Creech v. Jones
| Decision Date | 30 September 1858 |
| Parties | CLEVELAND CREECH et al. v. THOMAS JONES et al. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
FROM GRAINGER.
This is an action of ejectment from the circuit court of Grainger county. At the May Term, 1857, before Judge Patterson, verdict and judgment were for the plaintiffs. The defendants appealed in error.
J. B. Heiskell, for the plaintiffs in error; Shields, for the defendants in error.
This was an action of ejectment brought by Mary Henderson, in her life-time, against the present plaintiff in error. The plaintiff died pending the suit, and it was revived in the names of her heirs at law.
The parties each claim the land sued for in this action, under different grants, between which there was a conflict. The grant to Thomas Henderson, under which the plaintiff derived title, bears date the 19th of September, 1826. The defendants claimed under a prior grant to Peter Sampsel, bearing date the 29th August, 1824. The younger grant to Henderson covered, in part, the same land embraced in the grant to Sampsel. In 1826, Thomas Henderson, the younger grantee, entered upon and took actual possession, by clearing and fencing a field of several acres, of a part of the land covered by both grants; and he, and those claiming under him, have had an unbroken possession of this enclosure ever since, claiming, under the aforesaid grnat, adversely to all other persons. The elder grantee, Sampsel, and those deriving title under him, never had actual possession of any part of the land covered by both grants. The defendants proved, however, that perhaps about the year 1840, one Hicks, who claimed under Sampsel, had cut wood and burned several “coal-pits” on that part of the land; and that for a period of about thirty years past, those claiming under Sampsel, were also in the habit, occasionally, of cutting “fire-wood,” on that part of the land.
The plaintiffs recovered, and the case is brought to this court by an appeal in error.
The jury were instructed in accordance with the principle declared in the case of Waddle v. Stewart, 4 Sneed, 534, 542, that an exclusive adverse possession for the period of seven years, within the limits of the interference by the younger grantee, would vest him with an indefeasible title in fee simple, co-extensive with the boundaries of his grant, and operate as an extinguishment, pro tanto, of the elder and previous superior title.
But it is argued for the plaintiff in error, that an entry upon the land, covered by both grants, by the party having the elder and better title, within the period of seven years from the commencement of the adverse possession under the younger grant, will have the effect to neutralize such adverse possession, and arrest the running of the statute of limitations.
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Robinson v. Harris
...Section 8582. Such possession nullifies or extinguishes the title of the real owner and transfers it to the adverse possessor. Creech v. Jones, 37 Tenn. 631; Cooper v. Great Falls Cotton Mills Co., 94 Tenn. 588, 30 S.W. 353; Kittel v. Steger, 121 Tenn. 400, 117 S.W. A title thus acquired wi......
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Poag v. State
...for constituting adverse possession or prescription." Also see, Moffitt v. Meeks, (1946), 29 Tenn.App. 609, 199 S.W.2d 463; Creech v. Jones, 37 Tenn. 631 (1858). We hold that there was evidence upon which the jury could find actual possession by Mr. Wiss of the 50-acre tract considering the......
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Moffitt v. Meeks
...Jackson, Tenn. Ch.App., 62 S.W. 274, 280, citing Coal & Iron Co. v. Coppinger, 95 Tenn. 526, 530, 32 S.W. 465. In the old case of Creech v. Jones, 37 Tenn. 631, on 635, the Supreme Court said: 'In determining what is an actual possession, reference must, of course, be had to the nature and ......
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Moffitt v. Meeks
...Jackson, Tenn. Ch.App., 62 S.W. 274, 280, citing Coal & Iron Co. v. Coppinger, 95 Tenn. 526, 530, 32 S.W. 465. In the old case of Creech v. Jones, 37 Tenn. 631, on page 635, the Supreme Court "In determining what is an actual possession, reference must, of course, be had to the nature and s......