Polaco v. Prudencio

2010 NMCA 073, 242 P.3d 439, 148 N.M. 872
CourtNew Mexico Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 25, 2010
Docket29,599
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 2010 NMCA 073 (Polaco v. Prudencio) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New Mexico Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Polaco v. Prudencio, 2010 NMCA 073, 242 P.3d 439, 148 N.M. 872 (N.M. Ct. App. 2010).

Opinion

OPINION

FRY, Chief Judge.

{1} This appeal requires us to determine whether the suit brought by Plaintiff Ramona Salcido Polaco against Defendant Cornelia Salcido Prudencio to resolve a boundary dispute between them was barred by any statute of limitations. Polaco filed suit in 1998, approximately ten years after she first discovered that there was a dispute over the boundary line between her property and Prudencio’s, but only two years after Prudencio completed construction of a fence along that disputed boundary line. The district court concluded that due to the ongoing nature of the conflict between the parties, the cause of action was not barred by any statute of limitations and resolved the boundary dispute in favor of Polaco, ordering Prudencio to remove the fence she had built along the disputed line. Prudencio appeals only the district court’s conclusion that Polaco’s complaint was not time-barred. We affirm.

BACKGROUND

{2} The facts of this case are not in dispute. Sometime prior to 1981, Pedro Salcido, the father of Prudencio and Polaco, decided to divide his land into three parcels and give a parcel to each of his three daughters. 1 In 1981, after drawing out the boundary lines of his property and dividing the property into three parcels on paper, Salcido, along with Prudencio’s and Polaco’s husbands, built a fence along the boundary between the two sisters’ property. In 1983, the parties hired a surveyor to draft deeds stating the legal description of their respective parcels. The surveyor prepared deeds based on his survey of the property and later realized he had made an error in the deeds. Rather than issue new deeds to correct the error, the surveyor had the parties exchange deeds to portions of their parcels in order to correct the mistake.

{3} In May 1988, Salcido died. In the summer of 1988, shortly after Salcido’s death, Polaco discovered that Prudencio was beginning to take down the fence Salcido had built and that Prudencio was beginning to construct a new fence that extended the boundary line further into Polaco’s parcel of land. Following this discovery, Polaco went to the county clerk’s office and determined that the deeds prepared by the surveyor had changed the boundary line between the two properties. Polaco complained to Prudencio about the construction, and Prudencio stopped building the fence. Over the course of the next ten years, Prudencio periodically resumed construction of the fence, Polaco complained, and Prudencio stopped construction. This happened approximately four times before the completion of the fence in 1996. In 1996, Prudencio closed a gate blocking Polaeo’s access to the property.

{4} On June 5, 1998, Polaco filed suit against Prudencio to establish the boundary lines and to permanently enjoin Prudencio’s use of the land originally given to Polaco via the construction of the 1981 boundary fence. Prudencio moved for summary judgment, arguing that Polaco’s claims were barred by the four-year “catch-all” statute of limitations. In February 2000 the court heard testimony and ordered the parties to have an independent surveyor review the plats, diagrams, and legal descriptions of the property. In 2009 after a number of continuances and delays, the court ultimately ruled that the statute of limitations did not bar Polaco’s complaint and that the boundary line between the two properties was the line on which Salcido had built the fence in 1981.

{5} In concluding that Polaco’s claims were not barred by any statute of limitations, the district court found that the “dispute over the property boundaries ... [was] a continuing dispute and [that] the statute of limitations should [not] apply.” The court explained that “a conflict would arise and the building would stop” but that “sometime later additional fence would be built, and the conflict would arise again and the fence building would stop.” Because the court found that the conflict continued “until sometime between 1996 and 1998,” and because the lawsuit was filed “within the same year or two of the continuing conflict,” the court concluded that “[Polaco] timely filed [her] complaint and it should not be barred by the statute of limitations.” The court did not indicate which statute of limitations it was applying, only that the one- to two-year delay between the conclusion of the fence’s construction and the filing of the complaint was within the statute of limitations.

{6} On appeal, Prudencio argues that there is no codified statute of limitations for boundary disputes, that we should apply the four year “catch-all” statute of limitations to Polaco’s cause of action, and that the cause of action accrued in 1988 when Polaco first discovered that there was a dispute over the boundary line. Specifically, Prudencio contends that the court erred in concluding that the statute of limitations was tolled by the ongoing nature of the conflict between the two parties, arguing that the “continuing wrong doctrine” is inapplicable to Polaco’s cause of action. Because the district court did not indicate which statute of limitations it was applying to Polaco’s claims, we first address the applicable statute of limitations. Where, as here, the “facts relevant to a statute of limitations are undisputed, the standard of review is whether the court correctly applied the law to the undisputed facts.” Gilmore v. Gilmore, 2010-NMCA-013, ¶ 13, 147 N.M. 625, 227 P.3d 115 (filed 2009). This presents a question of law that we review de novo. Id.

Boundary Disputes Are Governed by the Ten-year Period Applicable to Adverse Possession

{7} The title of Polaco’s complaint stated that she was seeking to establish boundaries and fence lines and for permanent injunction. She alleged that her land was bordered by a fence that was built in 1981 by her father, her husband, and Prudencio’s husband and that she took possession of the land sometime after the fence was completed. She also alleged that Prudencio “ha[s] now attempted and in the past few years, ha[s] built and put into use a new fence, taking a large portion of [Polaco’s] land.” While the specific relief that Polaco sought — a determination of the correct boundary between the parties’ parcels — was clear from the complaint, the type of action she brought, and thus the applicable statute of limitations, is not entirely clear.

{8} Both parties construe the cause of action as a boundary dispute. Our Supreme Court has recognized that “[ejectment is the remedy ordinarily invoked in the settlement of such disputes.” Murray Hotel Co. v. Golding, 54 N.M. 149, 156, 216 P.2d 364, 368 (1950). In order to bring an action for ejectment, it is sufficient that a plaintiff “declare in his complaint that on some day, named therein, he was entitled to the possession of the premises, describing them; and that the defendant, on a day named in the complaint, afterwards entered into such premises and unlawfully withheld from the plaintiff the possession thereof.” NMSA 1978, § 42-4-5 (1907). Polaco’s complaint alleged that she possessed and was entitled to possess property on one side of the fence that was built by her father and that Prudencio took possession of that property by building a fence that encroached on her property and therefore withheld from Polaco possession of the land.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
2010 NMCA 073, 242 P.3d 439, 148 N.M. 872, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/polaco-v-prudencio-nmctapp-2010.