Uhlhorn v. Keltner

637 S.W.2d 844, 1982 Tenn. LEXIS 429
CourtTennessee Supreme Court
DecidedJune 1, 1982
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 637 S.W.2d 844 (Uhlhorn v. Keltner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Tennessee Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Uhlhorn v. Keltner, 637 S.W.2d 844, 1982 Tenn. LEXIS 429 (Tenn. 1982).

Opinion

OPINION

HARBISON, Chief Justice.

This case involves title and right of possession to a crescent-shaped tract of approximately 430 acres in Tipton County, Tennessee. It is situated in the southerly portion of a region known as Centennial Island. It was once part of the bed of the Mississippi River. Ultimately it beca,me valuable farm land as. a result of what Mark Twain called a “freak” of the great river in suddenly changing its course in March, 1876, shortening the main channel by a distance of fifteen miles or more.1

The Uhlhorns, appellants here, and the Keltner and Glass families, appellees, claim the entire area under various theories hereafter discussed. After a lengthy trial in chancery, a jury found that none of the parties had held the entire tract adversely to the exclusion of the others for a sufficient time to establish a defensive title. The Chancellor and the Court of Appeals then awarded the tract to the appellees, and this Court granted further review.

A. Background and Prior Litigation

The area known as Centennial Island was formed as the result of a dramatic change of course by the Mississippi River in the early part of March 1876. The river formed [845]*845the boundary between the States of Tennessee and Arkansas. The 1876 avulsion gave rise to extended litigation between the two states to establish their correct boundary. It also spawned massive litigation concerning private land titles. Most of these cases were disposed of at the trial court level, but some of them reached the appellate courts. The present is the most recent such suit to be appealed, but its outcome, in our opinion, is materially affected by litigation between the State of Tennessee and predecessors in title of the present litigants which terminated in 1930.

The litigation concerning the state boundaries culminated in an opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Arkansas v. Tennessee, 246 U.S. 158, 38 S.Ct. 301, 62 L.Ed. 638 (1918). In that case the principal facts concerning the creation of Centennial Island were stipulated. In summary they are as follows:

Prior to the avulsion the Mississippi River had flowed southward past Dean’s Island on the Arkansas side. It then made an abrupt westerly bend and flowed west, then north, then southerly around Island No. 37 (Tennessee). A lesser channel, called McKenzie Chute, passed between that island and the Tennessee shore. This chute and the main channel joined again at the southwestern tip of that island, opposite which the river turned again east and then north, forming what was called by river pilots the Devil’s Elbow. It continued east and north around Brandywine Point or Island until it came within a distance of about two miles from the point where it originally started its northerly turn opposite Dean’s Island.

Early maps showed little change in the river between 1823 and a chart made in 1874 by the War Department, except that the river had cut into the Tennessee bank south and southwest of Dean’s Island, increasing its width from about one mile to l-Vi or IV2 miles.

The stipulation continued:

“On March 7, 1876, the river suddenly and with great violence, within about thirty hours, made for itself a new channel directly across the neck opposite the apex of Dean’s Island, so that the old channel around the bend of the elbow (a distance of fifteen to twenty miles) was abandoned by the current, and although it remained for a few years covered with dead water it was no longer navigable except in times of high water for small boats, and this continued only for a short time, since the old bed immediately began to fill with sand, sediment, and alluvial deposits. In the course of time it became dry land suitable for cultivation and to a considerable extent covered with timber. The new channel is called, from the year in which it originated, the “Centennial Cut-Off,” and the land that it separated from the Tennessee mainland goes by the name of Centennial Island.” 246 U.S. at 161-162, 38 S.Ct. at 302.

Similar descriptions of the formation of the island as a result of the avulsion are contained in extensive opinions of this Court in the cases of State v. Muncie Pulp Co., 119 Tenn. 47, 104 S.W. 437 (1907), and Stockley v. Cissna, 119 Tenn. 135, 104 S.W. 792 (1907), rev’d, 246 U.S. 289, 38 S.Ct. 306, 62 L.Ed. 720 (1918).

Holding contrary to decisions of the highest courts of both states, the Supreme Court of the United States concluded that apart from the avulsion, the true boundary line between the two states

“... is the middle of the main channel of navigation as it existed at the Treaty of Peace concluded between the United States and Great Britain in 1783, subject to such changes as have occurred since that time through natural and gradual processes.
“(2) By the avulsion of 1876 the boundary line between the States was unaffected, and remained in the middle of the former main channel of navigation, as above defined.
“(3) The boundary line should now be located according to the middle of that channel as it was at the time the current ceased to flow therein as a result of the avulsion of 1876." 246 U.S. at 177, 38 S.Ct. at 306.

[846]*846The Supreme Court of the United States appointed a commission of three persons to fix the state boundaries, and the matter was litigated between the two states for a period of several years. In the case of Arkansas v. Tennessee, 269 U.S. 152, 46 S.Ct. 31, 70 L.Ed. 206 (1925), assertions of the State of Tennessee were discussed and rejected. The Court remarked:

“The thing to be done must be regarded. It is to locate the boundary along that portion of the bed of the river that was left dry as a result of the avulsion, according to the middle of the main navigable channel at the time the current ceased to flow therein as a result of the avulsion. Absolute accuracy is not attainable.” 269 U.S. at 157, 46 S.Ct. at 32.

Ultimately the report of the commission was accepted and the boundary fixed, again over the protest of the State of Tennessee. 271 U.S. 629, 46 S.Ct. 634, 70 L.Ed. 1122 (1926). In the latter decree a total boundary length of 22.09 miles was fixed by surveyors’ calls and distances, and the Supreme Court of the United States held:

“The foregoing is here and now made the boundary line between the two states parties hereto and the same shall be treated and fixed as the boundary line in question and the same shall be marked accordingly.” 271 U.S. at 629, 46 S.Ct. at 635.

This becomes important because of testimony in the present litigation by witnesses for the appellees that the Supreme Court of the United States and its commissioners erred in fixing the boundary and in locating the 1876 navigational channel. In particular the witness for appellees, Judge Robert L.

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Bluebook (online)
637 S.W.2d 844, 1982 Tenn. LEXIS 429, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/uhlhorn-v-keltner-tenn-1982.