Stevens v. Martin

• Decision Date: 13 May 1902
• Citation: 68 S.W. 347,168 Mo. 407
• Parties: STEVENS et al. v. MARTIN et al.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

68 S.W. 347

168 Mo. 407

STEVENS et al. v. MARTIN et al.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

May 13, 1902.

ADVERSE POSSESSION — POSSESSION OF PART OF TRACT — CLAIM TO WHOLE — STATUTES — POSSESSION BY CO-TENANT.

1. Actual, adverse, notorious, and exclusive possession of land for 24 years under color of title, by a chain of conveyances from a patent from the United States, gives absolute title, though the title were originally invalid.

2. Under the express provisions of Rev. St. § 4266, providing that possession under color of title of a part of a tract of land in the name of the whole tract claimed, with the exercise of acts of ownership, shall be deemed a possession of the whole tract, possession of a part of a tract, claiming the whole, is a possession of the whole.

3. Where a tenant in common takes possession of a tract of land, in which he has an undivided interest, unless he manifests a contrary intention he is presumed to hold possession as well for his co-tenants as for himself.

Appeal from circuit court, Stoddard county; J. L. Fort, Judge.

Suit by Sophia E. Stevens and others against John R. Martin and others. From a judgment for defendants, plaintiffs appeal. Reversed.

C. L. Keaton, for appellants. Kitchens & Woody, for respondents.

SHERWOOD, J.

Ejectment for lot 86 in town of Bloomfield. Suit brought December, 1897. Answer, general denial. Plaintiffs showed title had emanated from the United States government by patent, which issued from the government in 1839, and plaintiffs connected themselves with that title by a regular chain of conveyances, which conveyed title, or which were, at least, color of title. They, or those under whom they claim, their tenants, etc, were in the actual, adverse, notorious, and exclusive possession of a part of the lot in the name of the whole, paying taxes on the whole lot in good faith, and otherwise exercising acts of ownership over it for some 24 years, to wit, from 1874 down to the spring of 1897. And Joseph V. Hobbs being the claimant and owner of an undivided interest in the lot, and in possession of a part of it in the name of the whole, his possession was the possession also of those who were jointly seised with him. Peck v. Lockridge, 97 Mo., loc. cit. 558-561, 11 S. W. 246; Hutson v. Hutson, 139 Mo., loc. cit. 237, 40 S. W. 886. No one, it seems, asserted any title to the premises until the spring of 1897, according to defendant Martin's own testimony. But meanwhile the title of plaintiffs had ripened into a perfect title, even if their title had been originally defective or invalid. Such possession for the time heretofore mentioned vested the title in plaintiffs as absolutely as if they had been the direct recipients of a patent from the United States. Cunningham v. Snow, 82 Mo. 592, and cases cited; Allen v....