Nugent v. Lindsley

• Decision Date: 06 March 1922
• Citation: 116 A. 790
• Parties: NUGENT v. LINDSLEY et al.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

116 A. 790

NUGENT

v. LINDSLEY et al.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

March 6, 1922.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Appeal from Circuit Court, Essex County.

Action by James R. Nugent against Stewart Lindsley and others. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendants appeal. Affirmed.

John Francis Cahill and Herbert Boggs, both of Newark, for appellants.

James R. Nugent, of Newark, pro se.

BLACK, J. This is an action of ejectment. The land involved in the suit is a piece or tract of some six acres of salt meadow in the city of Newark. The plaintiff says his right to the possession accrued on August 17, 1918. The issues involved were tried at the Essex circuit, resulting in a verdict for the plaintiff. The appellant files six grounds of appeal; two, error in admitting evidence; three and four, error in refusing to nonsuit the plaintiff, or direct a verdict in favor of the defendant; five and six, error in the charge of the trial judge.

Our examination of the record leads us to the conclusion that the fundamental and meritorious question involved in this case is whether the plaintiff had shown a right of possession by himself or by some one from whom his title comes. That this must be proved is a settled and fundamental rule in New Jersey, in actions to recover the possession of land.

Troth v. Smith, 68 N. J. Law, 36, 52 Atl. 243; Licari v. Carr, 84 N. J. Law, 347, 86 Atl. 421; a deed to the plaintiff from a person not appearing to have had title or possession is insufficient Rollins v. Atlantic City R. R. Co., 70 N. J. Law, 664, 58 Atl. 344. There is evidence of acts of possession in the record. Calatro v. Chabut, 72 N. J. Law, 458, 63 Atl. 272; 9 R. C. L. p. 851, par. 21. The trial judge submitted this question clearly to the jury thus:

"Now, gentlemen, it will be for you to say whether or not these things that were done by these people, who are admittedly the predecessors in paper title of the plaintiff, Mr. Nugent, in this case, constituted acts of possession in this property. * * * On the other hand, if you decide that he had failed to show possession of the property by some one from whom he claims title, then your verdict must be for the defendant."

So the trial judge in the charge to the jury recognized a fundamental principle of law in this class of cases, that—

"It is a well-known principle of law that in a case of this kind the plaintiff must depend upon the strength of his own title, and that he cannot rely upon the weakness of that of his adversary." Meyers v. Conover, 65 N. J. Law, 187, 46 Atl. 709; 9 R. C. L. p. 838, par. 12.

We find no error in the charge of the trial judge. We also think this disposes of grounds 3 and 4, and renders it quite unnecessary to enter upon any extended discussion of the other two grounds of appeal, as they are without legal merit, but a few words as to each may not be amiss. Exhibit P14. The record in the Court of Chancery in a partition suit of Emeline W. Clegg, Complainant, and James Ward Feckner et al. Defendants, was admitted in evidence This was not error. Den v. Hamilton, 12 N. J. Law 109. In that case it was said, where a judgment of a court of law, or a decree of a court of chancery, forms a link in a chain of title, the fact of the existence of such a judgment, or decree, may be shown by the record, in controversies with third persons, as well as with parties. It is no more liable to objections than the deeds of conveyance, since the record as a whole imports verity, every part of it is...