Eggers v. Stansbury

• Decision Date: 11 December 1918
• Docket Number: 516.
• Citation: 97 S.E. 619,177 N.C. 85
• Parties: EGGERS v. STANSBURY.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

97 S.E. 619

177 N.C. 85

EGGERS v. STANSBURY.

No. 516.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

December 11, 1918

Appeal from Superior Court, Watauga County; Cline, Judge.

Action by J. C. Eggers against Ira Stansbury. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.

This is an action to recover about five acres of land, the controversy evidently having arisen on account of the draftsman of the plaintiff's deed having copied one line in an old deed 50 poles instead of 55 poles.

The matters in issue were, by consent, sent to a referee for trial, and were heard in the superior court upon exceptions to the report, and the court, among other things, found the following facts:

"(7) That the plaintiff and his father, Ransom Eggers, under whom he claims, have been in open, notorious, and continuous possession of the land embraced in the calls last above set forth and under Ransom Eggers' color of title deed for 40 years prior to the beginning of this action.

(8) That the proper location of the boundaries in the deed from Ransom Eggers to John C. Eggers, using again the court map, runs from A to B, C, D, E by the birch or mahogany stump to the ironwood at G, and then northward following the outside of the old fence to X, the poplar stump; thence northwest about 37 poles, where the line calls for 34 poles to the point 7, where the court finds the hickory to be on the ridge called for in both deeds; then following the dotted line south 45~ west 71 or 72 poles to a sugar tree; thence southeast across 80 poles, to a water oak, spoken of in the deeds as 'Spanish oak'; thence southeast to the beginning, at A."

F. A. Linney, of Boone, John H. Bingham, of Sugar Grove, and Edmund Jones, of Lenoir, for appellant.

E. F. Lovill, W. R. Lovill, and John E. Brown, all of Boone, for appellee.

ALLEN, J.

The findings of fact by the court are conclusive upon us, in the absence of an exception that there is no evidence to support them (Matthews v. Fry, 143 N.C. 384, 55 S.E. 787), and no such exception has been taken to the two findings set out, either one of which establishes the title of the plaintiff, and is sufficient to support the judgment, as finding 7 shows an adverse possession in the plaintiff and those under whom he claims for more than 40 years, and finding 8 establishes the boundaries of the plaintiff's deed according to his contention, which was the real question in controversy.

Affirmed.