Wilson v. Rogers

• Decision Date: 23 January 1911
• Citation: 134 S.W. 318,97 Ark. 369
• Parties: WILSON v. ROGERS
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

134 S.W. 318

97 Ark. 369

WILSON v. ROGERS

Supreme Court of Arkansas

January 23, 1911

Appeal from Boone Chancery Court; T. Haden Humphreys, Chancellor affirmed.

Decree affirmed.

Pace & Pace, for appellants.

1. Neither conveyances, nor color of title, nor payment of taxes, nor all combined, can give title under the statute of limitations. There must be proof of adverse possession for the requisite time. There is no such evidence here. 45 Ark 81.

2. An acknowledgment of satisfaction of a mortgage prima facie imports extinguishment of the mortgage debt, and the burden to the contrary rests on the creditor. 42 Ark. 61.

3. Plaintiff must succeed on the strength of her own title, and the burden is on her. 90 Ark. 423.

J. W Story, for appellees; J. M. Shinn, of counsel.

1. The answer of appellant is only a general denial, and raises no issue. 73 Ark. 221; 50 Ark. 536.

2. Appellants' tax deed is void, as the taxes had been paid. 77 Ark. 576.

3. Continuity of possession is proved. 34 Ark. 602; 38 Id. 192.

4. Color of title and seven years payment of taxes is sufficient. Kirby's Digest, § 655; 80 Ark. 414; 82 Ark. 56; 89 Id. 307; 128 S.W. 352.

OPINION

MCCULLOCH, C. J.

Appellee instituted this action in the chancery court of Boone County to quiet her title to a tract of land containing 6.67 acres, situated near the town of Harrison in that county. Appellee claims investiture of title by adverse possession of her grantors for a period of about twenty years, and she seeks to cancel as a cloud on her title a sale of the land to the State of Arkansas for taxes, which sale is alleged to be void, and a deed to appellants made by the Commissioner of State Lands pursuant to said tax forfeiture.

The evidence shows that the taxes for which the lands were forfeited had been paid, and it follows, therefore, that the tax sale was in fact void. Appellee must recover, if at all, upon the strength of her own title, and not upon the weakness of the title of her adversaries. Lawrence v. Zimpleman, 37 Ark. 643; Sibly v. England, 90 Ark. 420, 119 S.W. 820, and cases cited.

Appellee's chain of deeds constituting color of title runs back to the year 1870, and the evidence which she adduced tended to establish the fact that her grantors actually and adversely occupied a portion of the land, with color of title to the whole tract, from the year 1880, or thereabout, to the year 1895, when one of them conveyed to another grantee that portion of the tract which was occupied, leaving the portion now in controversy unoccupied. If this is true, the occupancy for more than seven years constituted complete investiture of title in appellee, and was sufficient to authorize the chancery court to cancel, at her instance, the void tax sale.

The chancellor found in her favor on the question of adverse occupancy of her grantors, and after consideration of the evidence we are of the opinion that it sustains the chancellor's findings.

It is insisted that the continuity of the possession was broken by the occupancy of another person, to whom one of appellee's grantors conveyed the land. In the year 1889 one of them, Henry Watkins by name, conveyed the land to Goodwin, and the latter gave a mortgage back to Watkins to secure the purchase price. The record of this mortgage appears subsequently to have been satisfied, and there is no other conveyance of the land by Goodwin to Watkins or to any of appellee's grantors. The mortgage executed by Goodwin to...