Harkins v. Fuller, 7107
| Decision Date | 10 January 1995 |
| Docket Number | No. 7107,Docket No. HAN-91-339,7107 |
| Citation | 652 A.2d 90 |
| Parties | Celeste HARKINS v. Philip R. FULLER et al. DecisionLaw |
| Court | Maine Supreme Court |
Wayne B. Libhart, William B. Entwisle, Gross, Minsky, Mogul & Singal, Ellsworth, for plaintiff.
Philip R. Foster, Stephen D. Foster, Foster Law Offices, Ellsworth, for defendants.
Before WATHEN, C.J., and ROBERTS, GLASSMAN, CLIFFORD, RUDMAN, DANA, and LIPEZ, JJ.
Celeste Harkins appeals from a judgment entered in the Superior Court (Hancock County, Kravchuk, J.) in favor of Philip Fuller and Marion Pettegrow following a nonjury trial on Harkins's complaint pursuant to 14 M.R.S.A. § 5951-5963 (1980) seeking declaratory relief on her claimed adverse possession of certain property located on Shore Road in Southwest Harbor and damages pursuant to the common law and 14 M.R.S.A. § 7552 (Supp.1994) 1 for an alleged trespass by defendants. Because we agree with Harkins that the court erred in determining that Harkins had to prove the elements of adverse possession for all the land claimed in her complaint to prevail as to a portion of the land, we vacate the judgment.
In October 1986, Harkins filed the present complaint against Fuller and Pettegrow seeking a declaratory judgment establishing her ownership of the property to the east and south of her property by adverse possession and money damages on various property damage claims. At the trial, numerous exhibits were introduced in evidence, including photographs depicting the disputed property at various times, together with testimony of witnesses for Harkins. The defendants did not offer any testimony but rested at the conclusion of Harkins's case.
The evidence disclosed: On May 10, 1930, when Harkins was seven years old, her father, John Reynolds, purchased a parcel of land with a house situated thereon, located on Shore Road in Southwest Harbor. Harkins resided on the property most of the time between 1930 and 1946 and visited it frequently between 1946 and 1979. Reynolds described what he considered the boundaries of his land to his children and grandchildren and instructed them not to play beyond those limits. Reynolds's description of the boundaries exceeded the boundaries described in the deed.
After Reynolds's death in 1961, Harkins eventually became the owner of the property in 1979. Pettegrow, Fuller's predecessor-in-title, acquired the property to the east and south of Harkins in 1956. Until 1986, there was an embankment and bushes and trees on the eastern side of Harkins's house. Believing this to be the easterly boundary of the Reynolds property, Reynolds and his successors mowed the lawn between the house and this boundary. Harkins and her daughter, Margo Stanley, testified that they have treated this as the easterly boundary since 1930. Reynolds's children and grandchildren frequently played on the property up to where Reynolds told them the lines are located. In 1986, Fuller started building a parking lot and foundation for a building and removed the embankment and lawn to the east of Harkins's house. Following the trial, the court found that the uses Harkins and her predecessors made of the premises were not sufficient to put the true owner on notice that the entire premises claimed were openly and exclusively held by an adverse claimant during the period 1930 to 1950, the period that Harkins claimed the adverse possession to the parcel described in her complaint had ripened. The trial court found that Harkins had established that a strip of lawn exceeding the deed on the eastern side of her house had been continuously maintained by Harkins and her predecessors-in-title up to the time Fuller cut away the embankment and brought in gravel as fill. The court concluded, however, that unless Harkins proved all the elements of adverse possession for all the property claimed in the complaint, she could not prevail on her claim for a part of the disputed premises. Accordingly, a judgment was entered for the defendants,...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Brown v. Gobble
...(1989). [196 W.Va. 564] Parke, 135 Or.App. 283, 898 P.2d 804 (1995); Hollaway v. Hartley, 668 So.2d 23 (Ala.Civ.App.1995); Harkins v. Fuller, 652 A.2d 90 (Me.1995); Sierens v. Frankenreider, 259 Ill.App.3d 293, 198 Ill.Dec. 444, 632 N.E.2d 1055 (1994); Gorte v. Department of Transp., 202 Mi......
-
Dowley v. Morency
...have stated that a declaratory judgment action is a suitable form of action for determining rights in real property. See Harkins v. Fuller, 652 A.2d 90, 92 (Me.1995); Hodgdon v. Campbell, 411 A.2d 667, 669 5. The Dowleys argue that this finding was clearly erroneous because it reveals that ......
-
Grondin v. Hanscom
...the landowner on notice of the adverse possession, and much of the disputed area was “overgrown with bushes and weeds.” Harkins v. Fuller, 652 A.2d 90, 92 (Me.1995). [¶ 15] Since 1983, Hanscom openly and notoriously possessed the land on which her garage and driveway sit. As to the remainde......
-
Irving Pulp & Paper Ltd. v. Kelly
...claim of title, a title by adverse possession is limited to the part actually occupied unless it be part of a farm." Harkins v. Fuller, 652 A.2d 90, 92 (Me.1995) (quoting Banton v. Herrick, 101 Me. 134, 137, 63 A. 671 (1906)). Of course, whether specific possessory acts are sufficient to es......