German v. Graham

497 S.W.2d 245, 1972 Tenn. App. LEXIS 291
CourtCourt of Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedJanuary 26, 1972
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 497 S.W.2d 245 (German v. Graham) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Tennessee primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
German v. Graham, 497 S.W.2d 245, 1972 Tenn. App. LEXIS 291 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1972).

Opinion

CARNEY, Presiding Judge.

After the suit below was filed, the complainant Arthur Lee German died testate devising all of his property to his wife, the complainant Allie Mae German, and the suit was revived in her name as sole complainant. The complainant Mrs. Allie Mae German has appealed from a decree of the Chancellor dismissing their original bill seeking a permanent injunction against the defendant Earl J. Graham from blocking a road known as the Log Dump Road across his lands from the southeast corner of the German property to the Arlington-Warren-Griffin Store county blacktop road in Fay-ette County, Tennessee.

Complainants contended that they had a prescriptive right over said road as a means of access from the southern boundary of their farm to said county blacktop road. The Chancellor found that the road in question had been used by the complain[246]*246ants and their predecessors in title continuously over a period of more than 40 years; that at various times during the years the county had graded the road and placed gravel on portions thereof; that as far back as 1912 the road was used as an access to a school which was maintained in a log building on the German farm. The log building in 1914 became the mansion house of John N. German, father of the complainant Arthur Lee German, and a predecessor in title of the complainants. Log Dump Road crosses the new Somerville-Warren-Griffin Store blacktop road and extends southward therefrom but the part south of the blacktop road is not in litigation.

When the old log schoolhouse dwelling burned about 1935, the complainant Arthur Lee German built a new home on the same site and occupied the same continuously until 1966. He used the Log Dump Road continuously as a means of ingress and egress to and from the public road until 1966.

In 1966 the complainants were advanced in years and moved from the dwelling partly because of the impassahility of the Log Dump Road and the refusal of the defendant Graham to permit them to improve the road or get the county to gravel it. They moved into a trailer on a 2-acre plot owned by their son James E. German, at the northeast corner of the farm. Their farm tenant continued using the Log Dump Road as access to the farm until 1969 when defendant blocked the road.

Defendant Earl Graham purchased some 356 acres of land lying south and east of the German 150-acre homeplace in 1956 from John Ozier. The surveyor’s map or plat of the farmlands purchased by Graham which was delivered to him along with his deed to the property showed the Log Dump Road running from the German southeast corner to the county blacktop' road across the Ozier lands but it was not designated by name on the plat.

From His Honor the Chancellor’s finding of fact we quote as follows:

“The proof further shows that the first time any hostile issue occurred about the road was since the defendant purchased the property, which he had owned for some twelve or thirteen years.
This Court understands hostile and adverse possession to mean that the holder of the right or easement or other lands or tenements must claim adversely against an alleged owner and exert his right hostilely in order to acquire an easement or title to other lands by adverse possession, or under the doctrine of prescription.
It is unfortunate and concerns the Court to a great extent that this roadway has been blocked, but under the law of this state, there is no other recourse that this Court can make other than to hold that the use of the road in question was permissive up until the time this issue arose, and such permissiveness by the defendant and his predecessors in title certainly does not constitute, under the facts of this case, the necessary requirements to enforce the doctrine of prescription.”

The first conveyance proven in the complainants’ chain of title to the 150-acre tract is a deed from Kyle et al. to Murrell in 1910 to 175 acres of land at a purchase price of $2,250.00. The 175 acres conveyed therein was described as a rectangle. The east and west lines were 160 poles long; the north and south lines were 175 poles long. The deed did not make any reference to any public road. However, the proof is undisputed that the old and now abandoned Arlington-Somerville public road ran generally in an eastern and western direction parallel with the south line of the Murrell 175-acre tract and at the point where the old Arlington-Somerville Road crossed the [247]*247Log Dump Road it was 630 feet south of the southeast corner of the Murrell land now owned by the complainant Mrs. Allie Mae German.

The old Somerville-Arlington public road which traversed the lands now owned by defendant Graham from east to west was abandoned and closed in 1928. Graham now has a pond dug in part of it. Traffic on the old road was diverted to the new Somerville-Warren-Griffin Store Road.

In 1912 Murrell sold to Stafford 25 acres off the north side of the 175-acre tract of land leaving 150 acres of land which were later sold to the father of the complainant Arthur Lee German in 1914. The proof is uncontradicted that in 1912 there was a log dwelling located in the southeast corner of the 150-acre Murrell tract at least one room of which was being used as a school. The access to the school and log dwelling from the public road was north along the Log Dump Road. The proof does not show the owners in 1912 of the land immediately south of the Murrell, now German, 150-acre tract; nor does the proof attempt to show when the Log Dump Road was first used as an access to the Murrell lands. Witnesses only say they attended school there in 1912 and used the Log Dump Road.

On May 11, 1914, Murrell conveyed to J. N. German, father of the complainant Arthur Lee German the remaining 150-acre tract of land for a purchase price of $2,300.00. This deed described the land by courses and distances but made no reference to public roads.

On September 1, 1917, M. I. Stafford conveyed to J. N. German a right-of-way 15 feet wide and 22.36 poles or 5.59 chains long across the east side of the 25-acre tract of land conveyed by Murrell to Stafford above mentioned. The consideration was $5.00. The northern terminus of this roadway is what is described in the testimony as being a dead-end county road known as Stafford Road. It runs eastward along the north line of the defendant Graham’s property and then turns at right angles southward along the east line of the defendant Graham’s property and intersects and dead-ends into the present blacktop Somerville-Warren-Griffin Store Road.

There is no proof that John N. German ever used the roadway purchased from Stafford as a means of ingress and egress to his farm and the preponderance of the evidence is to the contrary. He lived at the extreme southeast corner of his 150-acre farm nearly one-half mile from his northeast corner.

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Bluebook (online)
497 S.W.2d 245, 1972 Tenn. App. LEXIS 291, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/german-v-graham-tennctapp-1972.