Campau v. Lafferty

• Decision Date: 27 February 1883
• Citation: 50 Mich. 114,15 N.W. 40
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: CAMPAU v. LAFFERTY.

15 N.W. 40

50 Mich. 114

CAMPAU v. LAFFERTY.

Supreme Court of Michigan

February 27, 1883

Although the court may have committed error in excluding evidence when it appears that such evidence, if admitted, would not have justified the finding by the jury of a different verdict this error will not entitle the party to have the judgment reversed.

Fraud must be clearly proven, and is not to be lightly inferred and the party affected by it must complain promptly when the facts come to his knowledge.

Under section 7137 of the Compiled Laws adverse possession may become perfect, although in its origin the possessor has no shadow of title, if it continues for the requisite time after right of action accrues against the possessor. But in such cases it must appear clearly that the real owner has been given a cause of action, and if the possession commenced in subordination to his right, there should be evidence of distinct renunciation of it before he is put in position to lose anything by not bringing suit.

Error to Wayne.

F.A. Baker, for plaintiff.

E.H Rogers and Henry M. Cheever, for defendant and appellant.

COOLEY J.

Action of ejectment to recover possession of 40 acres of land, which the plaintiff in his declaration claims as owner in fee. On the trial the plaintiff endeavored to make out a paper title and claimed that he did so to the extent of seven undivided twenty-fourths. Three parts of these seven were claimed through a deed from Catherine Lafferty, mother of the plaintiff, made to Joseph and Barnabus Campau in 1845, and the other four parts through a partition deed of the estate of Joseph Campau, who was supposed to own them before the deed by Catherine Lafferty was made.

The defendant relied upon adverse possession, and gave evidence that he occupied the premises at the date of the deed by his mother, and had continued to occupied them ever since, cultivating them at discretion, paying rent to no one, and at one time making a lease of a part and collecting rent for it. He also pointed out various supposed defects in the paper title of the plaintiff.

Besides relying upon his paper title, the plaintiff sought to estop the defendant from disputing his right to possession by showing that when Catherine Lafferty deeded to Joseph and Barnabus Campau, she took back a life lease, and thereafter occupied as their tenant until her death in 1854. Also that afterwards, in 1865, the administrator of Joseph Campau made a lease of the premises for one year to the defendant for a nominal rent and the taxes, which the defendant accepted. The lease to Catherine Lafferty seems not to have been disputed, but defendant denied that he ever knowingly took a lease himself, and sought to show that the paper which was proved and which he admitted signing was represented to him at the time, to be a paper respecting some Saginaw lands. The evidence he offered to give on the subject was ruled out on the ground that it related to matters equally within the knowledge of the administrators of Joseph Campau--who were also his heirs--and was therefore not admissible as against the plaintiff who claimed through Joseph and his heirs. This objection, if good at all, was valid only to the extent that plaintiff's interest was derived from the Joseph Campau estate; and the ruling upon the objection made to the evidence was therefore too broad and was erroneous. Whether the objection was valid to any extent may well be questioned. Campau v. Lafferty, 43 Mich. 429, 431; [S.C. 5 N.W. 648.]

But the defendant in the course of the trial had an opportunity to state what he claimed were the facts, and though the court took his statement away from the jury, it appears in the record, and we are enabled to see whether there is anything in it for which we should remand the case. The substance of his statement is this: He did not think he was signing a lease when he signed the one in evidence; he asked for an explanation and got none--as he says at first, though afterwards he says, he was told the paper related to the Saginaw lands. Sixteen or seventeen years before the trial he ascertained the paper was a lease, but it does not appear that he took any action under a claim of having been defrauded. On the other hand the execution of the lease by defendant is testified to by two subscribing witnesses, and if their evidence is true there is no ground for charging fraud. From defendant's evidence it also appears that business was at the time being done in respect to the Saginaw lands, and there is ground for an inference that the one dollar mentioned as rent in the lease was at that time deducted by the lessors from moneys payable to defendant's wife. The question then is whether the vague evidence offered for the defendant to show that he did not understand he was making a lease, though for 16 or 17 years he has known it and made no...