amos v. Taylor, No. M2006-02170-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. App. 4/28/2008)
| Decision Date | 28 April 2008 |
| Docket Number | No. M2006-02170-COA-R3-CV.,M2006-02170-COA-R3-CV. |
| Parties | JOSEPH AMOS, JR., ET AL. v. CHRISTINA TAYLOR, ET AL. |
| Court | Tennessee Court of Appeals |
Appeal from the Chancery Court for Williamson County; No. 26760; Russ Heldman, Chancellor.
Judgment of the Chancery Court Vacated and Remanded.
Leroy Johnston Ellis, IV, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellants, Larry T. Hunter, Thomas Edward Winstead, Sr., and James Walter Winstead, Individually and as Representative Trustees.
Douglas Berry, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellees, Joseph Amos, Jr., Johnie Mae Pope, Charlie R. Amos, and Gladys Carter.
Frank G. Clement, Jr., J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which Patricia J. Cottrell, J., and E. Riley Anderson, Sp. J., joined.
The matters at issue arise out of an action filed by four co-tenants against numerous other co-tenants to quiet title to the real property pursuant to doctrine of title by prescription. The trial court granted the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment, thereby quieting title in the plaintiffs. The defendants appeal contending the trial court erred by granting the plaintiffs' motion due to the undisputed fact that some of the co-tenants were under the disability of minority during the period of prescription. The parties to this action acquired title to the property as heirs-at-law following three generations of intestacy. The plaintiffs' claim is based upon the exclusive possession and occupancy of the property by their father, Pete Amos, who had exclusive use, possession and occupancy of the property for a period of twenty-one years, 1958 through 1979. When Pete Amos died in 1979, his wife and children acquired his interest in the property by intestacy, thereby becoming tenants in common along with the various other co-tenants; however, they did not actively farm the property or continuously occupy the property thereafter, as Pete Amos had done for the previous twenty-one years. Thus, the prescriptive period at issue is from 1958 to 1979. The plaintiffs, who are children of Pete Amos, filed this action to quiet title to the property to the exclusion of the other co-tenants, based upon the prescriptive period of 1958 to 1979. The record reveals, and it is undisputed, that one or more of the co-tenants between 1958 and 1979 were under the disability of minority. An essential element of a claim based upon the doctrine of title by prescription requires affirmative proof that none of the co-tenants were under a disability during the prescriptive period of twenty years. We therefore vacate the trial court's order granting the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Joseph Amos, Jr., Johnnie Mae Pope, Charlie R. Amos, and Gladys Carter (hereinafter "Plaintiffs"), co-tenants of the property at issue, filed this action in 2000, to establish title to an eighteen-acre parcel of real property in Williamson County. The defendants included twenty-one co-tenants along with potentially unknown co-tenants. The plaintiffs' claim of prescriptive title was based in principal part upon the alleged exclusive possession and use of the property by the plaintiffs' father, Joseph "Pete" Amos, from 1958 to 1979.
Pete Amos acquired an undivided interest as a tenant in common along with numerous other relatives in 1958, when his aunt, Mary Lou Locklayer, a widow, died intestate without issue. Mrs. Locklayer, the sole owner of the property at issue at the time of her death in 1958, had five siblings, Johnnie Amos, Lucy Scruggs, Cora Winstead, George Calhoun, Jr., and Laura Scruggs; however, all of her siblings predeceased her. Because she died without a will and had no spouse or issue, title to the property descended by intestate succession to the issue of her five deceased siblings, one of whom was the plaintiffs' father, Pete Amos.1
When Mrs. Locklayer died, there was a very modest residence on the property, which at that time was situated in a rural farming community. The house did not have heat, electricity, or indoor plumbing at the time. In spite of the primitive conditions then existing, one of the new joint tenants, Pete Amos, chose to move onto the property with his wife, Alberta Amos, and four children. From 1958 until his death in 1979, Pete Amos worked the entire property as a modest farming operation, growing tobacco and raising livestock.2 During that period, Pete Amos also collected all of the income from his farming operation and did not share the profits with any co-tenants.
