Watts v. Blalock
| Decision Date | 20 April 1882 |
| Citation | 17 S.C. 157 |
| Parties | WATTS v. BLALOCK. |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
1. Plaintiff, by permission of a railroad company, erected a guano house near a depot, and on the right of way of the company, on lands of his wife then under mortgage. Under decree of foreclosure of this mortgage, plaintiff and his wife being parties thereto, defendant became the purchaser of the land, and afterwards took forcible possession of the guano house. Plaintiff brought action for damages and recovered a verdict. Held , that the judge committed no error in this case in charging the jury that defendant must show a grant from the State, or a chain of titles for twenty consecutive years.
2. Plaintiff is not estopped by reason of the action for foreclosure, to which he was a party, from now asserting his claim under the railroad company (which was not a party) to the guano house built on their right of way.
3. It is no error to refuse a charge which assumes the existence of facts at issue.
4. If defendant owned the fee in the land, and plaintiff had used the guano house only for the storage of guano shipped to him still it did not give to defendant the right to gain possession by committing a trespass.
Before HUDSON, J., Laurens, February, 1881.
Hon Thomas B. Fraser of the Third Circuit sat in the place of the chief justice, who had been of counsel in the case.
This was an action by James W. Watts against L. W. C. Blalock for five hundred dollars damages. The opinion states the pleadings and some of the facts of the case.
The testimony shows that this guano house was built by plaintiff in 1875 by permission of the Laurens Railroad Company. The house was eight feet from the track and its rear not over forty feet from the road-bed; it was enclosed by a fence except on the side towards the railroad track. Plaintiff testified that he built the house to be exclusively used for guano which he ordered and owned; that when given up by him it was to be the property of the railroad company; that he was agent of the railroad company at Martin's Depot, and also an agent for the sale of guano.
The judge thus reports his charge:
At the conclusion of the argument the court was asked by the plaintiff's counsel to charge as follows:
" That it is necessary for defendants to connect themselves with grant from state or twenty years' possession to prove title." I charged as follows: That he who defends a trespass to realty on the ground that he is the owner in fee, must show a perfect title, and that can be done only by tracing his title back to a grant from the state, or by showing such possession by citizens of the state as will presume a grant, and from such must derive his title.
The counsel for defendant made the following request to charge:
1. That railways take only an easement, or right of way, in lands through which they pass.
2. That railways take only such interest in the soil through which they pass as may be required for the purposes of construction, for meeting the wants of the public in connection with the railway, and that the interest so taken cannot be diverted to any other purpose.
3. That the guano house, not being used for the purposes and not being under the control of the Laurens Railroad, and the plaintiff having admitted that he is not the owner of the land lying on either side of said railroad and around said guano house, the plaintiff cannot recover.
The first and second were charged as correct; the third was refused.
In my charge to the jury I instructed them, among other things, that the defendant, Blalock, having justified the ousting of the plaintiff from the guano house, and his forcible possession and occupation thereof, by alleging in himself title to the Martin place, it devovled upon him to make good his plea of liberum tenementum . To do this he must either trace his title back to a grant from the state, or failing in that, he should show a presumptive grant, i.e. , he should show that for twenty years or more some one or more of the citizens of this state have occupied and used this land adversely to the state and the world. That this twenty years' adverse possession against her by her citizens in any order of continuous occupation, created the presumption of a grant; and that from some one of these successive occupants the defendant must derive title. The fact is, however, that I did not regard the question of defendant's title as the serious issue in the case, nor do I think it gave much concern to the jury. Admitting him to be owner of the fee, the real question was as to his right to seize the house.
The jury were also instructed that the company's right of way was an easement, the proper use of which the owner of the fee could not disturb. That the erection of the guano house on the right of way so near the company's depot and so near the track, under license from the company, to be used in relief of the depot, for storing guano, and to be turned over to the company so soon as the plaintiff ceased to use it as such, was not such a violation of the proper use of the right of way by the company and by the plaintiff as authorized and justified the seizure and occupation of the house by the defendant to the exclusion of the plaintiff. In doing this the defendant became a trespasser, and liable in damages. The question of the amount of damages, as all other questions in fact, were left to the jury.
Mr. J. W. Ferguson , for appellant.
Messrs. Holmes & Simpson , contra.
This is an action of trespass alleging that the plaintiff was in possession of a certain " guano house" on the line of the Laurens Railroad, in the town of Martin's Depot in Laurens county, claiming $500 damages for a trespass by defendant, and costs. The defendant after putting in issue all the allegations of the complaint alleges that he " on the first Monday in October, 1877, bought a tract of land commonly known as the Martin...
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