Opinion ID: 1690969
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Disputed Powell Tract

Text: In 1948, S. D. Hunter acquired by act of sale some 635 acres of land (The Powell Tract) from Frank Hemenway (who in 1946 had acquired the same property from J. C. Powell). The seller expressly warranted title to some 529 acres, specifically described by governmental section, which were south of the traverse line of Soda Lake and outlined in red on a plat referred to. However, the same act conveyed certain other property (The Disputed Powell Tract) without express warranty, described as all lands owned or claimed by vendor, contiguous to the land hereinabove described and outlined in yellow on the plat. The levee district notes this circumstance, as well as the additional fact that Hunter had found it advisable to secure from Hemenway's seller a quitclaim deed [2] to the Disputed Powell Tract prior to executing the sale from Hemenway. The levee district argues that therefore we should find Hunter was not in good faith and should overrule the defendants' plea of ten years' acquisitive prescription, as did the district court. We find it unnecessary, however, to decide whether or not Hunter was in good faith at the time he acquired the Disputed Powell Tract in 1948. [3] This is because we have found that the purchaser's possession under the 1948 deed was interrupted in 1952 before the requisite ten years' prescriptive possession had vested the purchaser's title. [4] The interruption occurred by the construction across the Disputed Powell Tract of a pipeline by the levee district's grantee and the grantee's continuous maintaining thereafter of a 20-25' wide right of way cleared through the tract. See below, Interruption of Possession by Mississippi River Fuel Corp. Right of Way. (We should, however, note that the Hunter defendants also claim prescriptive title by thirty years' adverse possession, La.Civ.C. arts. 3499, 3500. For reasons to be discussed below, we likewise find this claim to be without factual merit. Factual Summary The pleadings describe the Disputed Powell Tract as portions of Sections 14 and 13 bounded on the South and West by the Soda Lake Traverse Line and the North and East by Twelve Mile Bayou, as delineated in yellow on a certain plat, and containing 46 acres more or less. (The maps in the record indicate its actual extent to be in excess of 100 acres.) For convenience of discussion, we have reproduced roughly to scale some details reflected by plats and surveys in the record. This sketch, depicting the Disputed Powell Tract (ABCD), is as follows: [See following illustration.] As will be more precisely detailed below, we find that Powell (the defendants' ancestor in title) took possession of the Disputed Powell Tract up to the 1923 Powell Fence some time before 1923. However, Powell did not take possession of the tract up to the bayouside fence (AC) until some time between 1925-30. For reasons to be elaborated below, we find that the Hunter defendants cannot, for purposes of acquiring prescriptive title, cumulate with post-1944 possession any possession of the tract exercised before the enactment of Act 76 of 1938, which prohibited the running of acquisitive prescription against levee districts. See below, Levee Districts: Acquisitive Prescription Statutes. [5] We further find factually that the Hunter defendants did not bear their burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that their predecessors in title possessed any part of the tract for thirty years prior to 1938, so as to have vested title in them prior to enactment of the 1938 statute. Interruption of Prescription by Mississippi River Fuel Corp. Right of Way In 1951, the levee district granted a pipeline right of way to the Mississippi River Fuel Corporation. The plat attached to the act of sale shows that the pipeline crossed the Disputed Powell Strip and the bayou across its western edge. P-19. It was not far from a road and bridge servitude granted by the levee district just west of the disputed tract. The testimony of three of the defendants' witnesses shows, without contradiction, that this 20-25' wide pipeline right of way was cleared and the pipeline was constructed in 1951 or 1952. [6] This evidence further shows that the right of way so cleared was regularly maintained thereafter as a clearly visible pathway through the wooded area in question. The plaintiff district's photographic evidence corroborates the clearly apparent nature of this corporeal invasion of the disputed strip. [7] The record does not show that Hunter or his predecessors in title had granted Mississippi River Fuel a similar right of way over the affected or nearby property. Thus, the physical intrusion and continued possession of Mississippi River Fuel was solely by virtue of its grant from the levee district. It consequently interrupted Hunter's possession, as might not have resulted if such invasion could reasonably have been ascribed by Hunter to be based upon his own similar grant. Cf. Liner v. Louisiana Land and Exploration Co., 319 So.2d 766 (La.1975). We hold, therefore, that this 1952 corporeal interruption of the possession by Hunter, maintained