Key v. Wise
| Citation | 341 So.2d 1326 |
| Decision Date | 02 February 1977 |
| Docket Number | No. 48965,48965 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Mississippi |
| Parties | Tom KEY, Jr., et al. v. Louis J. WISE et al. |
C. M. Murphy, Memphis, Tenn., for appellants.
Vardaman S. Dunn, Jackson, Walter R. Bridgforth, Yazoo City, for appellees.
Before PATTERSON, P.J., and SMITH and LEE, JJ.
SMITH, Justice, for the Court:
This is an appeal by Tom Key, Jr., and others, from a decree of the Chancery Court of Humphreys County canceling their claims to certain Humphreys County real estate as 'doubts, clouds or suspicions' upon the title of appellees, Louis J. Wise, and others, thereto.
The Keys, as descendants and heirs at law of Alf Key and Carrie Key, deceased intestate, claimed the property by inheritance from them. The Wises, appellees here, claimed that they had entered the land under color of title and had become and were the owners thereof by adverse possession for more than 31 years and that the claims of ownership by the Keys constituted clouds upon their title which they were entitled to have canceled or removed.
A great deal of evidence, oral and documentary, was submitted to the chancellor by both sides, resulting in a six volume record in this Court. From this record it appears that the case was well tried and it has been thoroughly briefed and argued here.
It is the contention of appellees that they entered the land under color of title prior to 1932, that since then they have been in the actual possession thereof for the entire period which has since elapsed, such possession having been open, visible, notorious, uninterrupted, continuous, peaceful, hostile, exclusive and adverse, claiming to be the owners thereof as against all the world, that by virtue of such possession for more than 31 years their title has matured and has been established and that all right, title and interest of appellants to the land, if any, is now barred and precluded.
Accepting as established, as we must, all that the evidence proved or reasonably tended to prove which supports the chancellor's decree, as well as all inferences favorable thereto which reasonably may be drawn from the evidence, we are unable to say that the chancellor, as trier of facts, was manifestly wrong in finding that title had matured in appellees by their adverse possession of the land for more than the statutory period of 31 years and that the claims of appellants had become barred. The evidence was sufficient to support the factual conclusion that the possession of the land by appellees, under color of title, fulfilled in essential particulars the criteria laid down by this Court in Quates v. Griffin, 239 So.2d 803 (Miss.1970), modifying Nichols v. Gaddis and McLaurin, 222 Miss. 207, 75 So.2d 625, 78 So.2d 471 (1954), a case in which substantially similar issues were involved.
Finally, the Keys contend that a Federal statute (28 U.S.C. § 2409a (Supp.1976)) extended the period...
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Stump v. Whibco
...F.Supp. 721, 727 (D.Alaska 1985) (citations omitted).] A similar conclusion was reached by the Mississippi Supreme Court in Key v. Wise, 341 So.2d 1326 (Miss.1977). Wise concerned a quiet title action by would-be adverse possessors. Id. at 1326. The United States had conveyed an easement fo......
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Key v. Wise
...on December 13, 1976. On February 2, 1977, the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the Chancery Court, Key v. Wise, 341 So.2d 1326 (Miss.1977). One of the assignments of error made by the Keys in their appeal to the Mississippi Supreme Court was that the Chancery Court was wi......
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Key v. Wise
...suit, did not controvert any interest claimed by the United States, the Quiet Title Act was irrelevant to the state court suit. Key v. Wise, 341 So.2d 1326 (1977). The District Court's abstention order directed the parties to return to federal court following final judgment in the state cou......