213 N.W. 562 | Minn. | 1927
The trial court submitted the question of adverse possession both as to respondent and as to his immediate grantor. There was a verdict in favor of the defendant. From an order denying its motion for judgment or for a new trial, plaintiff appealed.
Subsequent to acquiring title to the tract now owned by plaintiff, the Twin City Varnish Company went into possession of its tract and, during the following five years, improved the same by filling in along the westerly side with earth, erecting buildings and a fence *162 thereon. The westerly side of these buildings abutted upon the easterly side of the strip in question and the fence was upon and along the same line. Subsequently the buildings and fence were burned and new and more substantial ones were erected along practically the same line, leaving the entire strip in controversy to the west of the line of such buildings and fence.
During its ownership of the tract immediately to the west of the strip in question, the defendant's grantor used the same as a retail lumber yard and it used the strip in question as it did other portions of the yard for piling and storing lumber, timbers and lath, all without complaint or objection from any source. When the defendant became the owner of such lumber yard, May 31, 1916, it thereafter used the strip in question in the same manner as its predecessor had and built brick buildings thereon without any objection from the plaintiff or its grantor, supposing that the plaintiff's fence and buildings were on the true line between such tracts.
This action was commenced in April, 1925. Plaintiff concedes that the question of adverse possession by defendant from May, 1916, was for the jury. Defendant relies for its claim of adverse possession on adverse possession by the St. Croix River Lumber Company, its predecessor, while plaintiff contends that it conclusively appears that the St. Croix River Lumber Company did not hold or claim to hold adversely and that it acknowledged title in plaintiff by its conveyance to the defendant of May 31, 1916. The evidence is practically undisputed and the jury found in favor of the defendant upon the question of adverse possession. The holding of this court in Seymour, Sabin Co. v. Carli,
The opinion in Olson v. Burk,
We discover no reversible error in the record and are satisfied that the evidence justified the verdict.
Affirmed. *164