Hadsall v. West

67 N.W.2d 516, 246 Iowa 606, 1954 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 442
CourtSupreme Court of Iowa
DecidedDecember 14, 1954
Docket48605
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 67 N.W.2d 516 (Hadsall v. West) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Iowa primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hadsall v. West, 67 N.W.2d 516, 246 Iowa 606, 1954 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 442 (iowa 1954).

Opinion

Bliss, J.

Plaintiff has owned and occupied; tbe Northwest Quarter of Section 11, Township 79, North, Range 21, in Jasper County, Iowa, since 1936. Anna West had an interest in the west half of the Northeast Quarter of said section in 1886 as an heir of her father, Peter Cragen, who bought it in 1872, and by devise and conveyances she became the sole owner in 1936, and so continued until her death during the pendency of this appeal. She died intestate, and her two children, the substituted appellants, inherited said land. The defendants, Clarence and Elma Yoakum, husband and wife, took possession of this land of Anna West, as her tenants, in the spring of 1950, and so occupied it thereafter. Although the record shows them to have no other interest, they have been very aggressive and active participants in the controversy.

The pleadings, in addition to the petition, answer and reply, include cross and counter pleadings and their answers, necessarily quite repetitious, cover thirty-one pages of a 225-page printed record, and it is difficult to make a concise statement of them. Able opposing counsel disagree somewhat on the nature of the issues.

The farms of the parties are about a mile west of the city of Colfax, and abut paved Highway No. 6 on its south side. Plaintiff was a tenant on his present farm during the year 1930. It was then owned by the children of Joanna and George Evans. The parents had acquired the farm April 12, 1892, by deed from James Callanan. Joanna Evans, by decree of divorce and quitclaim deed, became the sole owner of the farm in 1902 and lived on it until her death in January 1921. Her children then inherited this quarter section and another quarter section just west of it. Later, in a partition suit, the said Northwest Quarter of Section 11 was sold to plaintiff, and he received a referee’s *608 deed to it dated November 7, 1936. During 1937 he operated the farm by hired help, and in October of that year he and his family took actual possession of the farm and have operated it since.

The farm buildings on the place were in the north part on what was known as Indian Hill, because of arrowheads and Indian relics found there. In the south or back end of the farm there was a house whose occupants were not engaged in farming, but were otherwise employed. The main farm buildings were in the same location at the time of the trial as they had always been, except that in 1945 or 1946 a new residence was built about five rods north of where the house had formerly been. There was at all times a driveway leading directly north from the farm buildings to the public road, now designated as Highway No. 6. This driveway is about 600 feet west of the north end of the boundary line involved in this suit.

The buildings on the eighty acres of Anna West, and those claiming under her, have been and are about eighty rods south of the northwest corner of the tract and quite close to the west line. This west line, as surveyed by the Government, coincides, of course, with the east boundary line of plaintiff’s land, and is the line about which this litigation centers.

When plaintiff bought his farm the inside fences, and particularly the division fence between his land and that of Mrs. West, were bad, and in 1938 he asked her to join him in having a survey made. She refused. Plaintiff then employed B. H. Shivers, sixty-nine years old, of Des Moines, a licensed civil engineer of thirty-five years experience, to locate on the ground, the Government survey line between the two properties. This he did in October of that year. He found all of the Government survey corners of the section. Both sides agree that there is no question as to the correct location of these corners. Mr. Shivers found the north quarter corner of the section marked by a lead plug in the center of the highway on the north side of the section. By the north quarter corner is meant the point at the center of the north line of" the section east and west. That would be the northwest corner of Mrs. West’s land and the northeast corner of plaintiff’s land. Mr. Shivers found the cen *609 ter of the section and marked it with a flat metal bar, the dimensions of which were 7]?4, x %" x 4'. Pie sank this in the ground at the center point of the section with the top somewhat below the surface of the ground. A line drawn between the north quarter corner directly south to the center point of the section is the true Government survey line making the boundary line between the land of the parties.

Mr. Shivers as a witness for plaintiff testified: “I made observations or notations in regard to the location of the north and south division fence between the two farms. The corner post at the south end was two feet west of the center of the section, and the forty going north would be eighty rods north, about seven or eight feet west. That was the way the fence was located in 1938.”

Plaintiff testified: “When I had Mr. Shivers make a survey in 1938 I asked Mrs. West to go with me and make it and she refused. After I had made that survey I asked Mrs. West a time or two for us to try and get those fences straightened up, that I didn’t think I should be furnishing the land there for that road, although I was using it too, somewhat, as I continued to use it to go to my field when I needed to. If I wanted to move down the pavement, I went down that road and came in there and went up in the.back field. I got through that fence at the gate at about the forty-rod line.”

As noted herein, counsel viewed the issues in differing lights. Counsel for appellee thus expressed it in their Brief and Argument on page 3 thereof:

“The Nature of the Action: Though Appellants’ Statement of the Nature of the Action is literally correct, it is so composed as to give an inaccurate perspective of the case. It depicts the controversy as principally a line fence dispute governed by the judicial rules of acquiescence and adverse possession, whereas the original and principal issue between the parties was the question of the right of appellants to an easement for a private roadway over Appellee’s land, governed by the legislative requirements of Section 564.1 of the Iowa Code.”

Appellants in their Reply Brief and Argument challenge-this contention of appellee, and close with this sentence: “Appel *610 lants believe that an examination of the pleadings as they appear in the record will disclose that the nature of this action and the issues raised by the pleadings are as stated in their Brief and Argument.”

We agree with appellants’ position, although there is potential, or rather, apparent, basis for appellee’s view. It is true that appellants claim the roadway, but they do not contend they have an easement for a roadway. An easement in land, as this court has held in many decisions, “is a liberty, privilege or advantage in land without profit, existing distinct from the ownership of the soil * * See Cook v. The C., B. & Q. R. Co., 40 Iowa 451, 456, and cases cited in Webb v. Arterburn, 246 Iowa 363, 378, 67 N.W.2d 504, 513. (Italics ours.)

It is true appellants are claiming the roadway, which, for approximately 850 feet, is on appellee’s land, according to the Government survey, but they claim its ownership

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Bluebook (online)
67 N.W.2d 516, 246 Iowa 606, 1954 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 442, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hadsall-v-west-iowa-1954.