Dargan v. Tankersley

671 S.E.2d 73, 380 S.C. 480, 2008 S.C. LEXIS 348
CourtSupreme Court of South Carolina
DecidedDecember 22, 2008
Docket26574
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 671 S.E.2d 73 (Dargan v. Tankersley) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of South Carolina primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dargan v. Tankersley, 671 S.E.2d 73, 380 S.C. 480, 2008 S.C. LEXIS 348 (S.C. 2008).

Opinions

Justice BEATTY:

In this quiet title action, E. Ervin Dargan, Jr. and New River Corporation (Appellants) appeal from an order finding James B. Tankersley and the remaining parties (collectively, Respondents) were the owners of a disputed parcel of property and awarding them damages. We reverse.

I. FACTS

Appellants brought this quiet title action to establish their ownership of a tract of real property in Greenville County, South Carolina. Respondents claimed an interest in the property and asserted counterclaims for damages. The disputed parcel is mountainous property measuring approximately twenty-seven acres.

The case was referred to a master-in-equity, who found (1) Appellants failed to prove by the preponderance of the evidence that they were the owners of the property; (2) Respondents did prove by the preponderance of the evidence that they were the owners of the disputed property; and (3) Appellants have damaged the property owned by Respondents by cutting trees and preparing the foundation for a road. The master ordered Appellants to execute a quitclaim deed to the property in favor of Respondents and to pay Respondents $25,000 in damages. Appellants appeal from this order.

[483]*483II. LAW/ANALYSIS

On appeal, Appellants argue the master erred in finding they had not proven their ownership claim and that Respondents have established their entitlement to the property and to damages. We agree.

Although actions to quiet title are usually in equity, “when the defendant’s answer raises an issue of paramount title to land, such as would, if established, defeat [the] plaintiffs action, the issue of title is legal.” Hilton Head Plantation Prop. Owners’ Ass’n v. Donald, 375 S.C. 220, 223, 651 S.E.2d 614, 616 (Ct.App.2007) (citing Mountain Lake Colony v. McJunkin, 308 S.C. 202, 204, 417 S.E.2d 578, 579 (1992)). In a case tried by a judge without a jury, the factual findings of the judge will not be reversed on appeal unless found to be without evidence that reasonably supports the judge’s findings. Id.

Appellants and Respondents own multiple tracts of property around the disputed twenty-seven-acre parcel. For simplicity, the property owned by Appellants, which is south of the disputed parcel, shall be called the Dargan Property, and the area owned by Respondents, which is north of the disputed parcel, shall be called the Tankersley Property. At issue is whether the disputed parcel, which is in an overlap area between the two properties, is part of the Dargan Property or the Tankersley Property.

As noted by the master, it is undisputed that the Dargan Property, the Tankersley Property, and the overlap area were once owned by a common grantor, the Saluda Land and Lumber Company. Saluda executed two deeds that eventually led to the competing claims for the twenty-seven acres.

Respondents’ Title. Respondents trace their title to a deed’ executed by Saluda to one of their predecessors-in-title, Earle Hart, in 1943 (the Hart Deed). The Hart Deed conveyed several large tracts of land described as the “Betty Orr Tract” or “Tract 1” (1,517 acres plus 82 acres) and the “L. I. Jennings Tract” or “Tract 2” (835 acres). The Hart Deed described the property by metes and bounds and referenced a plat prepared by surveyor ’ Howard Wiswall, 1918-20 (the Wiswall Plat). The Hart Deed description does not include [484]*484the twenty-seven disputed acres. The twenty-seven disputed acres are specifically shown on the Wiswall Plat as an overlap area lying between the L.I. Jennings Tract, which is to the north, and the J. N., R.M. and Harvey Cleveland (Dolton “[T]raet),”1 which is to the south. The Wiswall Plat includes a notation about what is variously referred to as the Dolton Tract or the Dalton Tract. The notation is “400 Ac.”— meaning 400 acres, and under that is the phrase, “Laps not included.”

In 1951, Hart conveyed approximately 704 acres of this property to William Goldsmith, Jr. Hart simultaneously recorded a plat entitled the “Hart Valley Ranch” Survey, which had been prepared in 1944, some sixteen months after the deed from Saluda to Hart, and it was prepared at Hart’s request. The Hart Valley Ranch Survey includes the twenty-seven-acre overlap area in the property owned by Hart and transferred to Goldsmith. In 1952, Goldsmith conveyed the 704 acres to some of the Respondents (James Tankersley and the now-deceased Lowell and Posey Tankersley) by a deed that also referenced the Hart Valley Ranch Survey. The property owned by Respondents is what is now called the Tankersley Property.

Appellants’ Title. Appellants trace their title to a deed from Saluda to E.E. Dargan (the father of appellant E. Ervin Dargan, Jr.) that was signed on June 28,1951 and recorded on April 11, 1952 (the Dargan Deed). The Dargan Deed conveyed various interests in 85 parcels to E.E. Dargan, including an undivided one-half interest in “Parcel 10” that now forms part of the Dargan Property. Appellants’ remaining one-half interest in the Dargan Property was conveyed by various deeds recorded between 1980 and 1995.

Appellants contend their title to the disputed property comes from either of two clauses in the Dargan Deed. They first assert the description of Parcel 10 conveys the property. In the alternative, they assert the language contained after all the property descriptions, which they refer to as a “catch-all provision,” conveys the disputed property.

[485]*485Parcel 10 Description. Appellants first rely upon the description of Parcel 10 in the Dargan Deed, which provides for conveyance of the following property from Saluda to E.E. Dargan:

An undivided one-half interest in and to that certain tract of land in Cleveland Township, Greenville County, State of South Carolina, containing 400 acres, more or less, situate and lying to the South of the property designated on the plat mentioned above as “L. I. Jennings Tract”, and fully described on said plat as “J. N., R. M., and Harvey Cleveland (Dalton Tract) 400 acres”, reference to which plat is hereby craved for a complete and accurate description of the area, metes and bounds of said property.
There is expressly excluded from this tract the following:
(a) 16 acres, more or less, conveyed by the Grantor to Mark Jones, by deed dated May 26, 1934, recorded in the said [R.M.C.] Office in Deed Book 132, at page 196.
(b) Right-of-way granted by the Grantor to Duke Power Co., by deed dated May 27, 1937, recorded in the said R.M.C. Office in Deed Book 199, at page 121.
The tract above conveyed contains approximately 384 acres.

Appellants assert the master should have found the Parcel 10 legal description in the Dargan Deed conveyed the disputed area to them because it indicated the property being conveyed was the tract of land lying to the south of the L.I. Jennings Tract as shown on the Wiswall Plat, and the tract of land to the south is the Dalton Tract. Additionally, since Parcel 10 refers to the Wiswall Plat, the plat is part of the deed.

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Dargan v. Tankersley
671 S.E.2d 73 (Supreme Court of South Carolina, 2008)

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Bluebook (online)
671 S.E.2d 73, 380 S.C. 480, 2008 S.C. LEXIS 348, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dargan-v-tankersley-sc-2008.