Carnevale v. Dupee
| Citation | 783 A.2d 404 |
| Decision Date | 02 November 2001 |
| Docket Number | No. 99-499-Appeal.,99-499-Appeal. |
| Parties | Peter A. CARNEVALE et al. v. Joan L. DUPEE. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Rhode Island |
Present WILLIAMS, C.J., LEDERBERG, BOURCIER, FLANDERS, and GOLDBERG, JJ.
S. Paul Ryan, James P. Marusak, Providence, for Plaintiff.
Donato A. D'Andrea, Newport, for Defendant.
This case arose from a dispute among abutters over the ownership of land in Jamestown, Rhode Island. Joan L. Dupee (Dupee) has appealed from a Superior Court judgment in favor of Peter A. Carnevale and Rochelle T. Carnevale (the Carnevales) and Ronald J. Rodrigues (Rodrigues). Dupee's claims of title to the disputed parcel rested on her warranty deed, quitclaim deed, and adverse possession. Dupee also appealed the denial of her motion to vacate the judgment or for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence. We vacate the judgment and remand the case to the Superior Court for findings of fact on Dupee's adverse possession claim.
At issue is a strip of land approximately 46 feet wide and 675 feet long. The disputed strip and the surrounding parcels, now owned by the parties, were all owned in 1947 by Federal Building and Development Corporation (Federal). In July 1948, Federal conveyed a portion of the property to Thomas and Mildred McGrath by warranty deed (McGrath deed). The McGrath deed described an approximately four-acre parcel, with dimensions of 600 feet on the east and 300 feet on the south,"more or less." In 1949, Federal filed a subdivision plan with the Town of Jamestown that showed the southern border of the McGrath property as approximately 326 feet.
On October 6, 1978, Richard McGrath, Thomas's son, conveyed the property to Dupee, delivering a warranty deed (Dupee warranty deed) and a quitclaim deed with an attached "tape survey" (Butler Tape Survey). The Dupee warranty deed contained the same property dimensions as did the McGrath deed and described the property conveyed as the same "premises" that had been conveyed to the McGraths by Federal in 1948. The quitclaim deed purported to grant Dupee property delineated as lot No. 609 on a Jamestown plat map. The Butler Tape Survey attached to the quitclaim deed indicated that the property conveyed had total dimensions of 847 feet by 346 feet, almost seven acres. Thus, the quitclaim deed appeared to add a strip of land, forty-six feet wide, to the western edge of the land delineated in the warranty deed (lot No. 609).
The property that the Carnevales and Rodrigues eventually purchased was conveyed by Federal to West Passage Development Corporation in 1977. In 1983, West Passage conveyed the property to Jamestown Estates, Inc. (Jamestown Estates), which surveyed and re-subdivided the land in 1987. On July 1, 1987, Jamestown Estates filed a subdivision plan (Ryan Survey or survey) with the Jamestown Planning Board, and on August 18, 1987, the Town of Jamestown sent a letter by certified mail to Dupee, an abutter, notifying her that the Jamestown Planning Board would hold hearings on the proposed subdivision and that site plans were available for viewing at the Jamestown Planning Office. The Ryan Survey was recorded in the Land Evidence Records on May 6, 1988.
In December 1990, the Carnevales purchased lot No. 2, assessor's plat No. 8, lot No. 662 (Carnevale lot) from Jamestown Estates at auction by quitclaim deed. At the same auction, Rodrigues purchased lot No. 3, assessor's plat No. 8, lot No. 663 (Rodrigues lot), also by quitclaim deed. TheRyan Survey shows the Carnevale lot mostly to the south of Dupee's property, with a twenty-foot-wide strip of land extending north to the waterfront through the disputed western portion of Dupee's land. The Rodrigues lot lies to the west of Dupee's land, overlapping with the disputed strip by about twenty-six feet at Dupee's southern boundary and about thirty feet at the northern boundary. Thus, beginning at the eastern edge of lot No. 609 and moving westward, the first 300 feet of land belong undisputedly to Dupee, the next 20 feet are claimed by the Carnevales and Dupee, and the following 26 to 30 feet are claimed by Rodrigues and Dupee.
