Frick v. Sinon

California Supreme Court Mar 24, 1888 No. No. 9868Published

Before: McKinstry

AI Brief

AI-generated · verify before citing

Holding. The court held that the plaintiff acquired legal title to the land through adverse possession, and that the plaintiff's predecessor did not become a tenant in common with the defendant's grantors by accepting a deed from one of the co-tenants.

Issues

Whether the plaintiff's predecessor became a tenant in common with the defendant's grantors by accepting a deed from one of the co-tenants.
Whether the plaintiff's adverse possession was invalidated by subsequent offers to purchase an outstanding interest in the property.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“It follows that plaintiff’s predecessor did not become a tenant in common with Crockett and Page by receiving the deed from Campbell.”

“An offer to buy out a hostile claim in 1876 or 1883 could not invalidate the title of plaintiff or her predecessor.”

“Having acquired the title by adverse possession, plaintiff, while she remained in possession, could be divested of such title only by conveyance in writing.”

Synopsis

Adverse Possession—Tenancy in Common—Deed by Co-tenant. — A party in the actual, exclusive, and adverse possession of a tract of land, the legal title to which is held by several persons as tenants in common, by taking a deed of the entire tract from one of the co-tenants and continuing in possession under it does not become a co-tenant with the other holders of the legal title.

Id. — Quieting Title—Evidence—Payment of Street Assessment and Insurance. —In an action by the adverse possessor to quiet the title acquired by his adverse possession against the holder of the paper title, evidence is admissible that the plaintiff and her predecessors had paid street assessments and insurance on the premises. Id. — Otter to But Adverse Title. — A title once acquired by adverse possession is not affected by a subsequent offer by the adverse possessor to buy in the paper title.

McKinstry, J. —An action to quiet title, commenced October 29, 1883. The court below adjudged in effect that the plaintiff had acquired the legal title to the land described in the complaint by an adverse possession continued for the statutory period. Appellant contends, it appears from the evidence, that the plaintiff and defendant were at the commencement of the suit and at the trial tenants in common of the .premises.

There was evidence that the predecessor in interest of [339]the plaintiff had the actual, exclusive, and adverse possession, under color of title, of the whole of the land in controversy, from the year 1862 up to the seventeenth day of April, 1868, at least. Such possession, however, unless it continued to April 21, 1868, — five years from the approval of the act of limitations of 1863,— did not bar the right of possession of defendant’s grantors.

On the seventeenth day of April, 1868, W. H. Campbell, J. B. Crockett, and Glwyn Page were the owners in fee-simple, as tenants in common, of the land the title whereto is here in dispute. On that day Campbell commenced an action of ejectment against the predecessor of the plaintiff for the recovery of the possession of the land, averring in his complaint that he was the sole owner thereof. The defendant in the ejectment, by answer, denied the title of the plaintiff therein.

While the ejectment was pending, and on the sixth day of March, 1869, Campbell, for a valuable consideration, executed- and delivered to the defendant therein a deed “ of the whole of the premises ” described in the complaint therein and herein. The action of ejectment was thereupon dismissed.

It is contended by appellant that the reception of the deed by plaintiff’s predecessor made him a tenant in common with defendant’s grantors, Crockett and Page.

Had Campbell been in the sole possession of the premises, and had he delivered the possession of the whole to the plaintiff’s predecessor, the entry by the predecessor would have been in the assertion of an exclusive right in severalty, and equivalent to an express declaration on the part of the grantee that he entered “ claiming the whole to himself.” It would have been such a disseisin as would have set the statute of limitations in motion in his favor. (Bath v. Valdez, 70 Cal. 350.)

The grantee in the deed was in the adverse possession of the whole of the land prior to the execution and delivery of the deed. Crockett and Page could not say (nor

Frick v. Sinon

AI Brief

Synopsis

More from California Supreme Court

Related research

AI Brief