Delta Housing Development Corporation v. Johnson, No. 2008-CA-02127-COA (Miss. App. 4/6/2010)
| Decision Date | 06 April 2010 |
| Docket Number | No. 2008-CA-02127-COA.,2008-CA-02127-COA. |
| Parties | DELTA HOUSING DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION, APPELLANT, v. MABEL JOHNSON, APPELLEE. |
| Court | Mississippi Court of Appeals |
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE: DEREK D. HOPSON, MELISSA SELMAN MARTIN, DREW MCLEMORE MARTIN, DAVID NEIL McCARTY.
BEFORE MYERS, P.J., BARNES AND MAXWELL, JJ.
MYERS, P.J., FOR THE COURT:
¶ 1. This case comes before the Court from a judgment entered by the Chancery Court of Bolivar County granting Mabel Johnson's (Mabel)1 action for ejectment and directing Delta Housing Development Corporation (Delta) to remove all infrastructure that it placed on Mabel's property. Specifically, the order mandates the removal of a fire hydrant, manhole, and a sewage-lift station, as well as water and sewer lines, and the encroaching portions of a street. Feeling aggrieved, Delta appeals to this Court and argues the following: (1) the adoption of the plat of the Rox-C-Sneed subdivision by the City of Mound Bayou in 1947 is presumptively valid; (2) the action filed by Mabel is barred by res judicata; and (3) Mabel's action for a mandatory injunction is barred by laches and/or equitable estoppel. Finding no error, we were affirm the chancery court's judgment.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
¶ 2. In 1944, Mabel's father, Holt Johnson, purchased an eighty-acre tract of land in Mound Bayou, Mississippi.2 In 1947, the City of Mound Bayou adopted a plat for the Rox-C-Sneed subdivision, which was recorded in the land records in the office of the Bolivar County Chancery Clerk; this property lies adjacent to Mabel's east-property line. The Rox-C-Sneed subdivision plat, as the chancery court would later determine, contained an error in the description of the west-property line, which created a "pie shape" overlap onto Mabel's property, up to eighteen-feet wide.
¶ 3. In 1988, the "unplatted portion of Block 2" in the Rox-C-Sneed subdivision was sold for taxes by the Bolivar County Tax Collector and purchased by Herman Johnson.3 Following the redemption period, the chancery clerk executed a tax deed to Herman. In 1993, Herman executed a quit claim deed to his wife, Alfreta Johnson.4 In 1994, Herman and Alfreta filed a petition in the chancery court to confirm title and remove clouds on the property. A judgment confirming title was entered on February 2, 1995. Alfreta shortly thereafter conveyed 6.02 acres of the property by warranty deed to Delta.5 After receiving the warranty deed to the property, Clanton Beamon, Executive Director of Delta, submitted a preliminary plat to the Mayor and Board of Alderman of Mound Bayou for approval of a subdivision to be called the Sam Thompson Green Acres Subdivision. The plat eventually was adopted by the City of Mound Bayou in 2006.
¶ 4. Prior to the judgment confirming title in 1995, Delta had contracted with Hooker Engineering Services to conduct a survey of the property. According to the record, Beamon stated in his testimony that before Hooker conducted the survey, he had assumed that Mabel's property line was demarcated by a drainage ditch. Beamon said that upon inspection of the property following the survey, he was surprised to discover a survey-stake angled out into Mabel's field.
¶ 5. According to Mabel, she learned through Beamon sometime in early 1996 that Delta intended to develop the property adjacent to hers. Mabel told Beamon that she had no problem with the project as long as the construction did not interfere with her property.
¶ 6. In July 1996, Mabel received a letter from Delta's legal counsel informing her that, based on the survey conducted by Hooker, Delta's west property line extends to and across land claimed to be owned by her. The letter requested that Mabel provide Delta with any surveys or legal documents she might have reflecting otherwise.
¶ 7. Mabel sought legal counsel. She spoke to a number of attorneys, but for various reasons, she was unable to attain their assistance. Eventually, she hired Jeffrey Levingston. Levingston assisted Mabel for a short period in the fall of 1996 before he withdrew from the matter, due to an apparent conflict.
