216 Miss. 589 | Miss. | 1953
Appellants, W. D. Creekmore, A. L. Sisson and others brought this suit in the Chancery Court of Neshoba County against the county and its board of supervisors, appellees here, seeking to cancel clouds asserted by defendants against the appellants, who claimed title to parts of Sec. 16, T. 11 North, R. 12 East, Neshoba County, which is a school-land section. Appellants’ bill of complaint alleged title in them by 1874 tax collectors’ deeds and by warranty deeds from their predecessors, and by adverse possession of the land for more than twenty-five years. Creekmore and Sisson are the only appellants involved on this appeal.
The county answered and charged that the section was held in trust by the state for the township schools; that the lands had been leased under 99-year leases which would shortly expire; and that any claims which complainants might have would be only as to those leases. The county denied that appellants had obtained any title by adverse possession. Various instruments in the chain
Code of 1942, Section 6596, provides: “Adverse possession for a period of twenty-five years, under a claim of right or title, shall be prima facie evidence in such case that the law authorizing the disposition of the lands has been complied with and the lease or sale duly made. If the claim be under a lease, the time at which the lease expires shall be fixed by the court.”
Appellants do not show any conveyance by the school directors of a fee simple title to these lands into their chain of title from 1870 to 1878, which was the only period during which there was any power to make an outright conveyance of such school lands. Lambert v. State, 211 Miss. 129, 51 So. 2d 20 (1951).
The record reflects that there were 99-year leases executed by the county on the N%, the SW1^, and the SW^ of the SE1^ of this section, all expiring in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Hence as to the claims of appellants to any of these lands, they were precluded from obtaining any rights to the reversion if at all, until after the termination of the leases. The execution of these leases removed any presumption which might arise under Code Section 6596, and negatived any claim of right or title which might have otherwise existed presumptively under that statute. Reese v. Mayo, 213 Miss. 123, 56 So. 2d 77 (1952); see also Sumrall v. State, 209 Miss. 761, 777, 46 So. 2d 549 (1950); Pilgrim v, Neshoba County, 206 Miss. 703, 40 So. 2d 598 (1949).
As to the claims of appellants in the Ey2 of the SE% and the NW% of SE% of this section, the chancery court was amply justified in its finding that appellants had failed to meet the burden of proof necessary to es
Affirmed.