Waldron v. W. M. Ritter Lumber Co.

94 S.E. 393, 80 W. Va. 792, 1917 W. Va. LEXIS 100
CourtWest Virginia Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 2, 1917
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 94 S.E. 393 (Waldron v. W. M. Ritter Lumber Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering West Virginia Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Waldron v. W. M. Ritter Lumber Co., 94 S.E. 393, 80 W. Va. 792, 1917 W. Va. LEXIS 100 (W. Va. 1917).

Opinions

Miller, Judge’:

Upon writ of error thereto we are asked to reverse the judgment below, in an action of trespass for cutting timber, setting aside the verdict of the jury in favor of the plaintiff, and awarding the defendant a new trial.

[793]*793Our decisions say that a stronger case must be presented to justify reversal of a judgment awarding than one denying a new trial and pronouncing final judgment on the verdict.

The land claimed in the declaration is a tract of one hundred acres, more or less, and is described therein as being a portion of the land' conveyed to plaintiff by W. L. Taylor, trustee, by deed dated February 25, 1908.

It is proven, if not conceded, that the land on which the timber was cut is within the boundary of a larger tract of fifty thousand acres, known as the Lansburg title, and shown to have been owned and possessed by defendant.

At the trial plaintiff for title and color of title and possession thereunder adverse to that of defendant to give him good title, relied upon, first, the immediate deed to him from W. L. Taylor, trustee, dated February 25, 1908; second, a deed of trust from A. S. Waldron and wife to said Taylor, trustee, dated March 27, 1893, and under which the land conveyed thereby was, on the 27th day of April, 1896, sold by said trustee, for the debt secured thereby, and was purchased by plaintiff; third, two deeds, one dated June 4, 1886, from William Hagerman to A. S. Waldron, calling by metes and bounds for sixty three acres, the south east end of a one hundred and twenty five acre tract, the other dated October 28, 1886, from Malkiah Puckett and wife to said A. S. Wal-dron, calling for sixty two acres, the balance of said one hundred and twenty five acres; third, certain intermediate deeds not necessary to particularly describe, all going back by a successive chain to a patent issued to Hezekiah A. Harman for a tract of one hundred and twenty five acres described therein by metes and bounds, dated April 2, 1855.

This is the only source of title relied on by plaintiff, except, first, a deed dated the 9th day of May, 1896, from A. C. Wal-dron to Belle Waldron, describing the land on which the timber was cut, and the judgment for plaintiff against them, affirmed by this court, 73 W. Va. 312, holding defendants therein tenants of plaintiff, and adverse possession by them for more than ten years; second, the record of the chancery cause of John W. Waldron versus W. M. Ritter Lumber [794]*794Company, and particularly the orders therein enjoining the defendant, pending said suit in ejectment, from cutting said timber, suspended by order of this court on appeal, but subsequently affirmed on final hearing, 70 W. Va. 470, and also the answer of the W. M. Ritter Lumber Company, pleaded as an estoppel, and in which in addition to its other title it was alleged:

“Respondent further says that it has title to the timber on said 100 acre tract of land by virtue of deeds and conveyances to it under what is locally known as the Lansburg 50,000 acres title, emanating from the Commonwealth of Virginia in a grant issued by said Commonwealth to Robert Morris, March 4, 1795, for 320,000 acres of land, as will appear from certified copies of said grant, deeds and other title papers connecting respondent with said grant, which will be hereafter filed herewith as ‘Exhibit Lansburg, 50,000 Title’, if so required by the Court. Respondent also holds said timber as fee simple owner thereof and by virtue of a claim of title originating in the said conveyance from A. C. Waldron to Belle Waldron, dated May 9th, 1896, hereinbe-fore referred to as Exhibit ‘B’, which said timber was conveyed to respondent by said Belle Waldron and A. C. Wal-dron, her husband, by deed dated April 29th, 1910, and of record in said McDowell County Court Clerk’s Office a certified copy of which is filed herewith as part hereof.
“Respondent denies that plaintiff has or ever at any time had any possession whatsoever of the said 100 acres tract but on the contrary avers that the said Belle Waldron has had and held the adverse, hostile, visible, notorious, exclusive, continuous, and unbroken possession of said lands ever since the date of said deed from A. C. Waldron to her of May 9, 1896, by residing thereon, and by clearing, fencing, cultivating and otherwise improving the same. ’ ’ Some other documentary evidence was also introduced and relied on by plaintiff, which as we view the case it is unnecessary to more specifically refer to.

We think it clearly appears from the evidence that neither the original patent nor any subsequent deed under which plaintiff can claim title, except the immediate deed to him [795]*795from Taylor, trustee, covers the one hundred acre tract involved and upon which the timber was cut; indeed we do not understand that this fact is seriously controverted. The surveyors and all other witnesses examined on the subject seem to agree that if the boundary of the one hundred and twenty five acres be limited and laid down on the ground as called- for by these title papers the one hundred acre tract will not be included.

Such being the evidence, but two principal questions remain: First, did plaintiff as against the older title of defendant company acquire title to the land by color or claim of title and possession thereunder for the requisite period to hold the same as against the defendant company; second, whether or not the defendant by the judgment in ejectment against A. C. Waldron and Belle Waldron, to which it was not a party, or by the allegation in its answer in the injunction suit referred to, is estopped in this suit to deny the right and title of the plaintiff to the land or the timber sued for.

On the first question, as already indicated, the only title paper of plaintiff covering the one hundred acre tract is the immediate deed to him from Taylor, trustee, of February 25, 1908. Neither the deed of trust under which Taylor sold the one hundred and twenty five acre tract to Waldron, nor any prior deed back to the patent to Harman covers the one hundred acre tract; and the evidence is conclusive that the trustee in executing the deed to Waldron more than ten years after the date of the sale by him was induced to follow a description furnished him by Waldron, according to a survey made for Waldron, run not according to Waldron’s title papers, but so as to take in and cover the one hundred acre tract. It is conceded, however, that this deed by Taylor, trustee, to Waldron, made in 1908, was not old enough nor was possession under it long enough to ripen into good title as against the defendant company. But it is argued that because a house was built some years ago by mistake on the one hundred acre tract, outside the boundary of the one -hundred and twenty five acres covered by plaintiff’s title papers, and referred to in the record as the Malakiah Puckett house, and was occupied for many years by plaintiff, his [796]*796tenants, or some one under whom he claims and particularly by A. C. Waldron and Belle Waldron against whom he obtained his judgment in ejectment, and who, by the deed from A. C. Waldron to Belle Waldron, made during their occupancy of the land, and which describes the one hundred acres and defined the boundary of their claim, constituted sufficient color or claim of title, to ripen into good title as against the older title of the defendant company.

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Bluebook (online)
94 S.E. 393, 80 W. Va. 792, 1917 W. Va. LEXIS 100, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/waldron-v-w-m-ritter-lumber-co-wva-1917.