Davis v. Thompson

• Decision Date: 28 February 1874
• Citation: 56 Mo. 39
• Parties: FRANCIS M. DAVIS Appellant, v. ARCHIBALD THOMPSON Respondent.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

56 Mo. 39

FRANCIS M. DAVIS Appellant,

v.ARCHIBALD THOMPSON Respondent.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

February Term, 1874.

Appeal from Livingston Circuit Court.

Dixon, McFerran & Warder, for Appellant.

The law presumes that a person in possession of land has acquired the title which the people or sovereign once held. (Tyl. Ej., 105, 569; 14 How., 295.)

Ray and Ray, for Respondent.

In actions of ejectment, the statute of limitations does not begin to run so as to confer title till the “fee” has passed from the General Government, by patent or grant. (Gibson vs. Chouteau, 50 Mo., 85; Ibid, 13 Wall., 93; Ibid, 39 Mo., 536; Cabanne vs. Lindell, 12 Mo., 184.)

The statute cannot bar the United States General Government.

WAGNER, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

The plaintiff brought his action in ejectment in the Circuit Court, to recover the possession of a tract of land lying in Livingston County. The petition was in the ordinary form, and the answer contained a simple denial of its allegations. The trial was before the court without the intervention of a jury, and the plaintiff introduced evidence showing that one A. C. Martin conveyed the premises in question to the plaintiff in the year 1860, by a deed, and that said Martin had occupied and possessed the real estate under a claim of title, derived by deed,for about ten years before the sale and conveyance to plaintiff; and that one Wm. Martin who granted and sold the land to A. C. Martin, the plaintiff's grantor, had been in possession of the land at the time he made said sale and conveyance for more than twenty years, thus showing a continuous possession under a claim of title in the plaintiff's grantors of more than thirty years. Upon this evidence, the defendants by way of demurrer to the testimony, moved the court to declare the law to be, that the plaintiff had shown no right to the possession of the premises in controversy, because it did not appear that the title to the same had ever passed out of the United States; and that in the absence of such proof, the title was presumed to remain in the government. This motion, against the objection of the plaintiff, was sustained; whereupon, the plaintiff took a non-suit, and after an ineffectual effort to set the same aside, has brought the case here by appeal.

The only question in this case is, whether after the plaintiff had shown a good title by possession, it was necessary before he could recover, to go further and show that a patent had emanated from the government to his grantor or those under whom he claimed. It does not appear how the defendant obtained possession of the premises, or that he has any meritorious claim to them. He did not set out any title in his defense, nor did he give any evidence. The general doctrine is, that possession for the period of the statute of limitations, accompanied by a claim of title, will constitute such a title as to enable the party to maintain ejectment. In Crockett vs. Morrison, (11 Mo., 1) this court said: “As the action for ejectment is a possessory action, where no...