State v. Inman

• Decision Date: 22 February 1940
• Docket Number: 8 Div. 33.
• Citation: 239 Ala. 348,195 So. 448
• Parties: STATE v. INMAN.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

195 So. 448

239 Ala. 348

STATE v. INMAN.

8 Div. 33.

Supreme Court of Alabama

February 22, 1940

Rehearing Denied April 4, 1940.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Franklin County; Chas. P. Almon, Judge.

Suit in ejectment by the State of Alabama against E. W. Inman. From a judgment for defendant, plaintiff appeals.

Corrected and affirmed as corrected.

In state's action of ejectment, wherein defendant in possession of land sued for secured judgment, judgment against state for such land was irregularity, which will be corrected by Supreme Court on appeal.

The case was tried upon an agreed statement of facts, in substance as follows:

Defendant is in present possession of the lands in question, namely the northwest quarter of the southwest quarter of Section 12 Township 6, Range 11 West, Franklin County (formerly Colbert County), Alabama, containing forty acres more or less. According to the records in the Land Office in Washington, D C., and in the office of the Secretary of State of the State of Alabama, said lands were granted by the United States to the State of Alabama on August 11, 1848, as internal improvement lands. There appears on file in the office of the Secretary of State of Alabama a list of lands selected by the State of Alabama in pursuance of an Act of Congress of August 11, 1848, in which is listed the lands above described, which lands were donated to the State of Alabama under the provisions of an Act of Congress of September 4, 1841. Said Act of September 4, 1841, granted the lands in question to the State of Alabama after a proper selection thereof by the State authorities, which selection was duly made, and said Act of August 11, 1848, provided for the sale and disposition of the proceeds of said lands so selected. There has been no deed, patent or conveyance of any kind from the State of Alabama to anyone covering the lands above described. Defendant is now in possession of said lands and plaintiff has made demand upon defendant to relinquish said lands to the plaintiff, which demand was refused.

Defendant's chain of title to the property is as follows:

On July 4, 1864, John Weatherford conveyed said land to W. E. Penick by deed recorded. On October 22, 1896, said Penick conveyed said land to Henry Alsbrook by deed recorded. On October 24, 1905, said Alsbrook conveyed said land to C. W. Hale by deed recorded. On December 1, 1927, said Hale conveyed same to defendant Inman by deed recorded. The defendant and his predecessors in title have been in continuous, open, peaceable, exclusive and adverse possession of said land, holding the same under a claim of ownership in fee simple, for a period of more than twenty years prior to May 1, 1908, and since the date of the above named conveyance from Weatherford to Penick, and during said period the defendant or his predecessors have paid the taxes on said land.

The defendant claims clear title to the lands by virtue of the above named conveyances and said adverse possession and that plaintiff has no interest in same. In view of this, defendant did not relinquish possession of said lands to plaintiff when demand for said relinquishment was made.

"The question presented by this agreed statement of facts is whether or not adverse possession would run against the State of Alabama on internal improvement lands granted under the Acts of Congress heretofore referred to, thereby determining whether or not plaintiff is entitled to recover possession of the lands in question."

The judgment entry recites: "* * * The parties having submitted to the court in writing an agreed statement of facts, thereupon the court considers the same without a jury. It is the opinion of the court that the plaintiff is not entitled to recover the lands sued for from the defendant because of the facts that as shown by the agreed statement of facts, the defendant and his predecessors in title have been in actual adverse possession of the land sued for since the year 1864, and that from the year 1852 down to and including the year 1907 the State of Alabama was by law subject to the statutes of limitations for the recovery of real estate, and that said land, having been held adversely during said time for more than twenty years, the State is not entitled to recover but is barred by said statutes of limitations. It is therefore ordered, adjudged and decreed by the court that the defendant E. W. Inman, have judgment against the plaintiff, the State of Alabama, for the lands sued for, to-wit: * * *. It is further ordered, adjudged and decreed by the court that the defendant, E. W. Inman, have judgment against the plaintiff, the State of Alabama, for the cost of this suit."

