Savage v Hildenbrandt, 99-00630

• Decision Date: 06 September 2001
• Docket Number: 99-00630
• Parties: JIMMY JOE SAVAGE, ET AL. v. DON HILDENBRANDTIN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF TENNESSEE AT NASHVILLE
• Court: Tennessee Court of Appeals

JIMMY JOE SAVAGE, ET AL. v DON HILDENBRANDT

No. M1999-00630-COA-R3-CV

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF TENNESSEE AT NASHVILLE

January 6, 2000 Session

Filed September 6, 2001

Appeal from the Chancery Court for Perry County, No. 3856-II

Russ Heldman, Chancellor

This appeal involves a dispute among neighbors arising out of a couple's decision to place a double-wide mobile home on their property. After one of their neighbors blocked the access road to their property to prevent them from setting up their mobile home, the couple who owned the mobile home filed suit in the Chancery Court for Perry County seeking injunctive relief and damages. In response, two of the neighboring property owners requested the trial court to establish the boundary lines, to enjoin the couple from encroaching on their property, and to award actual and punitive damages for the damage that the couple's encroachment had caused to their property. Following a bench trial that continued past midnight and a series of post-trial motions requesting various corrections in the judgment, the trial court eventually established the disputed boundary line and awarded the couple a $6,110.50 judgment against one of their neighbors to compensate them for the damages stemming from the delay in setting up their mobile home. The two neighboring property owners have appealed. They take issue with (1) the trial court's decision to hold court past midnight, (2) the manner in which the trial court considered and disposed of their post-judgment motions, (3) the trial court's decision regarding the location of the southern boundary line of the couple's property, and (4) the trial court's failure to reduce the $6,110.50 judgment by the amount of the damages the couple's encroachment had caused. We have concluded that the trial court did not commit reversible error during either the trial or the post-trial proceedings and that the trial court's decision to award the couple $6,110.50 is supported by the evidence. However, we have also concluded that the evidence preponderates against the trial court's decision regarding a portion of the couple's southern boundary line. Accordingly, we remand the case for the sole purpose of correcting the error regarding a portion of this boundary line.

Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Judgment of the Chancery Court Modified and Affirmed

WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which WILLIAM B. CAIN and PATRICIA J. COTTRELL, JJ., joined.

David H. King, Franklin, Tennessee (on appeal), for the appellant, Don Hildenbrandt and third-party plaintiff appellant, Lossie Ledbetter.

Michael E. Spitzer, Hohenwald, Tennessee, for the appellees, Jimmy Joe Savage and Frances Joy Savage.

OPINION

I.

R. T. Ledbetter and his wife owned a large tract of land adjoining State Route 100 near Linden in rural Perry County. A significant portion of this tract was wooded. In June 1933, they conveyed a 1.73-acre tract to Lillie Gladden who was their daughter's mother-in-law.¹ R. T. Ledbetter's woodlands bordered Ms. Gladden's tract to the east and the south. An old dirt road, variously referred to as the "Ridge Road" or the "Old Woods Road" also ran along the southern boundary of Ms. Gladden's property. R. T. Ledbetter used this road for access to his timber from State Route 100. Ms. Gladden eventually built her house on the southern portion of her property near the Ridge Road, and through the years, both she and R. T. Ledbetter used the Ridge Road to gain access to their property from State Route 100.²

In August 1945, after R. T. Ledbetter died, six of his seven children sold their interests in his real property to their sister, Norma Hildenbrandt and her husband, John Hildenbrandt. In October 1945, the Hildenbrandts sold a portion of the property to Sam Ledbetter, Ms. Hildenbrandt's brother. Accordingly, at the close of 1945, Ms. Gladden's property abutted the Hildenbrandts' property to the south, Sam Ledbetter's property to the east, and State Route 100 to the northwest. All the parties continued to use the Ridge Road to gain access to their property. They believed that the Ridge Road marked the boundary between Ms. Gladden's property and the Hildenbrandts' property and that the boundary between Ms. Gladden's property and Sam Ledbetter's property was an old fence that ran through the woods.

All the dealings between the parties remained amicable for over fifty years. In November 1986, Ms. Gladden conveyed her property to her grandson, Jimmie Joe Savage, and his wife, Francis Joy Savage.³ The Savages eventually decided to replace Ms. Gladden's old house with a double-wide mobile home. Accordingly, they demolished Ms. Gladden's old house and in the fall of 1997 began to prepare the site for their mobile home. Shortly after they started their site preparations, the Savages received notice from Don Hildenbrandt that their improvements were encroaching on his property.⁴ Mr. Hildenbrandt was not pleased with the Savages' decision to place a mobile home on their property⁵, and he eventually stopped the Savages from moving the mobile home onto their property by blocking the Ridge Road with metal fence posts.

