Williams v. Frymire
| Citation | 186 S.W.3d 912 |
| Decision Date | 29 March 2006 |
| Docket Number | No. 26966.,26966. |
| Parties | Edward WILLIAMS and Jeneth Williams, Plaintiffs-Respondents, v. Leonard FRYMIRE, Melissa Frymire, Beverly Frymire, and James Cardwell, Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
Robin Phelan Rogers, Dexter, MO, for Appellants.
Samuel P. Spain, Spain, Merrell & Miller, L.L.C., Poplar Bluff, MO, for Respondents.
Plaintiffs Edward (Eddie) and Jeneth Williams, husband and wife, filed a petition in the Circuit Court of Stoddard County against defendants Leonard Frymire, Beverly Frymire, Melissa Frymire and James Cardwell, seeking to quiet title by adverse possession to a .03 acre parcel of real estate and seeking injunctive relief from continuing trespass.1 The trial court entered judgment in favor of Plaintiffs, and Defendants appeal. We affirm the judgment as to Defendants Leonard and Beverly Frymire and reverse the judgment as to Defendants Melissa Frymire and James Cardwell.
Defendants allege three points of trial court error. We will address those points in the order presented by Defendants.
Defendants' first claim of trial court error is: "[T]here was no substantial evidence to support a finding that [Eddie] and [Jeneth] and their predecessors in interest were in hostile and under a claim of right, actual, open and notorious, exclusive, and continuous possession of the disputed property for ten (10) years."
We are required to affirm the judgment of the trial court in this non-jury case, "unless there is no substantial evidence to support it, it is against the weight of the evidence, or unless it erroneously declares or applies the law." Harness v. Wallace, 167 S.W.3d 288, 289 (Mo.App. 2005). "The trial court's judgment is presumed valid, [and] the burden is on the appellant to demonstrate its incorrectness[.]" Id. (citing Schaefer v. Rivers, 965 S.W.2d 954, 956 (Mo.App. 1998)).
In applying this standard of review, we defer "to the trial court's determinations of credibility, viewing the evidence and permissible inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to the judgment and disregarding all contrary evidence and inferences." Watson v. Moore, 8 S.W.3d 909, 911 (Mo.App. 2000) (citing Mehra v. Mehra, 819 S.W.2d 351, 353 (Mo. banc 1991)). "That is because credibility of witnesses and the weight to be given their testimony is a matter for the trial court, which is free to believe none, part, or all of any witness's testimony." Id. (citing Herbert v. Harl, 757 S.W.2d 585, 587 (Mo. banc 1988)). "The trial judge is in a better position than this court to determine credibility of the parties, their sincerity character and other trial intangibles which may not be shown by the record." Walton v. Gilton, 175 S.W.3d 170, 173 (Mo.App.2005) (internal citations omitted).
When viewed in the light most favorable to the judgment, the evidence shows as follows.
Eddie's parents bought Lot 14 in Block 2 of Bedford's Addition to the City of Bloomfield (Lot 14) in 1948. Eddie was born a year later and was raised in the house situated on this lot.
In 1954, when Eddie was five years old, his parents acquired Lot 15 in Block 2 of Bedford's Addition to the City of Bloomfield (Lot 15) which was an unimproved lot adjacent to and immediately north of Lot 14. Each lot is 110 feet wide running east and west and 50 feet deep running north and south. The north boundary of Lot 15 is along an alley that is referred to as Rear Spring Street.
Shortly after buying and moving into the house on Lot 14, Eddie's father and older brother planted a line of trees running north and south on what was considered to be the west boundary of Lot 14. After purchasing Lot 15 in 1954, this line of trees was extended to the north by Eddie's father on what was considered to be the west boundary of Lot 15 (Tree Line). When Eddie was growing up, he understood that the yard around his house extended north to Rear Spring Street and west to the Tree Line. He mowed and played in this yard. When he mowed the yard, he mowed all the way to the Tree Line. The Williams family had a basketball court that was located in the yard in the proximity of the Tree Line. The family considered the Tree Line to be the boundary of their yard.
Eddie moved out of his parents' house when he was around seventeen years old but has continued to live around Bloomfield his entire life. Through the years, due to his father's health problems, Eddie continued to help maintain his parents' yard, including Lot 15, all the way west to the Tree Line.
