Seales v. Duckett

499 S.W.2d 626, 255 Ark. 237, 1973 Ark. LEXIS 1348
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedOctober 8, 1973
Docket75-89
StatusPublished

This text of 499 S.W.2d 626 (Seales v. Duckett) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Seales v. Duckett, 499 S.W.2d 626, 255 Ark. 237, 1973 Ark. LEXIS 1348 (Ark. 1973).

Opinion

J. Fred Jones, Justice.

This is an appeal by Era Seales from a chancery court decree establishing a boundary line between her property and that of Eugene Duckett and wife.

Mrs. Seales and her deceased husband acquired approximately five acres of land by metes and bounds description in 1935. Their deed is not in the record but the south 205 feet of the tract apparently extended east to the county road and was bounded on the east by a county road and on the south by a state highway. The south end of the tract measured 390 feet. Mr. and Mrs. Seales sold approximately one-third of an acre by metes and bounds description, from the southeast corner of the tract, and a store building was built thereon. The deed description of this one-third acre started at the same point where the description in the Seales’ deed started, which was the southeast corner of the Seales’ tract and recites as follows:

Run thence west 80 feet, thence north 65 feet, thence west 30 feet, thence north 75 feet, thence east 110 feet, thence south 140 feet to the point of beginning.

The evidence is uncontradicted, that in laying out this one-third acre tract, Mr. and Mrs. Seales and their grantees first measured the north 110 foot boundary line by beginning at its east end in the center of the county road. The store building was erected on the south 65 feet of this irregularly shaped plot and was located within the area measuring 65 feet north and south and 80 feet east and west. The Seales home is located on the south portion of the acreage they retained and is west of the store building located on the one-third acre they sold. The one-third acre with the store building thereon changed hands by mesne conveyance several times after Mr. and Mrs. Seales first sold it to a relative in 1951. Mr. and Mrs. Duckett first acquired title to the the property in 1967. They sold it in 1970 and reacquired it later that year under the same legal description as follows:

Part of the E H of the SW M of the NE U of Section 15, Township 5 South, Range 28 West beginning at the SE corner of said forty acres and run 270 feet West, thence North 318 feet to point of beginning, thence West 80 feet, thence North 65 feet, thence West 30 feet, thence North 75 feet, thence East 110 feet, thence South 140 feet to point of beginning containing one-third acre, more or less.

The Ducketts tore down the old store building on the property and erected a new combination grocery store and gas station building thereon. Mrs. Seales filed the present suit against the Ducketts alleging that the north and south line between her property and that of the Ducketts was seven feet west of the old store and station building and that the Ducketts, in constructing their new building, had encroached on her property. She alleged that from 1951 until 1967 when the Ducketts first purchased the property, the dividing line betweeri the two parcels of land had been agreed upon, considered and accepted by all parties concerned, as running seven feet west of the old store building, and that she had exercised continuous adverse possession of the property west of such division line. She alleged that within the past two years the Ducketts had torn down the old building and station and had erected a new building and station at least three feet west of said division line and on her property. She prayed for an injunction against the Ducketts from using any of the property west of the new station and grocery store.

The Ducketts denied that their building or improvements encroached on Mrs. Seales’ land and denied the. existence of a mutual ageement as to the west boundary line. They admitted they had constructed a new building on the site of the old building but denied they had been using any part of Mrs. Seales’ land. The Ducketts alleged affirmatively that in August, 1970, Mrs. Seales executed an affidavit of adverse possession regarding the lands in question in which she stated that the Ducketts, and those under whom they held, had had actual and undisputed possession of the lands described in the deed for more than 30 years, and they argued that Mrs. Seales was es-topped to deny their possession.

The chancellor found that upon the north portion, the 75x110 foot portion of the tract involved, a home was built over 20 years ago and a fence was erected on the 75 foot west boundary line by the owners, and that this fence was agreed by the owners as being on the west boundary line of this portion of the tract. The chancellor also found that a fence had been built from the southwest corner of this portion of the tract for a distance of 30 feet east to the northwest corner of the south portion, or the 65x80 foot portion of the tract, and that this constituted the boundary line. The chancellor found that there was much evidence that the west or 65 foot boundary line of the south, or 65x80 foot portion of the tract, was seven feet west of the west wall of the old store building by agreement of the parties concerned, but no fence or other monuments had ever been erected along this line.

The chancellor found that Duckett tore down the old store building and built a new one with its west line being four feet further west than the west wall of the old building. The chancellor observed in his findings that Duckett testified that he claimed 15 to 20 feet west of the old store building but that Duckett’s wife agreed that Mrs. Seales had always gathered the pecans from the pecan trees in this area. The court then found the true western boundary line immediately west of the old store building to commence at an old corner post 30 feet east of the southwest corner of the north 75x110 foot portion of the tract, and to run south seven feet from the old store building. The chancellor found that Mrs. Seales had established a right to the property west of this line by adverse possession. As to the “lower part of the 65 feet,” the chancellor found from Duckett’s testimony that he built a new store four feet further west than the old one and that he claimed 15 to 20 feet west of the old store. The chancellor then found the proper division line to this area to be 11 feet west of the new store’s west edge.

The chancellor’s findings are not dear to us for the reason that the plat offered in evidence as plaintiff’s exhibit No. 1 and from which all parties testified, simply shows the metes and bounds description as above set out but does not indicate where either the old or new store building is located on the south 65x80 foot portion of the tract. In any event, the chancellor amended his original decree and fixed a boundary line as follows:

“Commence at the northwest fence corner of the Duck-ett property and run south along the existing fence 75 feet; thence run east to within one foot of the west wall of the new store; thence south to a point one foot west of the southwest corner of the ice house at the southwest corner of the new store; thence west 20 feet; thence south to the State Highway.”

Mrs. Seales testified that the true boundary line was seven feet west of the old store building and when the Ducketts rebuilt the store building and gas station, the structure was built three feet west of the true boundary line and on her property and in doing so they ruined one of her pecan trees. She said, however, that she never did mention the matter to Mr. and Mrs. Duckett during the course of construcdon.

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Bluebook (online)
499 S.W.2d 626, 255 Ark. 237, 1973 Ark. LEXIS 1348, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/seales-v-duckett-ark-1973.