Mr. Hildenbrandt's fence post barricade prompted the Savages to file suit against him in the Chancery Court for Perry County to remove the obstructions, to enjoin Mr. Hildenbrandt from placing other obstructions in the Ridge Road, and to recover the damages they had incurred because of the delay in moving into their mobile home. Mr. Hildenbrandt counterclaimed for a declaration of the location of their boundary lines, an injunction against the Savages encroaching on his property, and monetary damages. Eventually, Lossie Ledbetter, Sam Ledbetter's 88-year-old widow, filed an "intervening complaint" against the Savages likewise asserting that their encroachments had damaged her property and likewise seeking an injunction against further encroachment and monetary damages.⁶

The trial commenced around midday on October 5, 1998, and continued past midnight. Mr. Savage asserted that he and his wife owned all the property that had been conveyed to Ms. Gladden. He also insisted that the Ridge Road was on Mr. Hildenbrandt's property and that he had never claimed that he owned "any interest in the property on the 'ridge' side of the ridge road." He stated that if the trial court "gave the ridge road to me, I would . . . give it back." However, Mr. Savage and his other witnesses testified that Ms. Gladden and her associates had continuously used the Ridge Road to gain access to her property.

Mr. Savage also acknowledged that he had cleared brush and scrub trees along the Ridge Road in preparation of moving his mobile home onto his property but asserted that the brush and scrub trees were north of the Ridge Road and were on his property. With regard to the Savages' damage claim, Mr. Savage testified that he and his wife had sold their residence in anticipation of moving into their new mobile home and that because of the obstruction to the Ridge Road, they had been required to rent another residence for nine months and had also been required to rent storage units for their furniture. He also testified that he had been required to purchase materials to prevent damage to the two halves of the mobile home that had been sitting unassembled on his property. The total of these expenses was $6,110.50.

The Savages also presented the testimony of Thomas White, a registered surveyor. Mr. White testified that none of the descriptions in the parties' deeds closed and that there were misdirections in the calls in the 1945 deed from R. T. Ledbetter's heirs to John and Norma Hildenbrandt. Under questioning by the parties' lawyers and extensive examination by the trial court, Mr. White opined that the 1933 deed from R. T. Ledbetter to Ms. Gladden actually conveyed .28 acres of property south of the Ridge Road to Ms. Gladden and, therefore, that the Savages actually owned a portion of the Ridge Road, as well as the .28-acre tract south of the Ridge Road.⁷

Mr. Hildenbrandt and Ms. Ledbetter did not present a surveyor to contradict the conclusions of Mr. White. They argued instead that the parties' deeds were so flawed that they should play no role in determining the location of the Savages' eastern and southern boundary lines. They also presented a number of witnesses who testified that R. T. Ledbetter, R. T. Ledbetter's heirs, and Ms. Gladden had always understood, despite the suggestion in Ms. Gladden's 1933 deed from R. T. Ledbetter, that the southern boundary of Ms. Gladden's property was the Ridge Road and that the eastern boundary of her property was a fence in the woods. Ms. Ledbetter presented no evidence regarding her claim that the Savages' encroachment had damaged her property. With regard to Mr. Hildenbrandt's damage claim, Mr. Hildenbrandt and Robert Mathis testified that Mr. Savage had bulldozed a number of large trees along the Ridge Road that had been planted to prevent erosion on Mr. Hildenbrandt's property.

When the trial concluded at approximately 11:50 P.M., the trial court stated that it would proceed to rule from the bench despite the lateness of the hour. The court announced that it accepted Mr. White's conclusions that the southern boundary of the Savages' property, as reflected in R. T. Ledbetter's 1933 deed to Ms. Gladden, included the .28-acre tract south of the Ridge Road. Accordingly, the trial court reasoned that both the Savages and Mr. Hildenbrandt owned portions of the Ridge Road and that they both had the right to use the road to enter and leave their property.

With regard to the damage claims, the trial court concluded that Mr. Hildenbrandt and Mr. Mathis had wrongfully prevented the Savages from using the Ridge Road. However, the court declined to award damages to the Savages "based upon equitable principles arising out of the plaintiffs [Savages] cutting of trees that may have been on the third party ...