Thos. S. Lawson, Atty. Gen., and Jas. L. Screws, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellant.

Key & Key, of Russellville, for appellee.

THOMAS Justice.

The action was ejectment. A preliminary question in this case is reported as State v. Inman, Ala.Sup., 191 So. 224.

The lands at issue were granted to the State of Alabama for internal improvement purposes by the Acts of Congress approved September 4, 1841 (5 Stat. at Large, 453), and August 11, 1848 (9 Stat. at Large, 281); Acts of Alabama, 1849-50, p. 82.

It is observed that this payment is required to be made to the State of Alabama. The Act of Congress of March 2, 1819, was to enable the people of Alabama Territory to form a Constitution and State Government and for the admission of such state into the Union on an equal footing with the original states. The sixth section of said Act (Stat. at Large, Vol. 3, p. 489 et seq.) provided that the following propositions were offered to the Convention of said Territory of Alabama when formed for their free acceptance or rejection and which, if accepted by the Convention, were declared to be obligatory upon the United States. First, the Convention was offered every sixteenth section in townships for the use of schools and five per cent of the net proceeds of land sold after September 1, 1819, was to be reserved for making public roads, canals, etc., and for improving the navigable rivers, and an entire township of public lands for the seminary of learning.

The effect of the statute of September 4, 1841, was that certain states (among which Alabama is named) be paid ten per cent of the net proceeds from the sale of public lands therein to be applied to internal improvements, such as roads, railways, bridges, canals and improvement of water courses and the draining of swamps. The 17th section of such Act of Congress (5 Stat. at Large, p. 457, § 17) is in the following words: "Sec. 17. And be it further enacted, That the two per cent. of the nett proceeds of the lands sold by the United States, in the State of Alabama, since the first day of September, eighteen hundred and nineteen, and reserved by the act entitled 'An act to enable the people of the Alabama Territory to form a constitution and State government, and for the admission of such State into the Union on an equal footing with the original States,' for the making of a road or roads leading to the said State, be, and the same is hereby, relinquished to the said State of Alabama, payable in two equal instalments, the first to be paid on the first day of May, eighteen hundred and forty-two, and the other on the first day of May, eighteen hundred and forty-three, so far as the same may then have accrued, and quarterly, as the same may thereafter accrue: Provided, That the Legislature of said State shall first pass an act, declaring their acceptance of said relinquishment, and also embracing a provision, to be unalterable without the consent of Congress, that the whole of said two per cent. fund shall be faithfully applied, under the direction of the Legislature of Alabama, to the connection, by some means of internal improvement, of the navigable waters of the bay of Mobile with the Tennessee river, and to the construction of a continuous line of internal improvements from a point on the Chattahoochie river, opposite West Point, in Georgia, across the State of Alabama, in a direction to Jackson in the State of Mississippi."

The effect of the Act of Congress of August 11, 1848, was to broaden the purposes of internal improvements provided for in the foregoing noted Acts of Congress to the following extent: that certain lands granted to the State of Alabama for internal improvements will be "applied [by said State] for the use of schools in such townships of said State as in which the sixteenth or school sections are comparatively valueless, and the legislature may locate said lands in any legal subdivisions, not less than forty acres, within the limits of said State." 9 Stat. at Large, p. 281.

The legislature of this State on February 13, 1850, passed an act to locate lands for valueless sixteenth sections, providing among other things, that

"Whereas, by act of Congress, approved August 11th, 1848, the State of Alabama is authorized to apply certain lands theretofore granted to the said state for internal improvements to the use of schools in the valueless sixteenth sections therein; and whereas it is important that provisions be made for the location and sale of said lands: therefore--

"Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Alabama in General Assembly convened, That any person who may wish to make a purchase of any of said lands subject to be located by this state, under the said act, shall, upon application etc. * * *." Acts of Alabama, 1849-50, p. 82.

The foregoing declares the status quo of the several land grants and the acceptance thereof by the State of Alabama through the Act of the Legislature of Alabama of 1849-50, p. 82. When the said land grants were made for internal improvements within the State of Alabama...