Case ID: scl_23/html/0340-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Curia, per Butler, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

John H. Amick vs. Henry Frazier.
    An action of trespass quare clausum fregit, lies only for a trespass upon the plaintiff’s possession. A title by deed,1 without an actual entry, gives him a constructive possession, which will enable Mm to maintain the action for a casual trespass committed after the title was acquired; and after entry, he may maintain it against any one who obtrudes himself into the actual possession of a part of the land.
    But the action will not lie against a defendant, who is in the actual and exclusive possession, at the time the plaintiff acquires his title, and makes his entry.
    BEFORE MR. JUSTICE GANTT, AT LEXINGTON, FALL TERM, 1837.
    This was an action of trespass, quare clausum fregit, brought for cutting a crop of wheat growing upon a tract of land claimed by the plaintiff. The land had been sold under an order of the Court of Equity, and purchased by the plaintiff. The defendant was in possession at the time of the sale, and had sowed the wheat. The presiding Judge granted a non-suit, on the ground that the sale of the land did not divest the defendant of the right to reap that which he had sown ; and independently of that ground, he did not regard the plaintiff’s possession sufficient to support the action of trespass quare clausum fregit, the defendant being actually in possession of part of the land; and constructively so of the locus in quo.
    
    The plaintiff moved to set the nonsuit aside, on the ground that his Honor, the presiding Judge, erred in ordering it, after the title and entry or possession of the plaintiff and the trespass of the defendant, were all clearly proved.
    
      Gregg and Addison, plaintiff’s attorneys.
   Curia, per Butler, J.

It seems to me to be unquestionably a correct proposition, that a party may not only divest himself of all title to his land by his deed directly made by himself, but by a deed founded on proceedings in partition to which he was a party. In the one case he signs the deed himself, and in the other he consents that an officer of the law, by the sanction of a competent Court, may execute it for Mm. In both cases he is a party to the transfer of his land, and cannot reap what he has sown after he has sold it to another.

The defendant was a party in the Court of Equity, and was not entitled to any portion of the land, or the crop growing-on it, after the conveyance to the plaintiff.

The plaintiff in an action to try titles, could have recovered both the land and the value of the wheat; for they both belonged to him at the time the wheat was cut. He does not, however, occupy the same position, nor is he entitled to the same plenitude of redress, in an action of trespass quare clausum fregit. This action lies alone to recover damages for a trespass on the plaintiff’s possession. Every one who has a title to land by deed, has a constructive possession, and can maintain this action for a casual trespass committed on the land after the title was acquired, without an actual entry. After an actual entry, which is going on the land and openly asserting a dominion over it, he may maintain the same action against a trespasser who obtrudes himself into the actual possession of a part of the land. But when a defendant is in the actual and exclusive possession before and at the time the plaintiff acquires his title and makes his entry, the plaintiff cannot regard it as a trespass on his possession, so as to sustain an action of trespass quare clausum fregit, for it is a soli-eism in terms to say that he can have a constructive possession of that which is in the actual possession of another This would be to make a concurrent and exclusive possession consistent.

From these views it must follow that the plaintiff cannot maintain this action. The nonsuit was properly ordered, and the motion to set it aside must be dismissed.