Hanna v. Green

329 So. 2d 850
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedMarch 15, 1976
Docket12862
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 329 So. 2d 850 (Hanna v. Green) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hanna v. Green, 329 So. 2d 850 (La. Ct. App. 1976).

Opinion

329 So.2d 850 (1976)

Richard L. HANNA et al.
v.
Harris GREEN and Lois Talt Green.

No. 12862.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Second Circuit.

March 15, 1976.

*851 Horton & Jones by William R. Jones, Coushatta, for plaintiffs-appellants.

Wright, Dawkins, James, Hogg & Bleich by Bert C. Hogg, Ruston, for defendants-appellees.

Before BOLIN, HALL and MARVIN, JJ.

MARVIN, Judge.

The several plaintiffs (hereafter called Hanna) appeal from a judgment decreeing defendants (Harris Green, et ux) to be owners of several tracts of real property in Lincoln Parish. We affirm.

Filed in 1973, the Hanna suit was styled as an action to remove a cloud from the Hanna title, under which title Hanna *852 claimed ownership of the SW/4 of the SW/4 of Section 24, Township 20 North, Range 3 West, less excepted tracts. For simplicity, we refer to the property as the SW/4 of the SW/4. Defendants alleged their ownership of several tracts within the SW/4 of the SW/4 and pleaded the acquisitive prescription of 10 and 30 years.

In 1856, a patent issued to John Green for 240 acres of land including the subject property and adjacent lands in Sections 24 and 25.[1] In 1877, D. L. Green acquired 470 acres including the SW/4 of SW/4 from John Green.

During his lifetime, D. L. Green disposed of various tracts of land to several vendees, including W. R. Madden, Jim Brax Morrow, and the Hopewell Church. In 1931 in a foreclosure brought against the D. L. Green estate (through his widow and administratrix) R. B. Hanna (plaintiffs' ancestor) purchased the property foreclosed at a sheriff's sale.[2] R. B. Hanna and his descendants have since corporeally and civilly possessed some portions of the property described in the sheriff's deed.[3]

An understanding of the issues and claims of acquisitive prescription as concerns the several tracts disputed between Hanna and defendants may be facilitated by referring to a detailed survey in the record which was prepared by C. L. Albritton, an expert witness who testified below. A facsimile of the pertinent detail of this survey is reproduced here. Also reproduced here is the pertinent part of 1912 partition plat which is hereafter mentioned.

*853

*854

*855 Defendants claim or trace their titles (1) from the excepted tracts mentioned in the sheriff's deed; (2) to deeds from persons other than successors in title to D. L. Green, primarily persons who derive title from the heirs of B. F. Stokes by virtue of a partition between these heirs in 1912; and (3) on the basis of open and uninterrupted possession as owner for more than 10 years and for more than 30 years under the law and codal articles relating to acquisitive prescription.

In the 1912 partition, Ila Stokes acquired, with adjacent properties, a tract in the SW/4 of the SW/4 described as:

"5.88 acres in the shape of a `V' in the nw in the SW/4 of SW/4 [sic] . . ."

The plat filed with and referred to in the partition instrument shows that the V-shaped tract is north and west of Brushy Branch, a creek running through the area.

In 1915 Ila Stokes and her sister, Alma Stokes Avery, entered into an exchange whereby Mrs. Avery acquired the V-shaped property by the same description and by reference to the partition as recorded at a specific conveyance book and page.[4] The tract referred to as the V-shaped property is shown on the facsimile survey as Tract A, and as Tract B, bounded north and west by the forty lines and east and south by Brushy Branch. The trial court found that Alma Stokes Avery, and her later successors in title (and we note, by virtually the identical description), including the defendants, had enclosed Tract A by fences and other visible boundaries and had openly and without interruption possessed Tract A as owner, respectively, since about the year 1915 to the time of the trial. The record amply supports the lower court's findings.

Tract B of the facsimile survey is that property between what was an old eastern boundary fence of Tract A and Brushy Branch erected by W. R. Madden. Tract C is the property lying south and east of Tracts A and B and lying north and west of the state highway. In 1917, W. R. Madden acquired what the trial court found was Tract B by a deed from Alma Stokes Avery, et vir, containing this description:

A strip of land containing 5 acres, more or less, in the West Side of SW/4 of Sec. 24, T. 20 N., R. 3 West, bounded on the East by Brushy Branch and surrounded on the North, West, and South by a wire fence built by W. R. Madden to determine the boundary lines on these three sides.

In 1915, W. R. Madden acquired from D. L. Green "one-half acre" described by metes and bounds beginning at the southeast corner of the Hopewell Church lot [Tract F] and property by this description:

". . . Also all of the land East of Brusby [sic] Branch and West of the Public Road, making the Public Road the East Line and Jim Brack's Land the South Line, containing 5 acres more or less. All in SW ¼ of SW ¼ Sec. 24, Tp. 20, N. R. 3 West . . ."

It is the above property said to contain five acres that is Tract C.

Jim Brack, as revealed by the testimony and as found by the trial court, was *856 Jim Brax Morrow, who in 1904, under a deed from D. L. Green went into possession of land contiguous to the southwest corner of the SW/4 of SW/4. A son of Jim Brax Morrow testified that he was born on the property in 1907 and lived there for approximately 25 years. He testified as to the neighbors and as to a fence on the east of his father's property, the west boundary of Tract A. Among the neighbors were W. R. Madden and Cal Moore. By mesne conveyances, defendants acquired Tract A from Mrs. Avery's successors in 1964. The trial court found that fences, hedgerows or turnrows, enclosing these tracts (A, B and C), separately or with other property owned by a respective possessor, existed continuously since about the year 1915. While one owner-possessor might have removed interior fences when two or more tracts were acquired by the one owner, all of the SW/4 of the SW/4 lying north and west of the state highway had been adversely possessed within enclosures by defendants or their predecessors in title for more than 30 years. The trial court further found that D. L. Green did not possess or claim to possess any portion of the SW/4 of the SW/4 west and north of the highway after the year 1915 and that R. B. Hanna and the plaintiffs did not possess [we add corporeally] any portion of the SW/4 of the SW/4 north and west of the highway before or after the 1931 sheriff's sale. The trial court's findings are fully supported by the record.

In the SW/4 of the SW/4 east of the highway, defendants acquired by mesne conveyances the excepted ½-acre W. R. Madden tract (F) and the Hopewell School tract (E) which were excepted from the sheriff's deed. The lower court found that the requisites of the 30-year acquisitive prescription had been met by defendants and defendants ancestors in title. The record supports these conclusions. Neither plaintiffs nor defendants claim ownership or possession of the Hopewell Cemetery lot of 1.9 acres, a small triangular portion of which lies in the SW/4 of the SW/4 immediately south of the north forty line and west of the highway.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
329 So. 2d 850, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hanna-v-green-lactapp-1976.