144 Ala. 408 | Ala. | 1905
This bill was filed to quiet title to land, under § 809 of the Code of 1896.
This court has repeatedly held that in order to maintain such a bill, the complainant must have the actual or constructive possession, peaceable and undisputed, as contradistinguished from a disputed or scrambling one. Lyon v. Arndt, in MS.; Randle v. Daughdril, in MS.; Brand v. U. S. C. Co., 128 Ala. 579; Adler v. Sullivan, 115 Ala. 582.
The complainants established title through their ancestor, W. G. Powell the patentee, and in the absence of the actual possession of another, the law fixes the constructive possession in him who has the title. The complainants also established an actual possession of a part of the land by the said Powell, who had a small house on it and cultivated a small portion 'thereof in the year 1862. He died in 1864 and the land was abandoned 41 years ago, the house disappeared, timber grew, up on the cleared land and it has been, what might be termed, wild land, for years.
The respondents proved possessory acts from 1872 up to the hearing of this cause. Said acts consisted of get
The evidence as to “whose land was it generally known as?”, was not legal, but the exclusion of same cannot alter the conclusion reached.
The decree ■ of the chancellor is reversed and one is here rendered dismissing the bill.