C.W. Hoskins Heirs v. Boggs

242 S.W.3d 320, 2007 Ky. LEXIS 266, 2007 WL 4461653
CourtKentucky Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 20, 2007
Docket2005-SC-000618-DG
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 242 S.W.3d 320 (C.W. Hoskins Heirs v. Boggs) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Kentucky Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
C.W. Hoskins Heirs v. Boggs, 242 S.W.3d 320, 2007 Ky. LEXIS 266, 2007 WL 4461653 (Ky. 2007).

Opinion

Opinion of the Court by

Justice SCOTT.

This was an action to quiet title to a 155 acre tract of coal (the disputed tract) in Leslie County, Kentucky. The action started as an interpleader action filed by the coal company mining the coal, Bledsoe Coal Leasing Company (Bledsoe) against its own competing claimants/Lessors, Appellant, C.W. Hoskins Heirs, a non-resident partnership (Hoskins Heirs) and Ap-pellees, the Boggs Heirs (Boggs Heirs). The Hoskins Heirs thereafter filed a counterclaim against Bledsoe for mining royalties it had paid to the Boggs Heirs for coal mined from the disputed tract and both the Hoskins Heirs and Boggs Heirs filed cross-claims against each other seeking to quiet their competing titles under their separate leases to Bledsoe. 1

On June 5, 2002, the Leslie Circuit Court entered Summary Judgment finding the Boggs Heirs to be the owners of the disputed tract, dismissing all other claims of the Hoskins Heirs against the Boggs Heirs and Bledsoe. By opinion rendered July 8, 2005, the judgment of the trial court was affirmed by the Court of Appeals. Pending the opinion by the Court of Appeals, the Hoskins Heirs and Bledsoe settled all matters between them, leaving only the issues as to the title to the disputed tract between the Hoskins Heirs and Boggs Heirs. Thereafter this court granted discretionary review to consider the questions presented.

Among other issues, 2 the Hoskins Heirs, assert that the trial court (1) erred *322 in determining that the October 3, 1881 deed to the Boggs Heirs’ predecessor in title (Silas Boggs) was not ambiguous and (2) therefore erred in not considering extrinsic evidence offered by the Hoskins Heirs to show the parties intent as to what was intended to be conveyed by the parties, as well as (8) improperly granting summary judgment while there were material issues of fact outstanding. Having determined that the deed to Silas Boggs is in fact “ambiguous,” thus necessitating consideration by the trial court of any admissible extrinsic evidence relevant to the intention of the parties, and that otherwise, material issues of fact existed at the time of summary judgment, we hereby reverse the opinion of the Court of Appeals and vacate the judgment of the trial court, but only as to the issues of title between the Hoskins Heirs and the Boggs Heirs, and remand this matter back to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion

FACTS

Pursuant to a purported survey dated March 18, 1845, Henry M. Lewis obtained a patent for approximately five-hundred (500) acres of property (Patent No. 8158) located on both Lewis Creek and Rock-house Creek of the Greasy Fork of the Kentucky River, in Leslie County, Kentucky. 3 The disputed tract falls within the boundaries of this patent. Although the patent itself refers only to property on Lewis Creek, it is undisputed that it extended into Rockhouse Creek and covered the disputed property. The patent is located in the forested mountains of Eastern Kentucky.

The patent contained thirteen calls to, and from, the beginning point, “two dogwoods, [a] black oak and hickory at the head of the right hand fork of [Lewis Creek].” Of these thirteen calls, only one, the first call from the beginning point “to two black oaks and [a] maple” was actually surveyed on the ground. The other twelve calls were projected to “stakes.” This type of patenting technique used in Kentucky’s earlier years is referred to in common parlance as a “stake patent.”

“Stake patents,” although valid in Kentucky, have nevertheless engendered a multitude of litigation, both as to the location of their boundaries, as well as, overlaps with other adjacent patents.

It will be observed that the two first corners of the tract are corners of Smith’s survey, and that all the other corners of the patent are located at stakes. The fact that no timber is called for [, only stakes,] would seem to indicate that this patent was, perhaps, laid out by protraction, and that the survey- or did not in fact run the lines.

Creech v. Johnson, 116 Ky. 441, 76 S.W. 185, 187 (1903). Yet, as was noted in Uhl v. Reynolds, 23 Ky.L.Rptr. 759, 64 S.W. 498, 500 (1901):

[A] patent could not be questioned collaterally by anything dehors the patent, in the absence of a statutory provision authorizing it. It was therefore incompetent to show by parol testimony in a collateral proceeding like this that no survey of the land included in the patent *323 was actually made by the surveyor. Therefore the only question which remains to be considered is whether the exterior boundary of the patent relied on by appellant ... can be definitely located and determined.

“Stake patents,” being as imprecise as they were, led to the use of “conditional line agreements” between adjoining neighbors, so as to avoid the inconvenience and expense of boundary fine litigation. “A conditional line in eastern Kentucky is a line made by agreement of [the] parties, generally without the aid of a surveyor.” Martin v. Hall, 30 Ky.L.Rptr. 1110, 100 S.W. 343, 344, (1907). Problematically, “conditional fine agreements” were often unrecorded, yet marked and known on the ground by their creators — and just sometimes, their heirs.

Indeed, one might say it was tough creating land titles in the mountainous ranges of Eastern Kentucky at the time; yet, it was a beginning. It was also a time before copy machines, thus, deeds recorded in the various county court clerks’ offices were handwritten into the clerk’s deed books, copied from the tendered original by the clerk or deputy clerk, when time was available. KRS 382.240, 382.300, and 382.230(3). We note this point in explanation of why the wording of the old documents, as well as the signatures, acknowledgments, and certificates of the time appear to be in the same handwriting. 4 Generally, they are.

Having set the scene of the times, title to the disputed property in this matter started with Henry M. Lewis, i.e., the 500 acre Patent No. 8158. This, of course, establishes Henry M. Lewis as the common source for both parties, since both parties claim title to the disputed tract through him.

THE BOGGS HEIRS TITLE

Upon his death, Henry M. Lewis devised his lands to four of his children by a will, recorded in the clerk’s office on January 4, 1876. By deed of record dated October 3, 1881, three of the children, Wilson, Felix, and Hampton Lewis, conveyed certain properties to Silas Boggs, the Boggs Heirs’ predecessor in title. The fourth child, Catherine Wells, then of Lincoln County, Kentucky, acknowledged the deed later in front of the Lincoln County Court Clerk on April 24, 1883, whereupon the original deed was re-recorded with the Leslie County Court Clerk on June 25, 1884, with the additional acknowledgment and lodgment certificate. The property conveyed therein, is described, as follows:

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
242 S.W.3d 320, 2007 Ky. LEXIS 266, 2007 WL 4461653, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cw-hoskins-heirs-v-boggs-ky-2007.