Rowe v. KiddRowe v. Kidd
- Reporters:
- , ,
- Before:
- Sanford
This suit, whiсh was before us at an earlier stage sub nom. Rowe v. Hill (215 Fed. 518, 132 C. C. A. 30), was brought by the plaintiffs, I. W. Rowe and wife, citizens of West Virginia, by a bill in equity against citizens of. Kentucky, of whom Pinkie Kidd, hereinafter called the defendant, is the real party in interest, to remove an adverse claim as a cloud upon the plaintiffs’ title to a tract of land in Wayne county, Ky., of the requisite jurisdictional value.
The plaintiffs claim title under various patents issued to one Alexander between 1880 and 1885. The defendant claims under a patent issued to one Mills in 1858, which, being senior to the Alexander patents, is admittedly suрerior thereto in so far as it may be properly located within their boundaries. By a previous judgment of the circuit court of Wayne county, Ky., affirmed by the Court of Appeals of Kentucky (Alexander v. Hill, 108 S. W. 225, 32 Ky. Law Rep. 1148), and relied on by the defendant as a bar to the present suit, the location, and extent of the Mills patent was adjudged in accordance with the defendant’s present contention.
The court below, after a hearing on pleadings and proof, being of opinion that the plaintiffs were _ estopped from denying the location of the Mills patent as adjudged in said former suit, and that in any event if would not be justified in deciding the matter differently from the state courts, dismissed the plaintiffs’ bill. Rowe v. Hill (D. C.) 196 Fed. 910.
On appeal to this court we held, however, that the plaintiffs were not bound by the judgment in said former suit or estopped from contesting the location and boundaries of the Mills patent as therein determined; and that the record, which contained evidence not in said former suit, did not bring the case within’ the rules of law announced therein or justify us in locating the Mills patent as therein adjudged. Having, however, doubt whether the plaintiffs had shown the pos*129session of the land in controversy essential to the maintenance of a bill to remove cloud from title, and without undertaking to determine the true location of the Mills patent under the confused and unsatisfactory evidence in the record, we reversed the decree dismissing the plaintiffs’ bill, and remanded the case for further proceedings, with the direction to the court below to reopen the case for further proof, not only as to the question of the plaintiffs’ possession and title, but also as to the location and extent of the Mills patent, the judgment in the former suit, and all other issues in the case. 215 Fed. at pages 522, 524, 526, 132 C. C. A. 30.
The case was again heard in the court below, partly upon evidence introduced at the former hearing, including depositions in the former suit, and partly upon additional testimony orally given. Upon this hearing, the court below held that, in accordance with the rules stated in the opinion of this court, the plaintiffs were not estopped by the judgment in the former suit as to the location of the Mills patent, but that nevertheless the decision of the Court of Appeals of Kentucky therein should be accepted as prima facie correct and followed unless error was clearly made to appear; and, concluding after a comprehensive view of the evidence and analysis of the authorities, that no error appeared in its location of the Mills patent, again entered a decree dismissing the plaintiffs’ bill, with costs. Rowe v. Kidd (D. C.) 249 Fed. 882. From this decree the plaintiffs have again appealed to this court.
On the other hand, the defendant has failed to show, by the greater weight of the proof, that any part of the land in controversy was then in her actual possessiоn. While the testimony as to this matter is likewise obscure and conflicting, we conclude that the house then in her possession, and on which she relies, was not inside of the Mills patent claimed by her, but stood, as definitely located by the plaintiffs’ witness Blakeman, a skilled and accurate surveyor, by running the course and distance from the beginning corner, outside of that patent and upon another tract of land.
In the absence, therefore, of any conflicting possession by the defendant, the plaintiffs’ actual possession of part of the land in controversy undеr their deed from Alexander, with claim of title to the extent of its boundaries, operated constructively as a possession of the whole tract. Everidge v. Martin, 164 Ky. at page 502, 175 S. W. 1004; Taylor v. Lumber Co. (Ky.) 109 S. W. 348, 349. And see Parsons v. Dills, 159 Ky. 471, 475, 167 S. W. 415. However, under a statute similar to that in Kentucky, a bill to quiet title may be main*131tained upon an actual possession of part of the land in controversy and constructive possession of the remainder, if vacant and unoccupied. Roberts v. Northern Pacific Co., 158 U. S. 1, 30, 15 Sup. Ct. 756, 39 L. Ed. 873. The plaintiffs must therefore be held to have shown, under all the circumstances, such possession of the land in controversy, aсtual and constructive, as was necessary to maintain their bill.
