Case ID: tenn_21/html/0409-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Green, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Bullard vs. Copps.
    Í. Where A. leases land of B., and subsequently disclaims his title and holds for himself or for another: Held, that the possession becomes adverse from the time such disclaimer is known to A. and seven years possession, after such disclaimer .so known, bars the title of lessor.
    5. It is champertous in A. to sell and convey land so adversely held, at any ■time after such disclaimer is known.
    This action of ejectment was instituted in December, 1839, by-John Copps against B. Bullard, for the recovery of the possession of one hundred acres of land, lying in the county of Claiborne. — ■ It was submitted to a jury at the January term, 1841, of the circuit court of Claiborne, Judge Anderson presiding.
    The plaintiff exhibited a grant for the land in controversy, from the State of North Carolina, to Joseph Beard, dated 15th July, 1793; a deed from Beard to John Bullard, in 1799; a deed from Bullard to Jacob Copps on 2d August, 1812; a deed from Jacob Copps, dated 3d of March, 1836, to John Copps, plaintiff, in the-action.
    The plaintiff also introduced a sealed article of agreement between Jacob Copps and John Powell, by which, on the 1st day of March, 1829, Copps rented the land to Powell for two years from that date.
    The defendant introduced a deed from Jacob Peck by Adam Peck, purporting to be attorney in fact of Jacob Peck, dated 5th April, 1829. There being no power of attorney introduced, the court rejected the deed. The defendant was in possession of the land sued for in the action, and had been for several years. Pie was in possession, and holding adversely at the date of the deed, in 1836, from Jacob to John Copps. There was testimony going to show, that the defendant derived his possession by collusion with Powell, the tenant of Jacob Copps, by deed, dated in 1829.
    Such are the material facts submitted to the jury, upon the points involved in this cause. The jury, under the charge of the court, (which is sufficiently set forth in the following opinion of the supreme court,) rendered a verdict in favor of the plaintiff in the action.
    A motion for a new trial having been made by the defendant and overruled, he appealed in error to the supreme court.
    
      
      J. A. McKinney and Peck, for Bullard.
    
      Cocke, for Copps.
   Green, J.

delivered the opinion of the court.

This is an action of ejectment. On the trial, the court, among other things, charged the jury, “that if the proof satisfied them, that Powell was in as the tenant of Copps, and Bullard came in by collusion with Powell >or under him, that Bullard would in law be considered as the tenant of Copps, and that Copps would not be bound, nor would the act against champerty be operative to show any title against him, until he (Bullard) had held adversely to Copps for seven years, after his disclaimer known to Copps.”

In this part of the charge, the court erred. Although it is true, that a tenant cannot resist his landlord, by virtue of the statute of limitations, until after the expiration of seven years from the date of his disclaimer and adverse holding, yet it does not follow, as the court seemed to suppose, that the statute against champerty will not apply until after the expiration of seven years. The moment the disclaimer of the tenant is known to the landlord, his possession becomes adverse, and this adverse possession continuing seven years, the statute of limitations forms a bar to the landlord’s recovery. But it does not require any length of adverse possession, to make asale and conveyance oftheland sopossessedby another cham-pertous. The fact, that it is adversely held, is enough. And that fact occurs in the case of a tenant, so soon as his disclaimer is known to the landlord. '

2. The deed from Bullard to Copps, calling to begin “at the ford of Clinch river, known by the name of Copps’ ford, on the north side of said river, running up the different m’eanderings of said river to the first gut below where William Hunter now lives, for compliment,” “containing one hundred acres, more or less,” includes all the land Bullard owned above the said ford, to the gut aforesaid. And, therefore, the land in dispute is included in the deed from Bullard to Jacob Copps, and in the one from Jacob Copps to lessor of plaintiff.

Let the judgment be reversed, and the cause be remanded for another trial.