59 S.E. 1041 | N.C. | 1907
WALKER and CONNOR, JJ., dissenting. Judgment for defendants. Plaintiffs appealed.
The facts sufficiently appear in the opinion. Action to remove cloud on title and for damages for trespass in cutting timber, and asking an injunction. The defendants plead seizin and title in themselves. The plaintiffs claim under a grant issued in 1796 and a chain of title from that source. The defendants J. W. Higgins and I. R. Love claim under a grant to themselves, 3 February, 1891, and continuous adverse possession thereunder for seven years, by building houses thereon and cutting timber, and also by tenants occupying the houses and cultivating land. (416)
The court instructed the jury, at plaintiff's request, that the cutting of timber from time to time would not constitute possession to ripen title, and that the statute would not bar minors and those under the disability of coverture. This action was begun 5 January, 1906 — less than seven years after the repeal or the suspension of the statute as to married women (ch. 78, Laws 1899). Besides, the defendants are not appealing.
The court properly refused the plaintiffs' prayer, "that, according to the undisputed evidence, . . . the defendant Love has been a resident of the State of Tennessee (ever since the grant issued to defendants), and, therefore, the statute of limitations has never run against the plaintiffs in favor of the defendant Love, and he is not the owner of any land mentioned in the answer." The burden was on the plaintiffs to attack the grant for anything not appearing upon its face. Dosh v. Lumber Co.,
The defendants cannot be deprived of the protection of adverse possession and statute of limitation by the plaintiffs simply styling the proceeding an action to remove a cloud on title.
Revisal, sec. 1699, providing that a junior grant shall not be color of title so far as it covers land previously granted, applies, by the terms of that section, only to grants issued since 6 March, 1893. The defendants' grant was issued 3 February, 1891.
No error.