Throughout the twenty-one years Pete Amos occupied the property, he and his wife made numerous improvements to the residence on the property. Notably, they installed indoor plumbing and added a bedroom and bathroom. They also maintained and made all of the necessary repairs to the residence and the eighteen-acre farm. Moreover, during the twenty-one year period at issue, Pete Amos and his wife were the only ones to spend any money to maintain the property, and they never asked for, nor received, any financial assistance from another co-tenant. They also paid the property taxes throughout the period at issue without contribution from another co-tenant.
Pete Amos died intestate in 1979, and was survived by his wife, Alberta Amos, and his four children, the plaintiffs. As a result of his death, his interest in the property passed by intestacy to his wife and children as tenants in common.
Following her husband's death, Alberta Amos, along with some of the children, continued to reside in the house and occupy the property until shortly before her death in 1987. They, however, did not actively farm the property after 1987, as Pete Amos had done for the previous twenty-one years.
After the death of Alberta Amos in 1987, Jan Hammer, a daughter of one of the plaintiffs, resided there until 1993. Although no one has resided in the residence since 1993, the plaintiffs, Joseph Amos, Jr., Johnnie Mae Pope, Charlie R. Amos, and Gladys Carter, have "rented out" the tobacco base on the property, retained all of the income, maintained the house and some of the property, and paid the property taxes. Furthermore, none of the defendant co-tenants or their predecessors in interest have provided any financial assistance to the plaintiffs or their predecessors in interest. The plaintiffs, however, have not conducted any significant agricultural operations on the property since Pete Amos's death in 1979.
In January 2000, the plaintiffs filed this action against the numerous co-tenants — all of whom are heirs of the plaintiffs' great-aunt, Mary Lou Locklayer — claiming title to the property by prescription during the time their father worked the property. The defendants include twenty-one known co-tenants of the property and other unknown co-tenants whom the plaintiffs believe may have an interest in the property.3 In the Complaint, the plaintiffs claim their late father, Pete Amos, exercised uninterrupted possession, dominion, and control over the real property from December 1958 until his death in August 1979. They assert that their father claimed the property as his own and collected all the rents and profits without accounting to or claim by his co-tenants, and that he paid all taxes and indebtedness against the property. They also claim that he made substantial improvements to the property at his own expense without the contribution of the other co-tenants. Based upon these facts, which they assert are undisputed, the plaintiffs assert that they, along with their half brother, Herbert Hunter, who is not a plaintiff, are the only owners of the property.4
Answers were filed by several of the defendants, and some of them filed counterclaims seeking partition of the property or sale by partition. A few of the defendants relinquished any interest they might have in the property by executing quitclaim deeds in favor of the plaintiffs. As for the other defendants, those who did not file Answers or relinquish their interest in the property, the plaintiffs obtained default judgments against them.
The parties remaining in the litigation participated in discovery and subsequently agreed to set the case for trial. While the trial date was approaching, the plaintiffs filed a Motion for Summary Judgment with supporting affidavit and statement of facts and asked for the trial date to be continued. The court refused to continue the trial date but set the summary judgment hearing on the day of the trial with the intention of trying the case immediately afterwards should the summary judgment motion fail. On the hearing date, one of the defendants filed an amended response to the plaintiffs' statement of facts, in which the defendant asserted that two of the co-tenants, Christine Taylor and Annie Frances Toran, were minors, and thus under the disability of minority when Pete Amos allegedly exercised dominion and control over the property. Due to this development, the hearing on the Motion for Summary Judgment and the trial were continued indefinitely.
Thereafter, the parties agreed to reset the motion for hearing. After conducting a hearing on the Motion for Summary Judgment, the Chancellor took the matters at issue under advisement. On August 31, 2006, the Chancellor issued an Order granting summary judgment to the plaintiffs on their claim of title by prescription and dismissing the remaining defendants' claims for partition. This appeal soon followed.
Defendants Larry T. Hunter, Thomas Edward Winstead, and James Walter Winstead, acting individually and as representative trustees for the other defendants, perfected this appeal. They contend the Chancellor erred in: (1) granting summary judgment on the issue of title by prescription; (2) finding no genuine issue of material fact; (3) awarding summary judgment despite the minor status of some of the co-tenants to be divested of the property; (4)...
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