Denton v. Corr, 6 Div. 938
| Decision Date | 30 March 1950 |
| Docket Number | 6 Div. 938 |
| Parties | DENTON v. CORR. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
P. A. Nash, of Oneonta, for appellant.
R. G. Kelton, of Oneonta, and Marion F. Lusk, of Guntersville, for appellee.
Action of statutory ejectment by appellant, Aline Denton, against appellee, R. C. Corr, for an eight-foot strip of land in Block 2 of the original survey of the town of Oneonta, Alabama.
The question of merit is the right of the defendant to the affirmative charge. On the conclusion of the evidence for the plaintiff, the case was rested and the court gave the affirmative charge for the defendant and Mrs. Denton has appealed.
The issue arose as to the true division line between Lot 54, owned by the plaintiff on the east, and Lot 55 (and corner Lot 56), owned by the defendant on the west. (For clarity we treat the block as fronting due north on Second Avenue between First Street on the east and Second Street on the west.) The area in dispute is an eight-foot strip of land between these respective owners extending the length of the lots from their frontage on First Avenue back southwardly to an alley.
The plaintiff describes the eight-foot strip by metes and bounds, which locates the division line 100 feet east of the west boundary of the block, and defendant answers that the suit is over a disputed boundary between Lot 55 and Lot 54; that he disclaims any part of Lot 54 and suggests that the true dividing line separating the two lots, rather than being 100 feet east of the western line of said block, is 108 feet.
Thus is the issue made between the parties. If there was evidence to show or from which a reasonable inference might be drawn that the line between the two lot owners had been established as that contended for by the plaintiff, then the resolution of the issue was one for the jury and the court improperly withdrew the question from their decision.
The onset of the controversy was when some few years (less than ten) before the suit, the defendant acquired his lots and seemingly discovered that corner Lot 56 was fifty-eight feet in width rather than fifty feet, which result would make the plaintiff's lot only about forty-two feet in width, although it is platted as fifty feet in width, in consequence of which discovery he razed the long-established monuments on the 100-foot dividing line and placed his own monuments on the 108-foot line. This issue really was due to some confusion as to whether the original survey of the block contained a sixteen-foot alley running through its width and we apprehend from the pleadings and the character of the examination of the witnesses that the defendant's claim rests on the contention that there was no such alley, thereby leaving his and the other four corner lots in the block to contain fifty-eight feet. However, the evidence thus far shows that there is and has been for many years such a public alley; that it was platted as a part of the original survey of the block, and that the corner lots, like the remainder of the lots in the block, are only fifty feet, not fifty-eight feet, thus leaving the clear inference that the dividing line is as contended for by the plaintiff.
The burden, of course, was on the plaintiff to establish her line as the correct one and the appellee contends, and such seems to have been the view entertained by the trial court, that no beginning point for the plaintiff's line was ever shown or known and hence the line was not established and she thereby failed to lift the burden of proof resting on her. In this we cannot concur. Adverse possession of the properties to the line contended for by the plaintiff was sufficiently proven to avert the giving of the affirmative charge against her.
The law is well established that as between adjoining land owners where a question of boundary line is presented, when parties agree upon the location of a line fence or one of them proceeds to enclose his property and erects a fence intended as a line fence, and holds actual and exclusive possession to it as such, his possession is adverse and if continued for ten years...
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Salter v. Cobb
...ownership was to the fence, the possession is adverse and "does not originate in an admitted possibility of a mistake." Denton v. Corr, 253 Ala. 497, 45 So.2d 288, 290; Guy v. Lancaster, 250 Ala. 287, 34 So.2d 499; Milstead v. Devine, 254 Ala. 442, 48 So.2d 530. The evidence, therefore, was......
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...for ten years ripens into title. Lyons v. Taylor, 222 Ala. 269, 132 So. 171; Brantley v. Helton, 224 Ala. 93, 139 So. 283; Denton v. Corr, 253 Ala. 497, 45 So.2d 288. And this would be so without regard to the true location of the line. If the possessor and his predecessors in title conside......
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Killian v. Everett, 7 Div. 262
...there can be no adverse possession without an intention to claim title.'--Tanner v. Dobbins, 255 Ala. 671, 53 So.2d 549; Denton v. Corr, 253 Ala. 497, 45 So.2d 288; Guy v. Lancaster, 250 Ala. 287, 34 So.2d Part of the court's charge is as follows: 'If, on the other hand, Gentlemen of the Ju......
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