Long v. Wickett

• Citation: 50 Mass. App. Ct. 380,737 N.E.2d 885
• Decision Date: 10 April 2000
• Docket Number: P-1424
• Parties: (Mass.App.Ct. 2000) DAVID H. LONG & others <A HREF="#fr1-1" name="fn1-1">1 vs. HENRY L. WICKETT, SR., & others. <A HREF="#fr1-2" name="fn1-2">2 98- Suffolk County Argued:
• Court: Appeals Court of Massachusetts

737 N.E.2d 885 (Mass.App.Ct. 2000)

DAVID H. LONG & others¹ vs. HENRY L. WICKETT, SR., & others.²

98-P-1424.

Massachusetts Court Of Appeals

Suffolk County

Argued: April 10, 2000

Decided: November 2, 2000

Rules of Civil Procedure. Practice, Civil, Judgment, Entry of judgment. Adverse Possession and Prescription. Real Property, Adverse possession.

Civil actions commenced in the Land Court Department on June 30, 1994, and October 13, 1994, respectively.

After consolidation, the cases were heard by Karyn F. Scheier, J., on motions for summary judgment, and entry of a separate and final judgment was ordered by her.

John G. Dugan for Arthur Rice & another.

David L. Arons for the defendants.

Perretta, Laurence, & Duffly, JJ.

LAURENCE, J.

Background facts. Upon acquiring apparent title to a ten-acre vacant parcel of land in Medway (locus) in 1987, a developer (not involved in the instant appeal) constructed a sixteen-home subdivision on the locus. Between 1987 and 1990, the developer sold the homes to the original appellants herein. In August, 1993, all of those appellants found in their mailboxes a property owner's worst nightmare: a letter from the appellees' lawyer asserting that the locus had belonged to the appellees and not to the developer, so that the lots and houses thereon were located on land not owned by the present occupants.

A number of those homeowners immediately launched an action against the appellees in the Land Court in two counts, to quiet title and for declaratory relief. They alleged, as to both counts, that the appellees had no title to any portion of the locus, because the plaintiff homeowners enjoyed title by virtue of adverse possession, in that their predecessors in title had entered upon the locus under color of title and had thereafter openly, notoriously, continuously, and adversely possessed it for over twenty years. The appellees responded with wholesale denial of these allegations and a counterclaim seeking to establish their own title, to enjoin the homeowners' continuing trespass, to compel them to remove their houses and improvements, and to recover damages for the appellees' prolonged disseisin. Simultaneously, the appellees filed their own action in the Land Court against the remaining homeowners on the locus who were not involved in the earlier action, seeking the same relief that they demanded in their original counterclaim. The remaining homeowner defendants countered with an adverse possession counterclaim of their own that was identical to the claim asserted by their neighbors in the first action. The two actions were consolidated on the appellees' motion.

The summary judgment proceedings. Following depositions of several parties and title experts on both sides of the controversy and armed with an opinion of a title examiner-attorney, the consolidated homeowners moved for summary judgment in both actions. In their written and oral presentations to the judge, they refined their claim by asserting that the relevant deeds, affidavits, and deposition testimony established that their predecessors in title had actually occupied "a substantial [but undefined] portion" of the locus sufficiently adversely for over twenty years so as to give them title thereto; and that, by virtue of the doctrine of "adverse possession under color of title," they were entitled to add to that actual adverse possession any remaining areas of the locus described in their deeds, so that their title "extends to the entire subdivision."³ In making these arguments, the homeowners contended that the actual locations of the properties claimed by them and by the appellees and the precise area actually possessed adversely by their predecessors were irrelevant and did not need to be determined.

The appellees filed a cross motion for summary judgment in opposition to the homeowners' motion (though not as to the appellees' counterclaim in the initial action or their complaint). The appellees' contentions -- derived from their examination of the various claims of title and deed descriptions contained therein -- were that the homeowners' deed descriptions did not even include all of the land in the subdivision, so that the doctrine of color of title could not extend to such areas; and that, in any event, the homeowners' color of title claim arose only from a 1987 deed, so they could not satisfy the twenty-year statutory requirement for adverse possession. The appellees' arguments emphasized the impossibility, on the basis of the homeowners' deeds and purported expert opinion, of accurately ascertaining a description or the boundaries of the area to which they laid claim. Because the homeowners had failed to satisfy their burden of establishing good title to the entirety of their lots within the subdivision, the appellees demanded dismissal of the homeowners' complaint with prejudice.

