Title: Brown v. Brown

State: alabama

Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court

Document:

361 So. 2d 1038 (1978)
Miles BROWN and Rebecca Brown
v.
Mary BROWN et al.
Mary BROWN et al.
v.
Miles BROWN and Rebecca Brown.
77-56, 77-56X.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
August 25, 1978.
*1039 Leon G. Duke, Mobile, for appellants and cross-appellees, Miles Brown and Rebecca Brown.
Mayer W. Perloff, Mobile, for appellees and cross-appellants, Mary Brown, et al.
MADDOX, Justice.
This is a land dispute involving a 40-acre tract in Mobile County.
The case was heard ore tenus and both sides presented testimony; much of it was conflicting.
We have carefully reviewed the record and find that there was substantial evidence to support the trial court's decree which determined that the appellees were the lawful owners of a tract described as:
It was undisputed that Miles Brown and Rebecca Brown executed two separate deeds on September 7, 1950, conveying to James Brown property described in the separate deeds, as follows:
Deed 1 (Book 513, Page 324)
Deed 2 (Book 513, Page 327)
Miles and Rebecca Brown testified that James Brown brought both of these deeds, which were recorded, back to them and stated that he could not pay for the land. There was no testimony that James Brown ever executed a deed conveying the two tracts back to Miles and Rebecca Brown. There was testimony that Miles and Rebecca Brown paid the taxes on both tracts, but there was also testimony that James Brown claimed to own the 20 acres, and that he used the land for pasturing cattle and a mule and for growing a garden. Miles and Rebecca Brown contended James Brown's use of the property was by permission.
*1040 Even assuming that James Brown, as grantee in the two deeds, surrendered them to the grantors, Miles and Rebecca Brown, that would not revert the title, because a subsequent surrender to the grantor of a deed which has been executed and delivered will not revert the title. Hollingsworth v. Walker, 98 Ala. 543, 13 So. 6 (1893).
By annually listing the land for taxation for a period of ten years, the appellants have satisfied at least one of the statutory alternatives for claiming title by adverse possession. Ala.Code § 6-5-200(a) (1975). But in order to divest the holders of legal title to land on a claim of adverse possession, the claimants have the burden of showing actual, clear, definite, positive, notorious, open, continuous, adverse, and exclusive possession of a definite tract under a claim of right for the time prescribed by law by clear and convincing evidence. Knowles v. Golden Stream Fishing Club, Inc., 331 So. 2d 253 (Ala. 1976). In this case, the appellants have a heavier burden of proof due to the grantor-grantee relationship between the parties. Walker v. Coley, 264 Ala. 492, 88 So. 2d 868 (1956).
We note that Walker holds that payment of taxes for the prescriptive period of twenty years eliminates the presumption of subserviency of those claiming title by adverse possession, but in this case, the prescriptive period has not run.
Here, a family relationship also exists between the parties. Courts are especially reluctant to find that an adverse title arises from the continued occupation and use of the property by the grantor after conveyance, where there is a family relationship between the grantor and grantee. Annot., 39 A.L.R.2d 353 (1955). See, Chancellor v. Teel, 141 Ala. 634, 37 So. 665 (1904); Scruggs v. Decatur Mineral & Land Co., 86 Ala. 173, 5 So. 440 (1888).
There was other evidence which we do not set out which would support the decree of the trial court. Suffice it to say that his findings are supported by the evidence and are not clearly and palpably wrong.
AFFIRMED.
TORBERT, C. J., and JONES, SHORES and BEATTY, JJ., concur.