Opinion ID: 1849825
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Legal Negligence Claim

Text: The Hursts contend that they would have prevailed as a matter of law in the 1979 suit if Burnett had raised adverse possession as an affirmative defense. The validity of the Hursts' title to the property by virtue of adverse possession was established by the 1955 chancellor's decree which stated: The said Josie Connerly lived on the land, cultivated the same, tended the same, and held the same openly, notoriously and adversely from the time it was patented [in 1944] by the State of Mississippi until the present time, and that she has perfected a good, valid title by adverse possession of the land, which has cured any defects that may have been in her title, in addition to the fact that she holds a good record title to the land. The Hursts maintain that Burnett's negligent failure to assert the adverse possession defense directly and proximately caused them to lose their mineral rights. In response, Southwest and Burnett first suggest that Josie Connerly may have never adversely possessed the subject property at all. This argument fails to recognize the res judicata effect of the 1955 chancery judgment which expressly stated that Josie Connerly had adversely possessed the land. The 1955 judgment clearly establishes, once and for all, that Josie Connerly had obtained a valid title to the land by adverse possession. The only real question, then, is whether the land that Connerly adversely possessed included both surface and mineral rights, or, as Southwest and Burnett contend, surface rights alone. The case essentially turns on this point. If the land to which the 1955 judgment refers included mineral rights, then the Hursts would probably have been entitled to judgment as a matter of law in the 1979 suit had Burnett only raised the affirmative defense of adverse possession. If, on the other hand, the land referred only to surface rights, then the defense of adverse possession would not have been available in the 1979 action. In deciding whether the land to which the 1955 judgment refers included mineral rights, we are confronted with a two-fold question: (1) could Connerly have adversely possessed the minerals without exercising control over them; and (2) did Connerly relinquish her adverse claim to the minerals by accepting a quitclaim deed from Pritchard which contained a clause reserving the minerals to Pritchard? 1.