This appeal arises out of a real property boundary dispute originally between Daniel B. Cartin and defendants Shuford Edward Harrison and Renee Edmiston Harrison, each of whom claimed superior title to approximately seven acres of land. Cartin filed a complaint on 19 May 1995, sеeking a judgment declaring him owner of the property, “free from the claim of the Defendants.” Defendants filed an answer, counterclaim, and cross-claim, seeking a declaration that they were the owners of the disputed property. On 3 March 1998, the trial court granted Cartin’s motion to join Donald and Ann Smart, who purchased the property from plaintiff and who are now the real parties in interest (hereinafter, “plaintiffs”). Following a pre-trial conference, the trial court entered a consent order which provided that the court “shall hear only issues related to plaintiffs’ assertion that it has superior record title to the property in dispute by reason of a connected chain of title to the State of North Carolina.” The parties agreed to bifurcate the trial, allowing defendants “the opportunity, if necessary, to prosecutе their counterclaims at a future jury session of Watauga County District Court,” and, if necessary, to pursue defendants’ cross-claim against third-party defendants.
After the parties waived their rights to a jury trial on the issue of whether plaintiffs could establish a connected chain of title to the State оf North Carolina, the trial court heard evidence at a bench trial. Plaintiffs based their claim of superior title upon a series of conveyances originating in three grants from the State of North Carolina. Defendants acknowledge that plaintiffs proved a connected chain of title from themselves back to John Storie and from William
The trial court found facts, concluded that plaintiffs had established “a legally sufficient chain оf title back to the State of North Carolina, and Plaintiffs’ title to the disputed property is superior to Defendants;” and entered judgment declaring plaintiffs to be the owners in fee simple of the property. Defendants submitted to a voluntary dismissal without prejudice as to their counter-claim and gave notice of appeal.
The standard of review on appeal from a judgment entered after a non-jury trial is “whether there is competent evidence to support the trial court’s findings of fact and whether the findings support the conclusions of law and ensuing judgment.”
Sessler v. Marsh,
Defendаnts first contend the trial court erred in holding that plaintiffs proved an unbroken chain of title from the State of North Carolina. A party may establish good title to real property by several methods, one of which involves proof of a connected chain of title from the party to thе State of North Carolina.
Mobley v. Griffin,
The documentary evidence offered by plaintiffs included a “decree for partition,” signed by “J.H. Hardin, CSC, Probate Judge”; a “partition” of the “landed estate of Wm. A. Storie,” which specifically allotted to John Storie a parcel оf land from the Wm. A. Storie property, and described that parcel; and a report of the partition by the “duly appointed” commissioners, which stated,
The foregoing Reports of the Jurors who laid and partitioned real estate of Wm. Storie Dec. [deceased] among his heirs at law on 15th day of June 1880 is enrolled and together with the Judgmеnt and decree confirming the same is hereby certified to the Register of Deeds of Watauga County and ordered to be registered in the Register’s office of said county (emphasis added).
The report was dated 29 June 1880 and signed by “J.H. Hardin, CSC, Probate Judge.” Plaintiffs’ expert, Joseph M. Parker, Jr., testified that all deeds in plaintiffs’ chain of title were valid deeds, and that the documents established a complete chain of
if you go back into the 1880s and 1890s and you worry about every time something may not have been procedurally correct in accordance with the procedural rules at that time and there may have been a missing heir, we wouldn’t have many good titles.
Plaintiffs’ chain of title is distinguishable from the title found defective in
McDonald v. McCrummen,
It may be that O. B. Murchison is the heir, or an heir of the first, and as such could maintain an action against a third party to recover the land, [citation omitted] but the testimony of plaintiff is that “I do not know what kin O. B. Murchison was to A. A. Murchison, — they were some of my own people.” Titles to land may not rest in so thin veil of uncеrtainty.
Id.
at 553,
In the present case, by contrast, the partition proceeding is one of a series of documents conveying the land originally owned by the State and currently owned by plaintiffs. The partition proceeding states that the landed estate of William Storie, deceased, was to be divided among his heirs at law, which included John Storie. The trial court found facts establishing the chain of title and concluded as a matter of law: “Plaintiffs’ [sic] have a legally sufficient chain of title back to the State of North Carolina, and Plaintiffs’ title to the disputed property is superior to Defendants.” Unlike the plaintiff’s chain in McDonald, the partition proceeding conveyance in the present plaintiffs’ chain connected the title from William Storie to his heir at law, John Storie. Defendants concede plaintiffs in the present case provided a connected chain from the State tо William Storie, and from John Storie to plaintiffs. Thus, we affirm the trial court’s conclusion that plaintiffs have established a connected chain of title to an original grant from the State of North Carolina, superior to defendants’ title, Mobley v. Griffin, supra, and defendants assignments of error to the contrary are оverruled.
