Taylor v. Blackwell
| Citation | 207 S.W. 738 |
| Parties | TAYLOR et al. v. BLACKWELL et al. |
| Decision Date | 23 November 1918 |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
C. C. Collins, of Elizabethton, for George D. Taylor and others.
Allen & Clark and J. N. Edens, all of Elizabethton, for W. P. Blackwell and others.
This is an ejectment suit brought by the complainants to recover certain lands mentioned and described in the bill, for a partition of said lands, and for an accounting for waste.
Complainants claim title to the lands involved under grant 27025 issued by the state of Tennessee to Alfred W. Taylor and C. M. Gourley on August 8, 1849, for 5,000 acres, situated in the Second and Third civil districts of Carter county, Tenn.
The defendant, J. L. Blackwell, claims title to said lands under two grants issued by the state of Tennessee, one to W. P. Blackwell and Z. C. Campbell on December 15, 1884, being No. 40990, and another issued to James Whitehead on November 20, 1882, being No. 40928. These two grants call for 200 acres each, and the lands embraced in them lie within the boundaries of the Taylor and Gourley grant.
It is conceded by the defendant Blackwell that, the grant under which he claims title being younger than that under which complainants claim, complainants have the superior title, unless he has perfected his title by adverse possession for more than 7 years next before the filing of the bill by complainants. This he claims he has done.
The record discloses that in January, 1891, one C. N. Wilcox and complainants, Wilcox claiming to have acquired by purchase the undivided one-half interest of C. M. Gourley in the lands embraced in the Taylor and Gourley grant, filed their bill in the chancery court of Carter county against W. P. Blackwell, the father of the defendant J. L. Blackwell, W. A. Waycaster, and J. B. Range, in which they alleged the title to the lands in dispute to be in them, basing their title upon the Taylor and Gourley grant; and further alleging that the defendants named in said bill were claiming title to said lands under the Blackwell and Campbell grant and the Whitehead grant, and had taken possession of said lands under said grants. The bill sought a recovery of said lands from the defendants, it being alleged that complainants were entitled to immediate possession of the same.
W. P. Blackwell answered this bill, denying complainants' title to said lands, averring title in himself and his vendees, and admitting that he and his vendees were in possession, and pleaded and relied on his claim of adverse possession of said lands for more than 7 years as perfecting his title.
The cause was finally heard by the chancellor, who rendered a decree in said cause, adjudging that complainants had title to the whole of said lands embraced in the Taylor and Gourley grant, and that the Whitehead grant and the Blackwell and Campbell grant were clouds upon their title, and that defendants had not perfected title by adverse possession of the lands embraced in said grants.
An appeal was prayed, granted, and perfected from this decree, by W. P. Blackwell, to the Court of Chancery Appeals sitting at Knoxville, and by that court the chancellor's decree was modified to the extent of holding that the complainant, C. N. Wilcox, was not entitled, as against the defendant, W. P. Blackwell, to recover more than three-sevenths of the one-half undivided interest of the Gourley interest in said lands, and the bill was dismissed as to the remaining four-sevenths interest, the decree of the Court of Chancery Appeals being rendered on October 20, 1896. An appeal was prosecuted from said decree to the Supreme Court, where said decree was affirmed on September 18, 1897.
The defendant, J. L. Blackwell, was not a party to the suit of C. N. Wilcox and complainants against W. P. Blackwell and others. It appears, however, that before the bill in said cause was filed, J. L. Blackwell acquired title to said lands by deeds duly executed, and which were of record in the register's office of Carter county. James P. Whitehead conveyed the lands embraced in what is known as the Whitehead grant to J. L. Blackwell on February 1, 1888, which was about 3 years before the bill of C. N. Wilcox and complainants was filed.
On December 23, 1890, which was a few days before the bill of Wilcox and complainants was filed, W. P. Blackwell, by deed conveyed to J. L. Blackwell the lands embraced in both the Whitehead grant and the Blackwell and Campbell grant under a single boundary. This deed was duly recorded on December 26, 1890. W. P. Blackwell, however, only owned an undivided one-half interest in the Blackwell and Campbell grant at the time of said conveyance. Z. C. Campbell, who owned the other undivided one-half interest in said grant, conveyed by deed to J. L. Blackwell said interest on January 4, 1893. Campbell was not made a party to the suit of Wilcox and complainants against W. P. Blackwell and others. J. L. Blackwell immediately went into possession of said lands under the deed executed to him by his father, W. P. Blackwell, and was in possession of them at the time the bill in the pending cause was filed.
The present bill was filed by complainants, who are the heirs at law of Alfred W. Taylor, deceased, against W. P. Blackwell, James L. Blackwell, and W. H. Nelson, the latter having acquired by purchase the interest formerly owned by C. N. Wilcox in the Taylor and Gourley grant, and various other defendants to whom J. L. Blackwell had conveyed portions of the lands embraced in the Whitehead and Blackwell and Campbell grants, claiming title under the Taylor and Gourley grant, which was in issue in the former suit of Wilcox and complainants against W. P. Blackwell and others, and seek to recover said lands of the defendant, J. L. Blackwell.
The defendants, W. P. Blackwell and James L. Blackwell, answered the bill. Both denied that complainants have any title to the lands embraced in the Whitehead grant and the Blackwell and Campbell grant; and the answer averred that the defendant, J. L. Blackwell, was the owner of said lands under the conveyances hereinbefore mentioned. The answer further averred that the defendant J. L. Blackwell had been in open, notorious, peaceable, and adverse possession of all of said lands since said conveyances, having a large portion of said lands cleared and inclosed by fence; had erected houses thereon, and had sold the timber therefrom, as well as a portion of the lands to various vendees. The defendant J. L. Blackwell expressly pleaded and relied upon said adverse possession for more than 7 years as perfecting his title to said land.
The complainants allege in their bill that the decree in the cause of Wilcox and complainants against W. P. Blackwell and others settled and fixed the interests of the parties in and to said lands, and that though the defendant J. L. Blackwell was not made a party to that suit, he is bound by said decree as fully as if he had been made a party, because he employed an attorney to defend said suit on behalf of his father, W. P Blackwell, and when the same had been decided against him by the chancellor, he procured the cause to be appealed to the Court of Chancery Appeals, and procured a bond to be made, which perfected said appeal to that court, and otherwise actively participated in the defense of said suit, and that he was estopped upon the further ground that he had violated the injunction granted in said cause.
The bill further alleged that said defendant could not rely on the statute of limitations to perfect his title, because, under the decree rendered in the cause of Wilcox and complainants against W. P. Blackwell and others, he was...
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