Joyce v. Dyer

75 N.E. 81, 189 Mass. 64, 1905 Mass. LEXIS 833
CourtMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
DecidedSeptember 8, 1905
StatusPublished
Cited by38 cases

This text of 75 N.E. 81 (Joyce v. Dyer) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Joyce v. Dyer, 75 N.E. 81, 189 Mass. 64, 1905 Mass. LEXIS 833 (Mass. 1905).

Opinion

Hammond, J.

This is a petition for partition. After a trial in the Superior Court without a jury, an interlocutory judgment was ordered for the petitioner, and the case is before us on exceptions taken by the respondent Lewis Dyer. The appeal [65]*65taken by him is not pressed. The petitioner contends that since no final judgment has been'entered the exceptions should not now be heard, but it has been settled that in a proceeding like this the exceptions may be heard although there has been no final judgment. Lowd v. Brigham, 154 Mass. 107.

The record title to the fractional part claimed by the petitioner is in her, and she must therefore prevail unless some reason to the contrary be shown. The respondent makes two objections: first, that the petitioner’s mother was not the legitimate child of Nehemiah T. Dyer, and second, that the record title is lost by long continued disseisin. The judge found that the petitioner’s mother was the legitimate child of Nehemiah T. Dyer, and that there was no actual disseisin.

In the brief of the respondent no argument is made in support of the exceptions so far as they respect the question of the legitimacy of the petitioner’s mother, and the point may be dismissed with the simple statement that, in view of the kind of evidence required to bastardize a child born in wedlock, it is manifest that the finding of the judge is amply warranted. R. L. c. 152, § 22. Hemmenway v. Towner, 1 Allen, 209, and cases cited. Phillips v. Allen, 2 Allen, 453.

The more difficult question is whether the finding that there was no actual disseisin is warranted by the evidence. Some doubt might at first arise as to the nature of the finding, whether it means that the relation of disseisor and disseisee never existed between the respondent Lewis Dyer and those under whom he claims on the one hand and the holders of the record title on the other, or whether it means that even if such a relation ever existed it never continued long enough to vest a complete title by adverse possession in the disseisor; but inasmuch as various rulings requested by Dyer as to the effect of coverture, or other disability, upon the rights of a disseisee were refused upon the ground that “ there had been no actual disseisin ” and therefore the rulings were immaterial, the obvious conclusion is that the finding means that the relation of disseisor and disseisee never existed between the respondent Dyer and his predecessors in title and the holders of the record title. Did the evidence justify such a finding?

There is no material conflict in the evidence upon that point, [66]*66and we do not understand either party to contend that the uncontradicted evidence is not to be taken as true. The facts shown were substantially as follows. In 1818, Nehemiah Thayer being seised of the real estate in question died intestate, leaving a widow and three children, Sally, wife of Isaac Dyer, Clarissa Sanborn, and Mary, wife of Joseph Dyer. The petitioner claims under this Mary, her great-grandmother. This real estate was set off to the widow of Nehemiah Thayer as a part of her dower, and the daughter Mary was the owner of one undivided third subject to this right of dower. In 1826, Peter Dyer, and Isaac Dyer the husband of Sally, bought the interest of the widow and that of Clarissa, and received deeds of the same. The widow died in 1880. On June 17,1829, Peter and Isaac Dyer conveyed the whole of the property by warranty deed containing the usual covenants of warranty, seisin, freedom from incumbrances and right to convey. Sally, the wife of Isaac, joined in the testimonium clause “ in token of her consent to the bargain, sale and relinquishment of her right, claim,” etc., and the deed was acknowledged by all three. It was not recorded until August 22, 1902. Samuel Dyer, the grantee, entered under it, occupied the building on the land as a store about 1835, and about that year changed the store into a dwelling house, into which he moved; and “ he continued to use and cultivate and live upon the property openly, peaceably, continuously and exclusively ” from 1835 down to the. time of his death, which occurred in 1865.

Samuel Dyer died intestate, leaving several children. To the two sons, Andrew, and Lewis the respondent, the other children in 1867 released their interest in the property, and in the same year Andrew quitclaimed his interest to Lewis. The deeds describe the property as the real estate formerly owned by our father Samuel Dyer,” and were duly recorded in the same year. Lewis is now sixty-seven years old, has always lived on the premises, and has been from 1867 to 1904 continuously in open, peaceable and exclusive occupation of them. It further appears that for more than sixty years before her decease Mary Dyer aforesaid lived near the property in question and was a frequent visitor at the house; that Lewis frequently visited her house, and that this intimacy continued until her decease in February, [67]*671889; that she and her husband Joseph lived together until his death, which occurred about six years before hers; that Joseph was an appraiser in the settlement of Samuel’s property and appraised the property as a part of Samuel’s estate in 1865; that Lewis never heard that any one made any claim to any part of the property until after the death of Nehemiah T. Dyer in 1892, and no legal proceedings were taken to assert any title thereto until this petition was brought.

Here, then, upon the undisputed facts is an open, peaceable, continuous and exclusive occupation of real estate under a claim of right, and there can be no doubt that in the ordinary case the relation of disseisin as between the occupiers and the owners of the record title would be conclusively shown by such facts.

It is contended, however, by the petitioner that while the deed to Samuel Dyer purported to convey the entire property, yet, even if it be assumed that it operated to convey Sally’s interest as well as that formerly owned by Clarissa, two of the daughters of Nehemiah Thayer, still in legal effect it did not convey the interest of Mary, the other daughter, and consequently Samuel became a tenant in common with Mary; and that, under the general rule of law that the possession of one tenant in common, though exclusive, being consistent with the right of the co-tenant, does not amount to a disseisin of the co-tenant in the absence of some act which the law deems equivalent to an ouster, there was no disseisin in this case, or, in other words, that it is not shown that the possession, though exclusive, was adverse to Mary.

The law upon this subject seems to be well settled. As stated by Shaw, C. J. in Rickard v. Rickard, 13 Pick. 251, 253, “It is in general true, that the seisin and possession of one tenant in common, is to be taken as the seisin and possession of his co-tenant, and the occupation of one will be deemed to be in conformity to his right and title as tenant in common, and not adverse, and consequently that lapse of time will not bar the co-tenant. But this rule is subject to some qualification, and it has long been held, that there may be an actual ouster of one tenant in common, by another, that upon such actual ouster the possession becomes adverse, and if continued for a sufficient length of time the right of the co-tenant out of possession may be barred. It is also now well settled, that a long exclusive and [68]

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
75 N.E. 81, 189 Mass. 64, 1905 Mass. LEXIS 833, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/joyce-v-dyer-mass-1905.