Christy v. Spring Valley Water Works

Partition — Interlocutory and Final Decrees—Res Adjudicata — Title not Disclosed. —• The interlocutory decree in an action for partition establishes the relative rights of the parties thereto in the tract of land sought to be partitioned, and the final judgment therein, confirming the report of the referee in partition, is a conclusive determination upon all the parties as to whatever title or claims to the land they had at the time of the rendition of the judgment, and precludes them from subsequently asserting any right or claim to the land which they acquired prior to the rendition of the judgment, though such right or claim was not asserted or disclosed in the action.

Id.—Conclusiveness of Final Decree — Tenancy in Common — Unity of Possession — Adverse Possession—Suspension of Statute of Limitations. — The final judgment in partition is also a conclusive determination between the parties to the action that they were tenants in common of the land in controversy according to their respective rights, and that until the final partition there had existed between them a unity of possession of the land partitioned, and no adverse possession thereof by either co-tenant as against the other; and if, at the commencement of the action, one of the defendants therein was holding the land in adverse possession, but had not held it long enough to ripen into a title, the bringing of the suit suspended the running of the statute of limitations, and prevented the acquisition of a title by prescription while the suit was pending, which would impair the judgment finally rendei-ed in the partition suit.

Id. — Date of Adjudication of Unity of Possession — Adverse Possession after Interlocutory Decree. — The final judgment in partition operates as an adjudication as to the co-tenancy and unity of possession of the parties from its date, and not from the date of the interlocutory decree, and a party to the proceedings cannot avail himself of any adverse possession between the date of the interlocutory decree and the date of the final decree.

Id. — Ejectment — Defense of Prescription — Exclusion of Evidence — Appeal — Error without Prejudice. — Where the full period of prescription has not run between the date of the final decree in partition and the commencement of an action of ejectment, by the successor in interest of one of the parties to the partition suit against another party thereto, who seeks in defense to show a title by prescription, a judgment for the plaintiff in ejectment will not be reversed for the exclusion of evidence tending to show adverse possession, as such evidence would not countervail the effect of the final judgment in partition, and could not tend to change the finding of the court in favor of the plaintiff.

Id.—Evidence—Adverse Possession under Written Instrument — Effect of Instrument. — The effect of section 322 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which provides that, when it appears that the occupant of land entered into possession of the property under claim of title, exclusive of other right, founding such claim upon a written instrument, as being a conveyance of the property in question, and that there has been a continued occupation and possession of the property included in the instrument, or of some part of the property, under such claim, for five years, the property so included is deemed to have been held adversely, is not to make the instrument any evidence of adverse possession, hut to extend the adverse possession which may have been held of any portion of the land included in the instrument to the whole of such land, and it is still incumbent upon the party offering the deed to give competent evidence of an adverse possession of some part of the land included in the instrument.