At trial, evidence of human occupation and improvements on the contested land was undisputed. A building, known as the pump house, stood on the disputed strip, and to the north of the pump house, concrete "ponds" were built into the ground. A fence ran along Dupee's southern boundary and the southern boundary of the disputed strip, continuing north along the western boundary of the disputed strip as far as the ponds, thereby enclosing the pump house onto the portion of land cleared and mowed by Dupee. In addition, Dupee alleged that an iron "pipe" or "post" five feet five inches high at the southwest corner of the disputed strip was her southwestern property marker.
The undisputed testimony of Frances Shepardson, Thomas McGrath's sister, established the existence of the pump house at its current location since 1948. According to Shepardson, the McGraths used the pump house and kept fish in the concrete ponds. Shepardson testified that her brother described his parcel to her as about five and a half acres and that the McGraths "assumed [the pump house] was theirs." Shepardson also remembered seeing the metal post, now claimed by Dupee as the southwest corner property marker, and stated, "It was all bramble" around the post. Shepardson did not remember a fence.
Dupee testified that she first viewed lot No. 609 in September 1978, accompanied by her real estate agent, Claudia Clarke, and her cousin, Robin Sue Farrell (Farrell). At that time, according to Dupee, she observed the fences along the south and west sides of the property. She testified that she was also shown the pump house and ponds, which she understood to be located on the land for sale. At trial, both Dupee and Farrell testified that these structures are in the same position now as they were when Dupee bought the property.
Dupee testified that in 1978 the land was cleared several feet past the pump house to the west and down to the southern fence. To the south and west of the property, on the other side of the fence, the land was uncleared and full of "bull briars." The testimony of Dupee, Farrell, and Dupee's nephew, Bobby Morris, established that, since 1978, Dupee has kept the land cleared to the same extent as it was when she first bought it, mowing the lawn frequently and replacing the fence in its original position.
Dupee testified that she kept animals (sheep, goats, ducks, geese, chickens and pigs) on the southwest side of the property, including on some of the disputed strip, from 1979 to 1991. Dupee also called the police to have trespassers removed from the wetlands north of the duck ponds up to the water line. According to Dupee, since 1979 she had posted signs against trespassers at several locations: on her eastern boundary, by the ponds and the pump house and, more recently, facing the Carnevales' yard. In 1992, Dupee saw a surveyor on her property and told him, "Get off my land." Dupee also testified that the first time anyone "claimed to own part of [her] land" was when the Carnevales came to speak to her about her southern fence cutting across the disputed strip.
In 1992, Dupee recorded a Notice of Intent to Dispute the Carnevales' ownership of the contested property in the Land Evidence Records of the Town of Jamestown. The Carnevales filed acomplaint to quiet title and for declaratory and injunctive relief against Dupee in May 1995, and Rodrigues was allowed to intervene as a plaintiff in June 1998. After a bench trial in 1999 in the Superior Court, a decision was issued in favor of plaintiffs.
In her decision, the trial justice found that the conveyance from McGrath to Dupee was controlled by the specific dimensions in the Dupee warranty deed. She therefore determined that Dupee never held record title to the disputed property. With respect to Dupee's adverse possession claim, the trial justice found that there was no evidence that the McGraths asserted a claim of right to the disputed land, given that the boundary measurements in the McGrath deed clearly excluded the strip. Consequently, the trial justice found that the starting date for determining whether Dupee established a claim of adverse possession was October 1978, the date when Dupee purchased the property and began to occupy it.
In addition to extinguishing her adverse possession claim, the trial justice found that Dupee's failure to object to the subdivision barred her from claiming title pursuant to estoppel and laches, thereby adopting an argument advanced by the Carnevales.
Dupee prematurely filed notice of appeal in June 1999. Judgment was subsequently entered for plaintiffs on July 1, 1999. Dupee then moved to vacate the judgment or, alternatively, for a new trial based upon newly discovered evidence, namely, a purchase and sale agreement between the McGraths and Federal dated May 27, 1948, and a mortgage agreement between the McGraths and Aquidneck National Bank of Newport. Following the trial justice's denial of her motion, Dupee appealed the denial, and this Court consolidated the two appeals.
On appeal, Dupee raised five points of error: (1) the trial justice misconstrued the evidence...
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