“Being and lying in the county of Wayne on the waters of the Big South fork and bounded as follows, to wit: Beginning at a poplar; running S. 55 E. 200 poles to a stake at the river cliff; N. 40 E. 40 poles to a stake; N. 50 W. 200 poles to a stake; N. 21 E. 40 poles to a stake; N. 20 W. 60 poles to a stake at the river cliff; S. 80 poles to a stake; N. 70 W. 10 poles to a stake; S. 45 W. 20 poles to a stake at the river cliff; N. 10 E. 60 poles to a stake on Thomas Ryan’s line; thence with said line N. 85 W. 60 poles to a stake on said line; S. 71 W. 40 poles to a stake on Isaac Foster line; S. 33 E. 150 poles to J. W. Mills’ corner a pine; thence with Mills’ old line to the beginning.”
The Kentucky Court of Appeals adopted as the true location of this patent that established by one Stanfill, a surveyor; and the map filed by him was made the basis of the judgment of the court. This location has been again adopted by the court below. According to this location the patent contains about 700 acres. In the former suit the Kentucky Court of Appeals, having first found that the beginning corner had been correctly located by Stanfill and that the Thomas Ryan, Isaac Foster, J. W. Mills corner, and Mills old line were “well-known and established” at the time of the Mills survey in 1858, thereupon held that the courses of the patent should be changed and the distances extended so as to reach the river cliffs and such lines and corner, under thе “well-settled” law that “where there is a conflict between the course and distance and recognized objects establishing the boundary lines of a survey, course and distance must yield and the natural objects and established boundaries of other tracts called for, and designated known points therein must be accepted as the true boundary of the land in question.” Alexander v. Hill, 108 S. W. at page 228, 32 Ky. Law Rep. at page 1150. This rule was subsequently approved and followed in Rock Creek v. Hill, 162 Ky. 324, 327, 172 S. W. 671, and recognized as an established general rule in Albertson v. Veneer Co., 177 Ky. 285, 299, 197 S. W. 831. On the former appeal we were оf opinion that while, in so far as the principle of law on which this decision was based had become a rule of property in Kentucky, it should be followed by this court, if applicable to the facts then in evidence, we were not then justified in locating the boundaries of the patent in accordance therewith for the reason that the evidence then before us, which was not the same as that formerly before the state *133courts, did not show that either the Ryan, Foster, or old Mills line or the J. W. Mills comer were “well known and established” in 1858 when the Mills patent was surveyed. Rowe v. Hill, 215 Fed. at page 523, 132 C. C. A. 30. We were further of opinion that the evidence then before us did not bring the case within the rule stated in Morgan v. Renfro, 124 Ky. 314, 99 S. W. 311, and Brashears v. Joseph, 108 S. W. 307, 310, 32 Ky. Law Rep. 1139, 1143, that, in locating a patent, “calls for the lines of other patents which are of record and which are susceptible of definite and certain location” are to be preferred to course and distance; a rule which was also subsequently approved and followed in Rock Creek Co. v. Hill, 162 Ky. at page 327, 172 S. W. 671, and recognized as an established general rule in Albertson v. Veneer Co., 177 Ky. 293, 197 S. W. 831. In the record formerly before us, there was no copy of either the survey or patent of the Ryan or Foster tracts and no proof of any recorded survey or patent of the tract which the defendant claimed to have identified as the old J. W. Mills tract. Rowe v. Hill, 215 Fed. at page 524, 132 C. C. A. 30.
On the last hearing, however, the defendant introduced in evidence a copy of a patent issued to Thomas Ryan in 1857, which was admitted to have been correctly located by Stanfill, and which was sufficiently identified by the proof as the Ryan tract whose line was called for in the Mills patent; also, a copy of the patent issued to Isaаc Foster in 1855, which was likewise admitted to have been correctly located by Stanfill; also, a copy of a survey made by Robert P‘armlcy in 1849 upon which a patent issued in 1851, which was owned by Mills at the time of his survey in 1858, which contained a “three pines” corner that has been definitely located and sufficiently identified by the proof as the J. W. Mills “pine” corner called for in the Mills patent, and a line of which is sufficiently identified as the “Mills old line” likewise called for in the Mills patent. It furthermore now appears from the opinion of the court below that it has never been disputed in this case, but always frankly conceded, that the lines of the Thomas Ryan and Isaac Foster survey were “well known and established” when the Mills survey was made, and that it was because of this that no pains were taken on the former hearing to introduce the certificates of survey and patents in evidence. Rowe v. Kidd, 249 Fed. at page 889.
