Green v. Anglemire

• Decision Date: 25 October 1889
• Citation: 77 Mich. 168,43 N.W. 772
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: GREEN v. ANGLEMIRE.

43 N.W. 772

77 Mich. 168

GREEN v. ANGLEMIRE.

Supreme Court of Michigan

October 25, 1889

Error to circuit court, Washtenaw county; KINNE, Judge.

Action of trespass by Charles M. Green against Samuel Anglemire. Judgment for plaintiff. Defendant brings error.

SHERWOOD, C.J.

The plaintiff brings trespass for a wrongful entry upon his land. The plaintiff's declaration describes the land, and bounds it upon one side by what he claims to be a division fence. He claims the locus in quo is covered by his deed, but, if not, he insists he has acquired title thereto by adverse possession. The defendant, whose lands adjoin the plaintiff's on the side bounded by said fence, claims title to the strip in question, and contends the fence never stood upon the line between parties, but upon his lands, and was always so understood to be by the parties and their grantors. The issue was tried in the Washtenaw circuit, and the plaintiff recovered. The defendant brings error. Green's land lies west, and Anglemire's east, of the line between them. Proofs were offered on the trial, which was had before a jury, tending to support both positions taken by the plaintiff, viz., that he held by title and adverse possession, and both were controverted on the part of the defendant. Numerous objections and exceptions were taken to the rulings of the court in receiving or rejecting testimony, but we have discovered no error in these rulings by which the defendant's case was prejudiced, or needing discussion herein.

We see no objection to the depreciating manner in which counsel for plaintiff spoke in his argument to the jury of the manner in which surveys are frequently made, and the litigation and vexation caused thereby. These things have become matters of common knowledge, and the more generally known the less liable will parties be likely to be led astray, and jurors will be more apt to place the proper estimate upon this class of testimony. Especially does this become important as time is fast removing or obliterating the old monuments and physical evidences of original surveys, under which all the lands in the state have been taken up improved, and are now held by most owners.

Upon this subject two portions of the charge as given by the court were excepted to by connsel for the defendant. They are as follows: After having given the circumstances under which the defendant would be entitled to prevail, the learned circuit judge then said: "If, however, from the evidence in this case, you find that the parties to this contest and their respective grantors have treated and acquiesced in this fence as the true boundary line for a period of fifteen years prior to the 20th of May, 1888, then it becomes immaterial and unimportant where the actual line of the old original survey may have been. It would now be too late to disturb it, and the plaintiff would be entitled to recover." "The peace of the community requires that all attempts to disturb lines with which the parties concerned have long been satisfied should not be encouraged, for government surveys are not always accurate, and the evidence of such surveys may become indistinct or lost; and if, after a long series of years, old and well-established lines, which have been recognized as true boundaries, were set aside by new surveys necessarily the mischief arising from such a policy would be incalculable, and titles to property thrown into vast and endless confusion." We see no fault in these charges. They are peculiarly applicable to the facts in this case....