Case ID: cow_9/html/0683-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Curia, per Sutherland, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Jackson, ex dem. Baldwin against Leonard. 
    
    NEW YORK,
    May, 1824.
    Adverse possession for 20 years, by several successive persons, in order to bar an entry, must be continued by a regular chain of privity between them. Where one entered, and then eda^erseiy'to him, and took de^suoiTciaim °^tent 0°f sessors pursupromise*1 C°between them; was not a con¿™po3seLion within the rule.
    Ejectment for part of lot No. 4, in the town of Ovid, in the county of Seneca, tried at the circuit in that county, June 3d, 1822, before Platt, late J. of the supreme court.
    On the trial, the plaintiff having deduced a regular paper title from the state to himself, the defendant relied for his defence on an adverse possession of 20 years before suit brought; and he showed that one Bryant took possession of the lot 4, in 1795, and obtained a deed for it in 1796, of one Jackson. Bryant continued in possession till about 1805, when M. Pitney, the father of Aaron & Joseph T. Pitney, claimed the whole lot; and Bryant compromised with M. Pitney, surrendering part of the lot to him, and retaining another part to himself. Ihe defendant went •into possession six or seven years before the trial, under a quit-claim deed from Joseph T. Pitney, who derived title from his father.
    The judge expressed his opinion to the jury, that the evidence adduced on the part of the defendant established such a possession adverse to the plaintiff’s title, for more than twenty years, as, in law, would bar the entry of the plaintiff; and the jury found for the defendant.
    
      *H. R. Storrs, for the plaintiff,
    moved- for a new trial, on the ground that the defendant, and those through whom he claimed, had not made out a continued adverse possession of 20 years. He said Bryant’s title could not be connected with M. Pitney’s, who claimed adversely to B. There was no privity between them. The former claimed) and came in under a title paramount to B’s.
    
      D. Cady, contra.
    
      
      
         This case was decided in llay term, 1824.
    
   Curia, per Sutherland, J.

The charge of the judge was erroneous. Leonard, the defendant, showed nothing like an adverse possession for 20 years. He purchased of Joseph T. Pitney only six or seven years before the trial, and then entered upon the lot for the first time. . Bryant swears expressly that he never sold to Leonard, or put him in possession of any part of the lot. Whether Bryant, or those claiming under him, could protect themselves on the ground of adverse possession, is not material; for' there was no privity between them and the defendant; and no continuity of Bryant’s possession is shown.

In Brandt v. Ogden, (1 John. Rep. 159,) Spencer, J. says, “ Smeed’s possession is not connected with that of Wing, nor is the defendant’s with that of Smeed. There is no continuity of possession. Under these circumstances it cannot be pretended that this is an adverse possession of twenty years.” So in Doe v. Campbell, (10 John. 477,) the court say, but the decisive objection to this defence (of adverse possession) is, that no regular deduction of title,' or privity and continuity of possession, was shown and deduced down from Smith to Elliott, or'tc any of the other defendants. Adverse possession must be marked by definite boundaries, and be regularly continued down, to render it availing.”

New trial granted. 
      
       Humbert v. Trinity Church, 24 Wen. 586. Simpson v. Downing, 23 Wen. 316. Jackson v. Phillips, ante, 94.