Vandall v. St. Martin

• Decision Date: 09 December 1889
• Citation: 44 N.W. 525,42 Minn. 163
• Parties: VANDALL v ST. MARTIN ET AL.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

42 Minn. 163

44 N.W. 525

VANDALLvST. MARTIN ET AL.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Dec. 9, 1889.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

1. A mistake in a deed, whereby a portion of the premises intended to be conveyed have been omitted in the description, does not prevent the grantee from acquiring a title by prescription to the land so intended to be conveyed.

2. To make an adverse possessory title by the possession of successive occupants, the possession must be connected and continuous; but such connection and continuity may be effected by any conveyance, agreement, or understanding that has for its object a transfer of the possession, and is accompanied by a transfer in fact.

Appeal from district court, Dakota county; CROSBY, Judge.

Goforth & Townley, for appellants.

Olivier & Farwell, for respondent.

COLLINS, J.

This is an action to determine adverse claims. The plaintiff alleged title to the land in question in fee-simple, and that he had occupied and possessed it as a homestead for more than 25 years. Defendants denied plaintiff's alleged title, but admitted his possession for the period of 16 years; thus conceding the fact and character of the possession, but not for the period of time claimed by the plaintiff. Much of the testimony received by the trial court was objected to by appellants, defendants, but we have discovered no prejudicial error, especially in view of the finding of fact upon plaintiff's claim of adverse possession for more than 20 years prior to the commencement of the action. The testimony clearly justified the court in finding that it was the intention of all parties to include in the deed of date January 25, 1859, executed and delivered by Paul Bibeau, at plaintiff's request, to Bibeau's daughter, then plaintiff's wife, all of the land then used and occupied by plaintiff as his farm, but held in secret trust by Bibeau. And this same intention existed when in the year 1880 the deeds were made which, as was supposed, placed the legal title to the farm in plaintiff. Under an arrangement for an exchange of lands made between plaintiff and Mardi, before purchasing from the general government, the small tract in question was to be deeded by the latter to plaintiff. On plaintiff's solicitation Mardi deeded it to Bibeau. The testimony was ample, in connection with the facts and circumstances, to warrant the conclusion that this tract was omitted solely by mistake from the Bibeau deed, and that the same mistake followed in the deeds made in 1880. It is evident that all parties supposed until about the year 1884 that the description in the deeds covered the land in controversy. Bibeau, although living in the neighorhood until his decease in 1865, asserted no claim to it as owner or otherwise, and, after his death, his heirs, the appellants, claimed no rights prior to the making of the final decree in probate court in the matter of his estate, May 27, 1887, so far as we can discover. The plaintiff has always paid the taxes. The land was fenced by him more than 25 years prior to the bringing of this action, and has been farmed annually for more than 30 years. In the year 1870 a dwelling-house was built thereon, into which plaintiff and his family moved from an older house upon another part of the farm. Plaintiff has occupied this dwelling-house ever since. From the time of the Bibeau deed in 1859 down to the deed to the daughter in 1880, the possession of Mrs. Vandall, plaintiff living with her and carrying on the farm, was exclusive, open, notorious, adverse, and continuous, under an honest claim of ownership. Since the deed to the daughter, and her deed to plaintiff, (all one transaction,) the possession of the plaintiff has been of the same character. Laboring under a belief that the tract in controversy had been included in the description and conveyed by the Bibeau deed,-as it should have been, undoubtedly,-Mrs. Vandall in good faith commenced to assert an exclusive ownership in the year 1859, and...