Patton v. Forgey

153 S.W. 575, 171 Mo. App. 1, 1913 Mo. App. LEXIS 578
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedFebruary 4, 1913
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 153 S.W. 575 (Patton v. Forgey) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Patton v. Forgey, 153 S.W. 575, 171 Mo. App. 1, 1913 Mo. App. LEXIS 578 (Mo. Ct. App. 1913).

Opinion

NORTONT, J.

This is a suit in equity. Plaintiff sued out an injunction against defendants Forgey and wife, restraining them from further obstructing a public road connecting with his pasture. At the hearing, the court found the issue for plaintiff and decreed a perpetual injunction against defendant A. J. Forgey, but made no disposition of the case whatever as to defendant Sarah J. Forgey. From this judgment defendants prosecute the appeal.

The road in question is a cul de sac, which runs to the westward from the public road known as the Gravel road near Paynesville in Pike county, and connects with plaintiff’s farm of one hundred and fifty-four acres, in the rear of some adjacent tracts on the outskirts of that town. The evidence tends to prove that this road is about twenty feet in width, but its length does not appear. The main public road, known as the Gravel road, runs north and south through the town of Paynesville and passes over Water street of the town. The road involved in this controversy, said to be twenty feet in width, runs west from the Gravel road between lot sixteen in a certain block of the town of Paynesville, which is situate on the north thereof, and a lot known as the Kreitz lot, immediately on the south of it. After passing between these lots, the road extends farther westward between two tracts of land owned by defendants, and connects with plaintiff’s farm beyond. The evidence is well nigh conclusive that this road had been continually in use by the pub-[5]*5lie for a period of about sixty years until defendant obstructed it by placing a wire fence across tbe same, near tbe point where it intersects tbe Gravel road.

It appears that more than forty-five years ago, this road was used by one and all as a passageway to a schoolhouse located on a tract of land now owned by defendant, which is situate to the west and in the rear of lot sixteen. For many years this road served to accommodate several families who resided on the several tracts of land it touched, to the west of Paynes-ville, and during all of the time it has served to accommodate the farm now owned by plaintiff, by furnishing a short route to Paynesville. The several other tracts are now owned by defendants. Different persons who reside along the road repaired it at times as was needed, by hauling gravel upon it and maintaining a bridge immediately adjacent to where it connects with the main or Gravel road. The adjacent proprietors recognized this way as a road, for during all the years they have set and maintained their fences along the sides of the same accordingly, and every person who desired to has used and occupied the road as a passway to and from the premises adjoining. Indeed, the evidence tending to show a continuous, open .and adverse user for a period of about sixty years on the part of the public as to this road is conclusive. No one denies or disputes it. However, the right of plaintiff with respect to the matter is denied because he executed a general warranty deed to defendant A. J. Forgey in 1883, whereby he conveyed lot sixteen above mentioned in the town of Paynesville to defendant A. J. Forgey, and included in the deed a description of the ground adjacent thereto occupied by the road. It was on this strip of ground so described in the deed from plaintiff to A. J. Forgey that defendant obstructed the road by putting wire across the same about a year before the institution of this suit.

[6]*6As before stated, the road in question here passed west from the G-ravel road between the fences on the south side of lot sixteen and the fence on the north ■side of the Kreitz lot. Both of these lots are now owned, and have been for many years, by defendants. In 1883 Forgey purchased lot sixteen from plaintiff and plaintiff executed a warranty deed conveying the same to him. This deed further described and purported to convey from plaintiff to Forgey the parcel of ground lying immediately south of lot sixteen and north of the Kreitz lot, which was then, and had been for some thirty or thirty-five years theretofore, occupied by this roadway. Though it appears plaintiff’s deed incorporated this strip of ground as if he conveyed it to Forgey, the latter did not inclose it at the time, and the public use continued as before. About fifteen years ago, Forgey constructed a fence along.the north side of the Kreitz lot, which was immediately adjacent to and south of the road in question, and ever since that time, until about a year before this suit, when he obstructed it by placing a wire across the same, the road continued open between his two fences — the one fence maintained by him along the south side of lot sixteen and the other fence maintained by him along the north side of the Kreitz lot. About, a year before this suit was instituted, Mr. Forgey stretched wire across this lane which he had constructed between his two lots and thus obstructed the further passage of persons over the road through the lane.

Our statute, passed in 1887 (See Laws of Missouri 1887, p. 257; R. S. 1899, sec. 9694), providing that no lapse of time shall divest the owner of his title to the land unless, in addition to the use of the' road by the public for a period of ten consecutive years, there shall have been public money or labor expended thereon, is without influence in the case. This road was established through prescription, by the continued open, adverse user by the public long before the stat[7]*7ute was enacted. Obviously that statute is not retroactive, and it therefore appears that a public road obtained along the south side of lot sixteen and along the north side of the Kreitz lot, on the very ground which plaintiff attempted to convey to defendant in 1883, and this is true even though no public money or labor had been expended thereon theretofore. The ■continued open, adverse user for the purposes of the public road for the period of some thirty or thirty-five years before plaintiff executed the deed in 1883 was sufficient to establish the easement of the public fhereon, for the uses and purposes of the public road. [See Sikes v. St. Louis & S. F. R. Co., 127 Mo. App. 326, 105 S. W. 700.] This being true, it is obvious that plaintiff’s deed executed in 1883 conveyed nothing with respect to this road to defendant, for even if he owned the land described in the deed and on which the road obtained, he could not oust the easement of the public by a mere conveyance and invest defendant with any right thereto which he did not himself possess.

But it is argued that, by this conveyance, plaintiff ■divested himself of all right, title and interest in the parcel of ground occupied by the road and that any title which he may have acquired since that time by virtue of a continuous user in passing to and from his farm over this route since 1883 inured to defendant, and that this alone precludes his right to relief here. There can be no doubt that where one conveys lands which he does not own at the time, with the usual covenant importing an indefeasible seisin, as here, as by employing the statutory words of grant, bargain and sell, and the covenants which they imply, any subsequently-acquired title to such lands in the grantor inures to the grantee in the deed. [See Cockrill v. Bane, 94 Mo. 444, 7 S. W. 480.] But though such be true, the doctrine is without influence here, for plain-ttiff acquired no title to this strip of land which he [8]*8did not own at the time of- the conveyance and so occupied by the road, by his subsequent use of the same in passing to and from his farm, for the easement of the public continued throughout those years precisely as before.

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Bluebook (online)
153 S.W. 575, 171 Mo. App. 1, 1913 Mo. App. LEXIS 578, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/patton-v-forgey-moctapp-1913.