Carley v. Davis

452 P.2d 772
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedApril 18, 1969
Docket41873
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 452 P.2d 772 (Carley v. Davis) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Carley v. Davis, 452 P.2d 772 (Okla. 1969).

Opinion

BLACKBIRD, Justice.

This appeal arose out of an action by plaintiff in error, hereinafter referred to as “plaintiff”, to quiet his alleged title to a strip of land containing approximately 15 acres and shaped rather like a right angle triangle, east of Horse Creek and west of the eastern boundary of the W1/2 SWJ4 NE14 of Section 1, Township 8 South, Range 17 East in Choctaw County, Oklahoma.

Horse Creek empties into Red River, after diagonally traversing said 20-acre tract in a southerly and southeasterly direction. The Creek’s channel has, in recent years, turned almost due east, practically coinciding, at some points, with the southern boundary of this tract before merging with said River’s channel. There is testimony in this case indicating that, formerly, this creek flowed in a straighter southerly direction and traversed a part of the SE14 of the same section, designated as said section’s “Lot 2”, before meeting the River’s channel.

A short time before this triangular strip of land attracted his attention, in so far as the record shows, plaintiff, who resided in another part of Choctaw County, had acquired said section’s SEJ4 and its NE^4 SWJ4, NE14, then known as the “Wilkins Charley land”, and said section’s SE14 SW-⅛ NEJ4, then known as the “Wilkins land”. Plaintiff then.went to the Liberty National Bank of Paris, Texas, and, by contacting said Bank’s President, Mr. J. M.Cecil, now deceased, acquired a warranty deed from said bank to land described in

*774 said deed as follows: “All that land lying and being situated E of Horse Creek located in Lots 1 and 2 of Section 1, Township 8 S, Range, 17 East of the Indian base and meridian containing approximately 12 acres. Being out of that portion of lands described in deed recorded in Book 181, page 360, Choctaw County Records. * *

Without obtaining an abstract of title, having the county conveyance records checked, or having a survey made of the land described in his deed as above shown, plaintiff had his deed recorded, and later, after his brother had sold the 80-acre tract adjoining plaintiff’s 60 acres of Nellie Charley and Wilkins land on the north, to a Mr. Mattlock, plaintiff, in 1944, built a fence between his said 60 acres, and Matt-lock’s land, that extended due west of the 60 acres’ northwest corner until it reached, and was connected to, a tree on Horse Creek’s eastern bank.

Thereafter, in the Fall of 1946, plaintiff left Choctaw County and moved to Texas, where he farmed 146 acres in the vicinity of Plainview, until sometime in 19S7. In 1960 he moved from there to Paris, Texas.

In the meantime, Mr. and Mrs. J. H. O’Keefe acquired the Choctaw County land traversed by Horse Creek west of plaintiff’s 60 acres by a deed dated October 30, 1951, from its then owners, a Mr. and Mrs. Blount, describing the land therein conveyed (among other land not involved in this action) as follows: “The W-½ of SW}4 of NEJ4 * * * all in Section 1, Township 8 South, Range 17 East, of the Indian Base and Meridian * *

Thereafter, in April, 1952, the O’Keefes sold the above described land to the defendant in error, Terry Miller, who thereafter owned it until selling it to the defendant in error, C. E. Davis, early in 1964.

Shortly thereafter, when plaintiff discovered flagged stobs, driven into the ground on the triangular strip of land in controversy by the Choctaw County Surveyor, Clarence Reeder, who had been engaged by Davis to survey the tract he had purchased, as aforesaid, plaintiff then ascertained from a workman on the Davis farm what was being done, procured from him Davis’ name and address and contacted him at his Paris home, where he learned that Davis claimed that said strip was included in his aforementioned purchase. The two then agreed to meet later at the Choctaw County Court House. At this meeting, where the surveyor, Mr. Reeder, talked to plaintiff and Davis, and they caused the county conveyance, and ad valo-rem tax, records to he examined, plaintiff learned that his deed from the Paris bank did not cover the triangular strip.

Thereafter, when Davis and his workman, Sexton, went upon this strip to erect a fence along its eastern boundary, as established by the aforesaid survey, plaintiff told them to desist and remove themselves from the property until he could see his attorney, who was then out of town, and together they could decide what to do.

Thereafter, plaintiff instituted the present action on the theory that he had acquired prescriptive title to said strip of land by having been in adverse possession of it for more than twenty years.

Davis, and other defendants in error, hereinafter collectively referred to as “defendants”, filed an answer to plaintiff’s petition in which they alleged, among other things in substance, that if plaintiff had been in possession of the subject tract at all, this had been for too short a period to acquire title by prescription.

At the trial, plaintiff testified that when he obtained his aforedescribed deed from the Paris bank in 1943, he thought the strip of land in controversy was in Section One’s Lot 2; but he admitted that he had never investigated this until the present controversy arose. He further testified that he had never lived on the tract, that there were no houses on it, that he had paid taxes on the basis of the description in his deed, and he admitted that his payments had been made on the wrong land— land that is now in the Red River’s channel south of such strip.

*775 There was testimony from the plaintiff, and other witnesses, that at the same time he constructed the aforementioned fence from the northwest corner of his Nellie Charley tract to Horse Creek, in 1944, plaintiff also took down the fence that had previously stood on the western boundary of that tract and used parts of it to construct a fence along the east bank of said Creek, so that the subject tract was then enclosed with his Nellie Charley and Wilkins tracts.

It also appeared from the evidence that after plaintiff thought he had purchased the subject tract, he grafted paper shell pecan sprouts to the native pecan trees on it, and after a few years converted the tract into a pecan grove. There appears to be little, if any question from the testimony of the various witnesses that, from the time plaintiff obtained his deed from the Paris bank, in 1943, up to, and including, the year 1950, he had exclusive possession of, and exercised exclusive dominion over, the strip of land in question.

After 1950, during which a Mr. Bowers leased the tract from plaintiff, without a recorded lease, the issue appears to be somewhat in doubt. Bowers, who testified that he had lived in that vicinity all of his life, further testified that he leased the strip in question, along with all of plaintiff’s land east of it, for that year, and that he then grew popcorn on about twenty acres of it and pastured about 20 cattle on the rest. Though Bowers testified he moved some of plaintiff’s fencing to inclose some of the crop land, it does not appear clear from his testimony (by comparison of his direct examination with his cross examination) whether he removed the fence along Horse Creek to do this, whether plaintiff had already removed it, or whether the witness used some of the fencing around the plaintiff’s Nellie Charley land to make this enclosure.

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452 P.2d 772, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/carley-v-davis-okla-1969.