Brumfield v. Cryer

154 So. 662, 1934 La. App. LEXIS 708
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedMay 8, 1934
DocketNo. 1303.
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 154 So. 662 (Brumfield v. Cryer) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Brumfield v. Cryer, 154 So. 662, 1934 La. App. LEXIS 708 (La. Ct. App. 1934).

Opinion

LE BLANC, Judge.

Plaintiff, Uriah Brumfield, and Clarence Cryer, defendant, own adjoining tracts of land in Tangipahoa parish. The property of plaintiff is situated in section 37, and that of defendant in section 16.

Plaintiff alleges that many yfears ago in putting up his fence on the eastern line of his land, he erected it within his line and left outside of his fence sufficient land for a road or ■driveway; that' Erasmus Cryer, who then •owned the land now the property of defendant, in putting up his fence along this eastern .line which divides the two tracts of land, encroached upon his land several feet at the north and south end.

He alleges that defendant, Clarence Cryer, now owner of the land previously owned by Erasmus Cryer, has committed a willful trespass by going on this strip of land left outside of his fence and cutting trees of the value of about $40; that he has also been damaged in the sum of $60 on account of this trespass and in the further amount of $100 in attorney’s fees for the protection of his rights, making a total of $200 for which he is asking judgment against defendant.

Defendant, Clarence Cryer, filed an answer in which he denied every allegation of plaintiffs petition, with the exception of the generous admission that plaintiff is a resident ot Tangipahoa parish.

After making these denials, defendant assumes the position of plaintiff in reconvention alleging that plaintiff, Uriah Brumfield, has moved his fence from year to year, eastward, thus encroaching on his property on which he has trespassed by cutting small trees and fence posts by which he has been damaged in the sum of $100, for loss.of time, mental anguish, and attorney’s fees in the amount of $250. Defendant, in addition to the foregoing averments, alleged that he had been in actual possession of 50 feet of land west of the section line between the two tracts for more than thirty years for which he should have judgment, but having entered a disclaimer of ownership thereto, this feature of defendant’s re-conventional demand has passed out of the case.

In his answer, defendant alleged that for a proper disposition of the issues, that a survey of the section line between sections 37 and 16 should be made; and, so praying, the district judge appointed T. A. Tycer, parish surveyor, to make the survey, who made the survey, filed two plats thereof with his procés verbal.

Thereafter,, plaintiff filed a motion protesting against the recognition of the Tycer survey, claiming it was incorrect and in which he asked that the line between these two sections originally drawn in a survey made by J. B. Ogle forty years before be recognized as the true line; that the Tycer survey should be disregarded; and, in the alternative, another surveyor be authorized to make a survey.

In his original petition, to which we have hereinabove referred, plaintiff refers to this Ogle survey, evidently, as being the true line between the two sections which stands confirmed by his allegations and prayer in the *664 motion filed after Tycer had made his survey and in -which plaintiff asked that the line originally run by Ogle be accepted as the correct line. It will 'be noticed that plaintiff does not, either in his original petition nor in his motion, claim to have acquired any land, by possession or otherwise, beyond the true line separating these adjacent tracts of land. Obviously, plaintiff is not claiming any land beyond his .title in section 37, and he so testifies.

As defendant has abandoned any claim for land beyond the line dividing the two sections, the main issue before the court is as to the recognition of the true line between them and the solution of which will be determinative of the counterclaims by the litigants for damages resulting from the alleged trespasses and the cutting of timber along the disputed line.

In this court plaintiff has filed a motion pleading, as follows: “The prescription of Ten (10) Twenty (20) Thirty (30) and Eorty (40) years as a bar to defendant’s demand in re-convention.”

This plea of prescription, it will be observed, is directed against the demand of defendant in reconvention. In this demand, the defendant originally claimed 50 feet of land west of the dividing line, and therefore to be taken from the land of the plaintiff.

It might be contended by plaintiff that as he possessed this strip for forty years, this possession constituted a bar to that part of defendant’s reeonventional demand, but defendant having, as before remarked, abandoned this claim for 50 feet beyond the section line, this has been eliminated from consideration, and hence there is no ground upon which this plea of prescription filed by plaintiff in this court could be sustained.

It will also be observed that plaintiff is asking that the survey made by Ogle, and to which he refers in his original petition, be recognized as fixing the “true line” between these two sections of land, and is not asking for any land, eastward, beyond that line. It is therefore clear that plaintiff is not claiming any land by prescription beyond the limits of his title. Such being the situation shown by the original petition of plaintiff, and likewise by his motion filed for the recognition of the Ogle survey, alleged by him to have established the true line, it follows that his plea of prescription filed in this court has no basis for its support in his pleadings or evidence.

The vital issue presented for decision is as to whether the line alleged by plaintiff to have been traced by Ogle or the line established by the survey of Tycer, should prevail; the other questions of damages and trespass being incidental or of secondary importance.

The trial judge having recognized the line fixed by the Tycer survey, we shall direct our attention first to a review of the judgment so rendered, and, secondly, to the counterclaims for damages and attorney’s fees.

Counsel for plaintiff refers to the case of Opdenwyer v. Brown, 155 La. 617, 99 So. 482, in support of his contentions. It was held in that case, affirming several prior decisions, that where the defendants and his predecessors in title possessed as far as a certain fence beyond their line, and on the land of plaintiff, that a suit by plaintiff to establish the boundary line was barred by the prescription of thirty years.

There is no demand by plaintiff in this ease, either in his original petition nor in his motion filed to disregard the Tycer survey, in which he asserted any possession of land from defendant beyond the line claimed to have been established by the Ogle survey and which plaintiff characterized in his motion as being the true line; hence, the Opdenwyer Case and others of similar import upon whicfi plaintiff relies have no application.

Counsel for plaintiff refers also to the case of Harmon v. Dufilho, 19 La. App. 222, 139 So. 530, at page 531, decided by this court.

In that case, as was stated in the syllabus, the boundary line had been fixed and established in the presence of the adjoining owners. It also appeared in that case that plaintiff and defendant possessed, as owners, up to the line established by the survey for more than twenty years. We therefore held if there were any error in the location of that line, it could not be corrected because any action to make such a correction was barred by the prescription of ten years.

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Bluebook (online)
154 So. 662, 1934 La. App. LEXIS 708, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/brumfield-v-cryer-lactapp-1934.