Steele v. Allen

• Decision Date: 18 March 1926
• Docket Number: 8 Div. 825
• Citation: 107 So. 812,214 Ala. 285
• Parties: STEELE v. ALLEN.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

107 So. 812

214 Ala. 285

STEELE v. ALLEN.

8 Div. 825

Supreme Court of Alabama

March 18, 1926

Appeal from Circuit Court, Jackson County; W.W. Haralson, Judge.

Action of ejectment by Wilson L. Allen against John B. Steele. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Proctor & Snodgrass, of Scottsboro, and Hill, Hill, Whiting, Thomas &amp Rives, of Montgomery, for appellant.

John B Tally, of Scottsboro, for appellee.

SAYRE J.

The parties are coterminous landowners; plaintiff on the east defendant on the west. The land in dispute is a strip running (approximately) north and south along the dividing line between two 40's on the east and two on the west. More accurately described as to dimension, the strip in controversy is 26 feet wide at the north end and 133 feet wide at the south end. In the amended complaint the description is by metes and bounds, natural objects and distances, defining the land in controversy as above stated. Plaintiff's muniment of title showed a conveyance of the N.E. 1/4 of the S.E. 1/4 and the S.E. 1/4 of the N.E. 1/4 of section 14. The deed under which defendant claimed showed a conveyance of S.W. 1/4 of N.E. 1/4 and N.W. 1/4 of S.E. 1/4 of the same section. Moreover, plaintiff undertook to prove and, with the court's approval, introduced evidence tending to show, title by adverse possession antedating the requirements of section 6069 of the Code of 1923 by more than ten years, and also evidence of adverse possession since the enactment of section 6069--this last because the suit involved a question of boundary between coterminous owners to which section 6069, as construed in Spragins v. Fitcheard, 91 So. 793, 206 Ala. 694, does not apply.

The only exceptions worthy of note related to the action of the court in admitting evidence of plaintiff's adverse possession. Of course, if the controversy between the parties had been determinable on a finding as to the proper construction and effect of the muniments of title alone, as in Oliver v. Oliver, 65 So. 373, 187 Ala. 340, and Livingston v. Nelson, 76 So. 449, 200 Ala. 507 cases to which appellant (defendant) refers, the sole proper function of evidence in the cause would have been the location of the government line between the parties; that is, the true location, according to the government survey, of the east line of section 14, by relation to which the dividing line between the parties was to be, or had been, located. Defenda...