Pruhs v. Stanlake

• Decision Date: 06 February 1962
• Docket Number: No. 50492,50492
• Citation: 253 Iowa 642,113 N.W.2d 300
• Parties: Fred H. PRUHS and Ella Pruhs, Appellees, v. Elmer STANLAKE and Caroline Stanlake, Appellants.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 300

113 N.W.2d 300

253 Iowa 642

Fred H. PRUHS and Ella Pruhs, Appellees, v. Elmer STANLAKE and Caroline Stanlake, Appellants.

No. 50492.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Feb. 6, 1962.

Holleran, Holleran & Shaw, Clinton, for appellants.

William B. Norton, Lowden, X. C. Nady, Tipton, for appellees.

HAYS, Justice.

Proceedings under Chapter 650, Code of Iowa, I.C.A., for the establishment of a disputed boundary line between city lots owned by plaintiffs and defendants respectively, and for the removal of a fence erected by defendants as a boundary between them. There was a judgment for plaintiffs and defendants appeal.

Plaintiffs' petition alleges the boundary between the lots was established by acquiescence of the parties and their predecessors in ownership for more than ten years and also allege that defendants are estopped from disputing such boundary.

There is a sharp conflict in the testimony. Plaintiffs own the property described in the petition. It is an irregular lot with an 86 foot frontage on High Street in the town of Wheatland, Clinton County, Iowa. Prior to its purchase in 1958 from one Alfred Miller, the lot on the west extended North from High Street 68 feet, thence east 38 feet thence North 64 feet thence east 48 feet thence south to High Street thence West 86 feet to place of beginning. Defendants' lot with a 66 foot frontage on High Street adjoins it on the East and runs North 264 feet. To the North of plaintiffs' property was land owned by a Mr. Stankee. As a condition of the purchase by plaintiffs from Miller, Miller purchased a 16.5 foot strip of ground running north along the west boundary of defendants' lot, and connecting with the Miller lot on the Northeast corner, from Mr. Stankee, to provide plaintiffs with a driveway to their property from the North. Plaintiffs graded and rocked this driveway after they became owners thereof. The above facts are not in dispute.

There is substantial testimony to the effect that when Miller purchased this narrow strip of ground and after it was deeded by Miller to plaintiffs, Stankee, Stanlake, one of the defendants, and Mr. Pruhs, one of the plaintiffs, measured a 16.5 foot strip west from what Stanlake designated as his west line. That during such measurement, one end of the tape was held by Stanlake. It is not denied that Stanlake was present when the strip was measured. It is denied that he assisted therein. Shortly after this, Pruhs erected a garage on the North if his land where the driveway connected. At that time Mr. Stanlake told the contractor who was erecting it that 'You are far enough over' from his line. It was 2 to 2 1/2 feet West of the fence then existing. After the garage was built, Pruhs erected a new home to the south of the garage. The building of the home, while it does not stand upon any property claimed by Mr. Stanlake, seems to have triggered the trouble and Stanlake erected the fence which is in dispute. Mr. Pruhs stated that when he purchased the property he understood that a crack in the sidewalk and a row of stumps was his east boundary. The fence erected by Stanlake is 4 foot west of that line on the north end, where the driveway is, and 14 inches west on the south end.

Upon the question of acquiescence to the old fence line being the boundary line there is some conflict in the testimony. Darrell Zeller stated that he once owned the land now owned by Stankee, Pruhs and Stanlake, having bought it from his grandmother's estate in 1949. Prior thereto he lived across the street from it. That from the time he owned it there was a fence from the north end half way to the south. That the original fence was tangled and trees had grown up through it but two stumps are still in existence. That the fence was built at least 5 years before he owned it and was the established boundary as he knew it in 1948. That the present fence, to the naked eye, is about 3 feet further west on the north end and 1 foot on the south end, than was the old one. There was no fence on the south end. That when he sold the land to one Ericksen, who later sold to Miller, he measured it off starting with the old fence as the line. A Ruth Van Kirk stated she lived in the Pruhs property in 1936, 1937 and 1938. That the present fence is west...