¶ 8. In October 1996, Delta's contractor, Jimmy Douglas, staked the areas where the utility structures in question were to be placed. Levingston sent correspondence to Delta advising the company that it was encroaching onto Mabel's property. Levingston informed Delta that a drainage ditch delineates Mabel's east-property line. Levingston disclosed that he was not sure what a survey would show in terms of record title, but he was confident Mabel at least had title by virtue of adverse possession; thus, he would not hesitate filing suit in order to preserve Mabel's rights. Levingston strongly suggested to Delta that any construction activities should be carried out east of Mabel's boundary line. Construction continued, and at some point in October 1996, Mabel had Beamon arrested for trespassing. On the advice of Levingston, Mabel dropped the charges.
¶ 9. Sometime in the first half of 1997, after Levingston withdrew from the case, Mabel hired her present attorney, Derek Hopson. In June of that year, she contracted with Allen & Hoshell, Ltd. to conduct a survey to establish her property's boundary lines. Meanwhile, Delta continued construction. Douglas filled in the ditch that supposedly marked Mabel's east-property line. He installed the sewage-lift station in December 1996; he finished the water and sewer lines in June 1997; and two-months later, he completed the roadbed. According to Mabel, a pecan tree located on the strip of land in question, and which was planted there by her late son many years ago, was removed during the process.
¶ 10. On August 19, 1997, Mabel filed a petition in the chancery court against Delta, Herman, and Alfreta, which requested a temporary injunction be issued restraining Delta from carrying on development and construction operations on her real property.6 The chancery court issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) that same day. According to the record, a proposed order was drafted by Hopson and approved by Delta's legal counsel, which would have extended the TRO. However, the order was never signed by the chancellor. On September 9, 1997, Mabel filed an amended petition for permanent injunction, restoration of land, order confirming title, and monetary damages.
¶ 11. That same day, on September 9, Delta filed its answer to the TRO petition filed by Mabel on August 19. Delta claimed that the exact boundaries of the property described in Mabel's petition were in dispute, and it pleaded the affirmative defenses of res judicata and laches. According to Delta, because the chancery court had entered a final decree in 1995, adjudicating its predecessor's title to the unplatted portion of the Rox-C-Sneed subivision, Mabel's action was barred under the doctrine of res judicata. Delta also claimed that Mabel was aware of the development project as early as 1994, and because she took no legal action to assert and/or secure her rights, her action was barred under the doctrine of laches. Delta filed a counterclaim against Mabel, alleging, inter alia, that as a result of the TRO, it suffered losses in excess of $50,000. Delta sought compensatory damages in the amount of $100,000. According to the record, Delta continued construction after the TRO expired.
¶ 12. On January 16, 1998, the chancery court issued an order appointing David Evans, an experienced and qualified land surveyor, as special master for the purpose of deciphering and interpreting the parties' respective and conflicting surveys. Evans was instructed to inspect the land in question. Evans found that the Allen & Hoshall survey correctly established Mabel's east-property line. According to Evans, the Rox-C-Sneed subdivision plat, which was filed in the office of land records for Bolivar County subsequent to the recordation of Holt's deed, contained an incorrect course run for its west-property line. When Hooker conducted its survey, it drew from this erroneous description, which resulted in a zero-to-eighteen-foot overlap onto Mabel's property.7
¶ 13. On February 25, 1998, the chancery court issued an order accepting the special master's findings. Delta did not contest these findings.
¶ 14. The matter was set for trial to begin on April 17, 1998. Mabel thereafter amended her complaint to include ownership by adverse possession of another strip of land some thirty to thirty-five-feet wide which runs parallel to her east boundary line as established by the Allen & Hoshall survey. The additional strip of land was inclusive of property on which two houses had recently been constructed and for which the United States held mortgages and deeds of trust. As the United States was a defendant, the case was removed to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi. In 2005, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants which was affirmed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.8 The United States was subsequently dismissed as a party, and the case was remanded to chancery court for trial of the remaining claims.
¶ 15. Upon trial of this cause, the chancery court entered a judgment granting Mabel's claim for ejectment and order confirming title. The chancery court directed Delta to remove all the above-mentioned infrastructure from her property.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
¶ 16. We defer to a chancery court's findings, unless its decision "is manifestly wrong and not supported by substantial credible evidence, or unless an erroneous legal standard was applied." Saliba v. Saliba, 753 So. 2d 1095, 1098 (¶11) (Miss. 2000). On questions of law, our standard of review is de novo. Harrison County v. City of Gulfport, 557 So. 2d 780, 784 (Miss. 1990).
DISCUSSION
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