Sometime in the seventies, Eddie and his father put in a gravel driveway from the carport on the west side of Lot 14, extending north and parallel to the east side of the Tree Line to Rear Spring Street on the north side of Lot 15.
In 1975, Eddie's parents rented Lot 15 to James Long who put a mobile home on the property. Mr. Long, and his wife, Beth, always maintained Lot 15 all the way to the Tree Line and also used the gravel driveway. The Tree Line was the recognized boundary line, and no one claimed otherwise.
Lot 15 was conveyed to Eddie by his parents in June of 1988. Eddie installed a modular home just east of the gravel driveway, moved onto the property and has resided there since. The area west of Eddie's home to the Tree Line is essentially Eddie's "side yard," as his house faces north toward Rear Spring Street. This side yard contains the gravel driveway. Since he set up his modular home, Eddie's activities on his side yard include mowing on a weekly basis during the mowing season, raking, picking up sticks, burning leaves and trash, and chipping golf balls. In 1995 or 1996, Eddie trimmed the trees on the Tree Line.
Eddie testified, without objection, that he and his predecessors in interest, his parents, have continuously, openly, and exclusively possessed and maintained Lot 15 west to the Tree Line under a claim of right since 1954.
When Eddie was a little boy, the property to the west of Lot 15 was owned by a Mr. Sherrill. Mr. Sherrill fenced that property up to the Tree Line and never maintained that property east of the Tree Line. The next two owners of the property west of Lot 15, Howard and then McCulley, never maintained it on the east side of the Tree Line. At some point in time owner Howard took down the fence erected by Sherrill. Sometime thereafter, Mrs. McCulley planted shrubs a couple of feet west of the Tree Line, about where the old Sherrill fence was formerly located. The Sherrills, Howards and McCulleys never possessed or maintained any property east of the Tree Line.
Leonard's brother, Steve Frymire, bought the property to the west of Lot 15 in 1993 from the McCulleys and lived there until he sold it to his mother and brother in 1996. During this time, Eddie continued to maintain Lot 15 west to the Tree Line and Steve Frymire never maintained or did anything east of the Tree Line.
Leonard, Beverly and Leonard's mother, Flora Frymire, purchased the property west of Lot 15 from Steve in 1996, taking title as joint tenants with right of survivorship and not as tenants in common. Flora passed away in November 2003 leaving Leonard and Beverly as the sole owners of the property. Before they purchased the property in 1996 Leonard had it surveyed, and this survey revealed the legal boundary of this property to be east of the Tree Line. Around that time, Leonard had a conversation with Eddie about this survey, informing Eddie that it indicated the boundary line between their property was to the east of the Tree Line. This was the first time anyone had ever claimed to Eddie that the boundary was east of the Tree Line. Eddie told Leonard that "[t]he tree line is the line and that's where it was gonna be."
After this conversation Eddie continued to maintain Lot 15 west to the Tree Line, and Flora, who was living in the house on the property west of the Tree Line, never tried to possess or maintain the property east of the Tree Line. Other than this conversation, there was no dispute as to the boundary line between these properties until May 2004, when Eddie started pouring a concrete driveway in essentially the same location as the gravel driveway. Leonard and Beverly claimed that this driveway was being constructed on their property.
In response to this claim, Eddie and Jeneth initiated this lawsuit on May 18, 2004. In the course of this litigation both parties had their respective properties surveyed. Both surveys agreed as to the location of Lot 15; the location of Leonard and Beverly's property to the west of Lot 15; and the fact that the west boundary of Lot 15 is adjacent to the east boundary of Leonard and Beverly's property. Plaintiffs' survey further identified and described a rectangular parcel of land (approximately 23 feet wide running east and west and 62 feet deep running north and south and containing .03 of an acre) in the northeast corner of Leonard and Beverly's property, the east boundary of which is adjacent to the west boundary of Lot 15 and the west boundary of which is the Tree Line. At trial the parties referred to this tract as the "Disputed Property," and we will do likewise. Until these surveys were completed, Eddie did not know that the Disputed Property was not within the boundaries of Lot 15.
Section 516.010, RSMo 2000 reads, in part:
No action for the recovery of any lands, tenements or hereditaments, or for the recovery of the possession thereof, shall be commenced, had or maintained by any person ... unless it appear that the plaintiff, his ancestor, predecessor, grantor or other person under whom he claims was seized or possessed of the premises in question, within ten years before the commencement of such action.
"Under this statute, ...
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