In their second argument, defendants assert the trial court erred in holding that plaintiffs proved that the property described in their current deed is included within the descriptions in each of the documents comprising their chain of title. Where title to land is in dispute, the “claimant must show that the area claimed lies within the area described in each conveyance in his chain of title and he must fit the description contained in his deed to the land claimed.”
Cutis v. Casey,
[t]he fact that the descriptions in deeds forming the chain of title are not identical is not material if the differing language may in fact fit the same body of land, and if it is apparent from an examination of the descriptions in the several deeds that the respective grantors intended to convey theidentical land, effect will be given to the intent.
E. I. Du Pont De Nemours & Co. v.
Moore,
The trial court made the following findings of fact:
29. Plaintiffs’ expert witness, surveyor Frank Hayes, has located the subject property and all of the propеrties within Plaintiffs’ chain of title on the earth’s surface by reliance, inter alia, on the following:
a. All documents in Plaintiffs [sic] chain of title as reflected in the public records;
b. Various documents in the chains of title of surrounding property owners;
c. Various unrecorded maps relating to the subject property;
d. Location of physical monuments on the ground, being those reflected on the various surveys, maps and charts entered into evidence;
e. Location of a ridge (as described in Grant 1050);
f. Location of Grants 119 on the ground (adjacent to Plaintiffs’ property on the western boundary), and reliance on consistent cаlls between Grant 119 and Plaintiffs’ Grants;
g. Use of aerial photographs depicting use of Plaintiffs’ property in the 1940’s and 1950’s; h. Location of marked trees along the northern boundaries of Grant 33;
In addition, the trial court found that all of the disputed property “is included in Plaintiffs’ Property,” but that the legal descriрtion of defendants’ property does not include “all of the disputed land.”
Frank Hayes, who was permitted to testify as an expert witness in the field of land surveying, testified that he was familiar with every legal description in plaintiffs’ chain of title. First, Hayes testified that the three most recent deeds in plаintiffs’ chain of title had the same legal description. The 1885 deed, conveying the parcel of land from John Storie to J.B. Storie, was “very similar” to the later descriptions, according to Hayes. Referring to the deed, dated 9 December 1885, Hayes stated, “It is my opinion that it is the intent of the Cartin deed to convey the same property that is shown here.” Hayes testified that he discovered a “very good description” in the partition proceeding documents from William Storie to John Storie. Hayes also reviewed the description in Grant 1050 from the State of North Carolina, datеd 27 November 1880, as well as the deed from Joshua Storie to William Storie. Joshua Storie acquired his land from two grants from the State of North Carolina, Grant 33 and Grant 3676, which is referred to as the “Rich Hillside Tract.” Hayes testified that he was able to use the description of Grant 3676 to locate the Rich Hillside Tract on the ground, in spite of the fact that he did not find comers in the Tract based on specific existing “monumentation”:
Now, you’ve got to understand that the Rich Hillside Tract was laid out in — there are stumps in the woods and to say that there’s not a stump close to the northeast corner of the Rich Hillside Tract — there are stumps, but again, these are monuments that were in existence in 1833 and/or 1835 — anyway, in the 1830s. That would [sic] — 165 years plus.
Hayes testified that the description in plaintiffs’ deed “fits into the composite of the deeds of the back title.”
Defendants’ evidence included the testimony of Lewis Cox, a licensed surveyor. Cox did not undertake a survey of the parties’ respective properties; instead, Cox merely reviewed existing surveys prepared by the parties. Further, James Murray Gray, also a licensed surveyor employed by defendants, testified that he did not conduct а survey of either plaintiffs’ property or defendants’ property, but rather conducted surveys of adjoining properties. In fact, Gray stated that he had no opinion as to who owned the overlapping area which was the subject of the cause of action.
The weight and crеdibility to be accorded the testimony of each of these witnesses was for the trial court as fact finder.
Scott v. Scott,
Because we determine plaintiffs have еstablished superior chain of title using the traditional method of connecting the chain to a grant from the State of North Carolina, and have presented sufficient evidence to locate the property on the ground, we need not reach defendants’ remaining assignments of error.
Affirmed.