The judge viewed the parties' summary judgment arguments as addressed to the homeowners' color of title "claim" only, stating that the facts material to that claim were not in dispute -- notwithstanding the parties' mutual acknowledgment that the actual location and boundaries of the disputed areas were uncertain and yet to be determined.⁴ The judge concluded that the homeowners could not prevail on their claim of adverse possession under color of title because, while no actual boundaries had been established, all of the deeds in the homeowners' chains of title consistently referred to the appellees' lot, wherever it existed on the ground, as the northerly abutter and never incorporated it (whether correctly or erroneously) into that claim of title. In denying the homeowners' motion for summary judgment on their color of title "claim" and granting partial summary judgment to the appellees on that "claim" "as a matter of law," the judge observed that all parties still had to establish the actual locations of and their title to their respective claimed properties at trial "by registry records, surveying materials and evidence of [the fact and extent of] actual adverse possession" by the homeowners' predecessors in title.

The rule 54(b) certification. Following the denial of their summary judgment motion, the homeowners filed a motion for entry of a separate judgment on their claim of adverse possession under color of title, pursuant to Mass.R.Civ.P. 54(b), 365 Mass. 821 (1974),⁵ and for a stay of all proceedings in the consolidated cases pending resolution of their intended immediate appeal of that issue. The judge allowed the rule 54(b) motion and entered a misnamed "Partial Judgment for Homeowners" on "the claim of adverse possession under color of title only" in the homeowners' original action. She refused to stay the remainder of the case (i.e., the counterclaims in that original action and all of the competing claims in the appellees' action). In her accompanying findings, the judge recognized that there remained "a number of complex issues for trial," including the actual locations on the ground of the lots claimed by the respective parties, the extent of adverse possession by the homeowners' predecessors in title, if any, and the resolution of the appellees' trespass claims and demand for injunctive relief compelling removal of the homeowners' houses and improvements. The judge stated that "[s]ome, but not all of these issues, may become moot depending upon the Appeals Court's disposition" of the color of title appeal that the homeowners sought to press by virtue of her 54(b) certification. The record does not reveal, however, what were the issues that might "become moot" by an Appeals Court decision.

The judge additionally concluded that "a stay is not appropriate, as many of the issues set forth [above] will require resolution regardless of the outcome of the Appeals Court's review of the [color of title] Order. Of necessity, preparation for the trial of the remaining title and survey issues [including further discovery] will take a great deal of time, effort and expense for all parties. In the meantime, the Homeowners are left with anxious uncertainty as to the title to their homes, and they are unable to sell or mortgage them. The entry of partial judgment on the Homeowners' color of title claim will permit the parties to prepare for the trial of the remaining issues in this case simultaneously with the review of the [color of title] Order, thereby expediting the ultimate resolution of this case and closure for all parties as quickly as possible." Again, the judge did not specify which issues might be resolved and eliminated from discovery or trial by an Appeals Court ruling on the intended appeal. Nonetheless, the judge felt able to "expressly find that there is no just reason for delay," as rule 54(b) requires.

The homeowners soon thereafter filed this appeal from the partial judgment entered by the judge, although (as previously noted at note 1, supra), by the time the matter was presented for argument before us, all of the homeowners but the Rices had dismissed their appeals with prejudice, indicating thereby less ongoing "anxious uncertainty" about their titles and the marketability of their homes than the judge had hypothesized.

Holding. The parties have devoted their appellate arguments to lengthy recitations of various chains of title and deed descriptions and to whether or not the judge erred in applying the doctrine of "adverse possession under color of title" to the facts of this case as presented in the summary judgment papers. We do not reach the merits of the appeal, however, because we deem the rule 54(b) certification to have been both legally and factually inappropriate.⁶

Discussion. A. Standards of review and policy considerations. As its language reveals (see note 5, supra), a valid rule 54(b) certification requires the confluence of four factors: (1) the action must involve multiple claims or multiple parties; (2) there must be a final adjudication as to at least one, but fewer...