Parkerson v. Brown

2013 Ark. App. 718, 430 S.W.3d 864, 2013 WL 6252551, 2013 Ark. App. LEXIS 737
CourtCourt of Appeals of Arkansas
DecidedDecember 4, 2013
DocketCV-12-663
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 2013 Ark. App. 718 (Parkerson v. Brown) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Parkerson v. Brown, 2013 Ark. App. 718, 430 S.W.3d 864, 2013 WL 6252551, 2013 Ark. App. LEXIS 737 (Ark. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

WAYMOND M. BROWN, Judge.

|,Gail Parkerson, pro se, appeals from the Garland County Circuit Court’s ruling that she failed to establish adverse possession or a boundary by acquiescence of a small tract of land adjacent to Lake Hamilton, and that she had abandoned an earlier-acquired prescriptive easement over that property for the purpose of ingress and egress to the lake. This court remanded for rebriefmg because of multiple deficiencies in the abstract and argument in the [¡¡.statement of the ease on May 1, 2013. 1 Appellant has adequately corrected those deficiencies and now we address the merits of this case.

This case has been before this court before. 2 There we set forth the lengthy history of litigation among the parties:

Gail Parkerson appeals from an order denying her motion to intervene in a title confirmation action filed by appellee Janet Brown. Brown petitioned the circuit court to confirm title to land she bought at a tax sale, but she did not join Parkerson, who had an easement over the property, or appellees Thomas and Blanche Choate, who owned part of the properly. The Choates eventually intervened in the action and executed a consent judgment with Brown that divided the land between them. Parkerson discovered the consent judgment and moved to intervene, but the circuit court denied her motion, leading to this appeal. We reverse and remand with directions to allow Parkerson’s intervention.
Parkerson owns a lot in Hot Springs that has been in her family since the 1950s. The lot is bordered on the east by Bayshore Drive and on the west by Lake Hamilton. Parkerson’s neighbors to the southwest are the Choates. Between the two lots is a triangular tract of land whose owner has not been identified. In 1990, Parkerson filed suit in Garland County Chancery Court claiming adverse possession of the tract. In a 1992 order, the chancellor denied Par-kerson’s claim but ruled that she and three other persons had an easement over the majority of the properly. The chancellor directed the Garland County tax assessor to determine who owned and used the easement and to prorate the taxes accordingly. The chancellor also quieted title in a portion of the property to the Choates’ predecessors, Samuel and Phyllis Fullerton. The portion was described as the “real property evidenced by a line in a southwesterly direction from the metal pin on the road to the end of the rock sea wall.” The court’s order stated that the exact description of the Fullerton property and the disputed easement would be established by a future survey. The record does not indicate that the survey ever took place.
The county assessor attempted to follow the court’s order by listing Parker-son and others as the owners of an easement, described on some records as Parcel 4688. According to Parkerson, she duly paid her taxes on the parcel. In 1997, the Choates bought the Fullerton property and commissioned a survey, which reflected their |sownership of a strip of land along their eastern border that was “obtained in Chancery Court No. 90-453-J.” The survey made no findings regarding the easement.
At some point thereafter, the county assessor forfeited Parcel 4688 to the State Land Commissioner for nonpayment of taxes. The assessor’s office would later acknowledge that Parker-son’s name was erroneously omitted from its tax records in 2001. In 2004, Janet Brown bought Parcel 4688 at a tax sale for $5000, plus $101.31 in unpaid taxes. Nothing in the record indicates that Parkerson was afforded notice of the tax delinquency or the tax sale. On May 8, 2007, Brown filed a petition to confirm title to the property in herself. Despite having a deed from the Land Commissioner that contained only a brief identification of the property, Brown’s petition set forth a complete metes-and-bounds description that matched the description of the tract at issue in the 1990 chancery case — the property over which Parkerson obtained an easement and the Choates obtained partial ownership (through their predecessors, the Fullertons). Brown named Harlan and Mary Hankins, who were listed in the tax records on Parcel 4688, as defendants, but she did not name Parkerson or the Choates. She did, however, publish notice of her petition in the newspaper once a week for four weeks as required by law. 3
The Hankinses did not respond to Brown’s petition, and the circuit court entered an order confirming title in Brown, using the metes-and-bounds description in Brown’s petition. Rather quickly, the Choates discovered Brown’s claim of ownership and moved to intervene. The circuit court allowed the intervention and set aside the title-confirmation order. On May 22, 2008, Brown and the Choates entered into a consent judgment that essentially vested the Choates with title to the land obtained by the Fullertons in the 1992 chancery order and vested Brown with title to the remainder of the tract. Parkerson learned of the situation two months later and moved to intervene, claiming an interest in the property by virtue of her easement and adverse possession both before and after the 1992 decree. Par-kerson asserted that the failure to notify her of the tax-delinquency and title-confirmation proceedings deprived her of due process; that Brown’s deed from the Land Commissioner lacked a valid description; and that Brown made misrepresentations to the court in order to obtain title to the parcel. She also submitted an affidavit stating that she was the only person who had used and maintained the subject property following the 1992 order and that she had contacted the assessor yearly since that time to ascertain her tax |4obligation and pay it in full. The circuit court denied Parker-son’s motion to intervene, and this appeal followed. 4 , 5

This court then held that appellant was entitled to intervene and remanded for trial.

After all of the circuit judges in that district recused, the Administrative Office of the Courts appointed Judge John Line-berger to try the case. After a trial on February 7-8, 2012, the circuit court issued an opinion on March 22, 2012, ruling that appellant had abandoned the easement awarded in the 1992 order; that she had failed to establish adverse possession; and that she had failed to establish a boundary by acquiescence. The court denied appellant’s petition to confirm title to the easement area; directed the county’s tax collector and assessor to recognize ap-pellees Thomas and Blanche Choate as the owners of the property described in the December 18, 1997 exchange warranty deed and the May 22, 2008 consent judgment, and to recognize Ron Lewsader Construction, LLC, (which had also asserted an interest) as the sole owner of the property described in a deed dated June 13, 2008.

Appellant filed an objection and motion to amend on March 30, 2012. The court entered an order on April 11, 2012, amending the decree and dismissing Lewsader’s claim against appellant for damages and denying appellant’s motion in all other respects. Appellant filed a notice of appeal on May 10, 2012, from the March 22 and April 11, 2012 orders, “as well as all of this Court’s Orders and rulings in this entire case ... including ...

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Bluebook (online)
2013 Ark. App. 718, 430 S.W.3d 864, 2013 WL 6252551, 2013 Ark. App. LEXIS 737, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/parkerson-v-brown-arkctapp-2013.