Robinson v. Claggett

• Decision Date: 07 March 1899
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court
• Parties: ROBINSON v. CLAGGETT et al.

50 S.W. 280

149 Mo. 153

ROBINSON v. CLAGGETT et al.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 1.

March 7, 1899.

EJECTMENT — EVIDENCE OF TITLE — ADVERSE POSSESSION.

1. A sheriff's deed is insufficient on which to base an action of ejectment, where the land sought to be recovered is improperly described therein, though the sheriff may have undertaken to convey the land in controversy.

2. Evidence that one claimed to hold certain land by adverse possession for a period of some 15 years, where the land was not inclosed or improved in any way, except that during that time the claimant cut five or six trees off the land, is insufficient to establish adverse possession.

Appeal from circuit court, Lincoln county; E. M. Hughes, Judge.

Action by R. L. Robinson against W. H. Claggett and others. Judgment for plaintiff. Defendants appeal. Reversed.

Norton, Avery & Young, for appellants. John H. Murphy and Elijah Robinson, for respondent.

ROBINSON, J.

This is an action of ejectment for the possession of 26¼ acres of land located in the N. W. ¼ of section 18, township 49, of range 1 W., in Lincoln county, in which judgment was rendered for plaintiff in the circuit court, and the case brought to this court on defendants' appeal. It will be unnecessary to notice the numerous objections that were made by defendants to the deeds offered in evidence by plaintiff in support of his claim of title, many of which objections, however, were well made, and upon what theory they were overruled we must confess ourselves at a loss to understand; but as the judgment for plaintiff, upon his own showing, was itself an error, the errors committed along the progress of that showing are of no concern now.

If it be conceded, in the first instance, that the land in suit was covered by a patent issued by the United States government to one John Hunter in 1824, read in evidence by the plaintiff, — a very doubtful proposition, — Hunter's title thereto has never reached, through mesne conveyances, Samuel Howell, through whom plaintiff claims title, as disclosed by his reply to the separate answer of defendants Hart and Palmer. In 1824 Hunter conveyed the land in suit, by warranty deed, to one Zaddock Woods; and there the record title of this land still remains, so far as is disclosed by the record in this case. Plaintiff next read in evidence a deed conveying this land from Francis Parker and wife to Samuel Howell, dated April 24, 1857. Then a deed from George Collins and wife to Parker, conveying same lands, and dated April 3, 1851. Then a deed from George Collins to David Baily, conveying same lands, dated May 10, 1837. Then a deed from Nathaniel Simonds and wife and David Baily to George Collins, dated April 4, 1844. Next, plaintiff offered a deed from Zaddock Woods, by the sheriff of Lincoln county, to George Collins, conveying 26¼ acres of land in the N. E. ¼ of section 18, township 49, of range 1 W., dated April 6, 1824. To this deed defendants objected for the reason that it did not describe the land in controversy, and formed no link in the chain of plaintiff's title. This objection was by the trial court overruled, and the deed was then read in evidence. Why it was offered in evidence, and why permitted to be read, no explanation is to be found in the record. But in plaintiff's statement of the case, found in his brief filed herein, he says: "The sheriff undertook to convey the land in controversy to the purchaser, one George Collins, by deed dated April 6, 1824; but a mistake was made in the description, so that technically the title of Woods to the land was not transferred to Collins by said deed. However, it seems that the mistake was not then discovered, and it was treated as though Collins acquired the title; and on April 3, 1851, said Collins conveyed said tract to Francis Parker, and on April 24, 1857, said Parker conveyed same to Samuel Howell." And said Howell, for...