Inhabitants of School-District No. Four v. Benson

31 Me. 381

• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Maine
• Decided: July 1, 1850
• Status: Published

Opinion

Wells, J.

The jury were instructed, that if, in 1847, the-agent of the school-district, at the request of the defendants, removed said woodhouse where it now is, intending to relinquish and give up the land, and the district had subsequently ratified his acts by their conduct or otherwise, of which they were the judges, then such abandonment, notwithstanding the district might before that time have had an open, adverse, exclusive and notorious possession of the land, or some part of it, for more than twenty years, would operate an abandonment of their possession, and a surrender of their claim to the former owners thereof, and the plaintiffs could not recover the said land in this suit.

It is true, that a mere possession of land of itself does not necessarily imply a claim of right. The tenant may hold in subjection to the lawful owner, not intending to deny his-right or to assert a dominion over the fee. But the terms '! open, notorious, adverse and exclusive, when applied to the mode in which one holds lands, must be understood as indicating a claim of right. They constitute an appropriate definition of a disseizin, and the acts which they describe, will have that effect if not controlled or explained by other testimony. Little v. Libbey, 2 Greenl. 242; The Proprietors of Kennebec Purchase v. John Springer, 4 Mass. 416. An adverse possession entirely excludes the idea of a holding by consent.

If the plaintiffs have held the premises by a continued disseizin for twenty years, the right of entry by the defendants is taken away, and any action by them to recover the same, is barred by limitation. Stat. c. 147, § 1.

' A legal title is equally valid when once acquired, whether it be by a disseizin or by deed, it vests the fee simple although the modes of proof when adduced to establish it may differ. Nor is a judgment at law necessary to perfect a title by disseizin any more than one by deed. In either case, when the title is in controversy, it is to be shown by legal proof, and a continued disseizin for twenty years is as effectual for that purpose as a deed duly executed. The title is created by the existence of the facts, and not by the exhibition of them in evidence.

An open, notorious, exclusive and adverse possession for twenty years, would operate to convey a complete title to the plaintiffs, as much so as any written conveyance. And such title is not only an interest in the land, but it is one of the highest character, the absolute dominion over it, and the appropriate mode of conveying it is by deed.

No doubt a disseizor may abandon the land, or surrender his possession by parol, to the disseizee, at any time before his disseizin has ripened into a title, and thus put an entire end to his claim. His declarations are admissible in evidence to show the character of bis seizin, whether he holds adversely or in subordination to the legal title. 'But the title, obtained by a disseizin so long continued as to take away the right of entry, and bar an action for the land by limitation, cannot be conveyed, by a parol abandonment or relinquishment, it must be transferred by deed. One, having such title, may go out of possession, declaring he abandons it to the former owner, and intending never again to make any claim to the land, and so may the person who holds an undisputed title by deed; but the law does not preclude them from reclaiming what they have abandoned in a manner not legally binding upon tiiem. A parol conveyance of lands creates nothing more than an estate or lease at will. Stat. c. 91, § 30.

The exceptions are sustained and a new trial granted.