within visible bounds by consistent acts of physical invasion from 1952 onwards, were sufficient to interrupt the acquisition of prescriptive title by Hunter or his successors. A natural interruption is said to take place when the possessor is deprived of the possession of the thing during more than a year, either by the ancient proprietor or even by a third person. La.C.C. art. 3517. A possessor [i. e., Hunter] loses possession against his consent when he allows it to be usurped and held for a year, without, during that time, having done any act of possession, or interfered with the usurper's possession. La.C.C. art. 3449(2). The levee district's grantee, by exercising acts of physical possession pursuant to its grant, exercised possession attributable to the levee district itself. La.C.C. art. 3433. Furthermore, the possession of part of the tract by the record-owner's grantee constitutes an exercise of possession over the whole of the tract. La.C.C. art. 3437; Manson Realty Company v. Plaisance, 196 So.2d 555 (La.App. 4th Cir. 1967). As held by Manson Realty, an intention by the owner to exercise possession over the whole of his tract is manifested by his grant of a pipeline servitude across it, when accompanied by the physical construction of the pipeline and continuous acts by the grantee thereafter maintaining the right of way over part of the tract. Therefore, we conclude that Hunter's possession of the whole of the Disputed Powell Tract was interrupted by the 1952 construction of the pipeline by the levee district's grantee, together with its continuous acts thereafter in physically maintaining the pipeline right of way. In reaching this conclusion, we were initially concerned whether the issue of possession thus decided was precluded by the circumstance that, in immediately preceding litigation, the Hunters successfully maintained a possessory action maintaining them in possession of the disputed acreage. S. D. Hunter Foundation v. Board of Commissioners, La.App., 286 So.2d 525. As a consequence, the trial court judgment, affirmed by the intermediate court, ordered the levee district to assert any claim of its ownership within sixty days of the date its decree became executory. See La.C.Civ.P. art. 3662(2). In accordance with that decree, the levee district timely asserted its ownership by the present petitory action. If the levee district claiming record title had not done so, then that judgment would definitively have barred any further claim by the record owner to either ownership or possession of the tract insofar as based on circumstances preceding the judgment. La.C.Civ.P. art. 3662(2); Collier v. Marks, 220 La. 521, 57 So.2d 43 (1952); Yiannopoulos, 2 Civil Law Treatise (Property), Section 138, esp. pp. 425-26 (1966); Johnson, Real Actions, 35 Tul.L.Rev. 541, 554 (1961). However, while the possessory action judgment under such circumstances precludes further litigation of ownership or possession except as permitted by the judgment, it does so only on the basis of the statutorily-authorized and judicially-decreed order to assert ownership within the stipulated period or forever be barred. As the decisions and scholarly writings recognize, the purpose is to free the property for transaction and commerce by recognizing the possessor's interest in the property as being free from any adverse claim of ownership by the defendant (unless he asserts it timely), usually the only other possible adverse claimant. Thus, the judgment may be definitive and res judicata, La.C.Civ.P. art. 1842, La.C.C. arts. 2286, 3556(31), as to the right of the alleged owner to institute a petitory action other than that permitted by the possessory action judgment. Nevertheless, such judgment is not res judicata as to any issue of ownership or possession when raised in the judgment-authorized and timely-instituted petitory action filed in accordance with the decree. Res judicata requires identity in the two suits of object demanded, of cause, and of parties. La.C.C. art. 2286. Here, the possessory and petitory action had different objects (things demanded)i. e., to be maintained in possession, vs. to be recognized as owner, as well as different causespossession founded upon the juridical or material fact of undisturbed possession for one year or more, vs. ownership based upon record title. Nor does the present situation fall into one of the three narrow exceptions recognized to the doctrine of res judicata, which is strictly construed in Louisiana. See: Mitchell v. Bertolla, 340 So.2d 287 (La.1976); Sliman v. McBee, 311 So.2d 248 (La.1975); Hope v. Madison, 194 La. 337, 193 So. 666 (1940); Dixon, Res Judicata in Louisiana since Hope v. Madison, 51 Tul.L.Rev. 611 (1977); O'Quin, Res JudicataMatters Which Might Have Been Pleaded, 2 La.L.Rev. 491 (Part 1), 491 (Part 2) (1940). The possessory-action holding that the Hunters were in possession of the disputed acreage did not, consequently, preclude a contrary conclusion in the petitory action timely-instituted to try title in accordance with the possessory-action judgment. We conclude, therefore, that the interruption in 1952 of Hunter's possession as alleged good-faith purchaser