The additional evidence thus offered by the defendant on the last hearing, and the concessions thus made, obviously go far to supply the deficiencies in the record in the former case and make applicable to thе facts now before us, as a controlling principle, the rule of law stated by the Kentucky Court of Appeals in the former suit; and being reluctant to differ from that tribunal in a decision affecting the title to real estate within the borders of the state, unless necessarily constrained thereto, and also having in mind the weight attaching to the opinion of the learned trial judge in the court below, who heard the oral testimony of the witnesses upon most of the crucial matters in controversy, we find no sufficient reason now justifying us in reaching a different conclusion on the merits from that concurrently reached by the Kentucky Court of Appeals and the court below. It is true *134that Stanfill’s map, which was made the basis, of the judgment of the Kentucky Court of Appeals, is inartificially prepared, showing neither the points of the compass, courses nor distances, and that it incorrectly indicates in places the location of the river and river cliff, especially in the neighborhood of the Ryan tract, where both are shown much further to the west than they are actually located. However, we find none of its omissions or inacсuracies to be fatal to the substantial correctness of its location of the Mills patent as adopted by the courts.
■In view of the elaborate consideration given in the opinion of the court below to the various objections urged against the correctness of Stanfill’s location, we do not deem it necessary to set out at length the reasons leading us to our present conclusion, involving in the main a consideration of detailed facts appearing in the opinion of the court below; and shall refer merely to some of the more important matters. Stanfill’s location of the poplar beginning corner we again find to be supported by the greater weight of the evidence. Rowe v. Hill, 215 Fed. at page 522, 132 C. C. A. 30. We also find that he correctly located the “stake at the river cliff,” at the end of the first line of the patent, at the point at which he placed a stone comer. That this comer is on the river cliff is shown not only by the testimony of Stan-fill and other witnesses for the defendant, but is also in our opinion established by the facts stated in the testimony of the plaintiffs’ witness Blakeman, in whose accuracy we have confidence, as well as by his map, from which it appears that it is located on the main river cliff at the apex of an inward bend which it makes from its usual course parallel with the river bank. And while this corner is 410 poles from the poplar beginning corner, instead of 200 poles, as called for in the patent, it is the nearest point in the river cliff which can be reached in the general course south 55 east from the beginning comer. It is true that, if this line were run with due allowance for the intermediate variation of the magnetic needle from thе true meridian (Bryan v. Beckley, 16 Ky. Litt. Sel. Cas. 91, 93, 95, 12 Am. Dec. 276), it would pass about 125 feet southwest of the stone corner established by Stanfill, and, by reason of the deflection in the line of the cliff, it further extended in the same direction, would reach the cliff at a point 585 poles from the beginning corner. We are of opinion, however, that in such case, where the course and distance must yield to the call for an extended natural object, the departure from course and distance should not be greater than’ is reasonably necessary, and that where, after the distance called for is exhausted, the nearest point in such natural object can be reached by a slight and immaterial variation from the prescribed course, such deflection should be made so as to reach the nearest point in such natural object, rather than to follow the course precisely and reach the natural object at a much greater distance. See, by analogy, Morgan v. Renfro, 124 Ky. at page 324, 99 S. W. 311, as to reaching the nearest point in the line of a known survey. We further find that Stanfill correctly stopped the third line of the patent at the end of the 200 poles called for, instead of extending it a total distance of 410 poles so as to correspond to the extension that *135had been made in the first line. Assuming that the rule stated in Cornett v. Coal Co., 175 Ky. 718, 727, 195 S. W. 149, and other cases, that a known error in an established line may be offset by a corresponding change in the opposite line, so as to close the survey, would otherwise apply where, as in the present case, the supposed “opposite” line varies in its course five degrees from the first line, it nevertheless, in our opinion, cannоt be properly applied here for the conclusive reason that to extend the third line to a total distance of 410 poles would not aid in closing the survey, but would lead further away from the river cliffs and the Ryan tract called for in the subsequent lines and make it impossible to close the survey in reasonable conformity thereto. And while it is true that the cliffs located by Stanfill at the end of the fifth and eighth lines aré not, in our judgment the main river cliffs, which, under the great weight of the proof, lie a mile or more to the east of these points, they are nevertheless сliffs branching out from the main river cliffs and running up the tributary creeks, and a subsidiary part of the general system of river cliffs which may well have been called river cliffs at that time and so designated by the surveyor.
ft is true that in some of the details of Stanfill’s location, especially after passing the third line, there may be minor inaccuracies. However, it does not appear from the proof that such inaccuracies, if any. are prejudicial to the plaintiffs; nor have .they in their evidence furnished sufficient details as to the precise location of the various objects called for, to enable such inaccuracies, if any, to be corrected, and a more accurate location made; having, as pointed out by the court below, contented, themselves in the main merely with criticisms of the location as made by Stanfill. 249 Fed. at page 907. We hence find no prejudicial, error in the decree of -the court below so far as the same involved the location of the Mills patent in accordance with the judgment of the Kentucky Court of Appeals in the former suit.
5. The decree of the court below dismissing the plaintiffs’ bill, with costs, will hence be affirmed. The plaintiffs will pay the costs of the appeal,