under the 1946 and 1948 acts of sale prevented his acquiring prescriptive title by ten years' possession. Levee Districts: Acquisitive Prescription Statutes The Hunter defendants alternatively claim to have acquired prescriptive title to the Disputed Powell Tract by thirty-years' adverse possession without title. La.C.C. arts. 3499, 3500. The evidence shows that predecessors in title possessed at least part of the area since 1923 or earlier. Under applicable statutes, acquisitive prescription could run against the levee board only prior to 1938 and from 1944-64 (see below). The essential issue is whether a 1938 enactment barring acquisitive prescription against levee districts had the effect of interrupting the thirty years' acquisitive prescription then running in favor of Hunter's predecessors in titlethat is, of erasing pre-1938 possession for purposes of acquisitive prescription, or whether instead the acquisitive prescription was merely suspended from 1938 until 1944, when the 1938 enactment was repealed. Article 19, Section 16, La.Constitution of 1921 provided (as did similar provisions in our 1898 and 1913 constitutions): Prescription shall not run against the state in any civil matter, unless otherwise provided in this Constitution or expressly by law. (A similar provision is contained in our present constitution. La.Const. of 1974, Art. 12, Section 13.) In Haas v. Board of Com'rs of Red River, etc. v. Levee District, 206 La. 378, 19 So.2d 173 (1944), this court held that, for purposes of this constitutional provision, a levee district was a separate entity from the state. Thus, a levee district, although a state agency performing a state function, was subject (prior to the 1938 enactment) to losing the title to its land by a plea of ten years' acquisitive prescription, since it could validly alienate it. [8] The Haas decision was foreshadowed by two earlier decisions. Upon the same distinction (between the state and its separate entity), they had held that liberative prescription could run against a levee district, despite the cited constitutional provision. Board of Com'rs, etc. v. Earle, 169 La. 565, 125 So. 619 (1930); Board of Com'rs, etc. v. Pure Oil Co., 167 La. 801, 120 So. 373 (1929). Their rationale is that the legislative creation of a separate entity which could sue and be sued permitted liberative prescription to run against suits by or against that entity. Apparently in reaction to these latter decisions, the legislature enacted Act 76 of 1938. This act provided that prescription shall not run against levee districts, that no levee district shall be divested of any. . . property or property right by virtue of any prescription or adverse possession whatsoever, and that No Court . . . shall have authority to apply against any Levee District . . ., any prescription acquirendi causa or liberandi causa. By Act 247 of 1944, this statute was expressly repealed, with the proviso: provided nothing in this act shall be construed to affect pending litigation. The district court held that the 1938 enactment interrupted any acquisitive possession previously accrued. Thus, only possession following the enactment's repeal in 1944 was available for the defendants' plea of thirty years' acquisitive prescription. The possession from 1944-64 was therefore insufficient to establish prescriptive title in the defendants. The district court reasoned: By abolishing any cause of action based upon such adverse possession, the legislature extinguished any prescriptive rights previously accrued. The effect of the 1944 repeal of the enactment was to create a new cause of action (conceding the validity of the Haas holding) by which to acquire prescriptive title to levee board lands. Therefore, requisite possession to acquire by prescription commenced running only after the 1944 enactment. The district court concluded that the 1938 enactment, with its 1944 repeal, did not merely suspend the running of acquisitive prescription from 1938-44. The causes of suspension stated by the code all concern an existing inability to enforce an existing right, e. g., because of minority, rather than any additional delay allowed to enforce a then non-existent right. La.C.C. arts. 3521-27. For almost equally persuasive reasons, the court of appeal concluded that the legislative intent manifested by these two acts, in conjunction with Act 408 of 1964, La.R.S. 38:295, [9] was that prescriptive possession was merely tolled from 1938-44, and continued running again in 1944. The prescriptive possession continued until 1964, when the legislature again barred loss of levee district property by acquisitive prescription. The court pointed out that the 1938 enactment, with its complete repeal in 1944 (save only as to then pending litigation), was not similar to the code causes which interrupt prescription. La.C.C. arts. 3516-20. It felt that instead the circumstances here preventing accrual of prescriptive rights were more analogous to those which suspend prescription. La.C.C. arts. 3521-27. Recognizing the forcefulness of the intermediate court's holding, we nevertheless ultimately conclude that the district court's interpretation of the effect of the 1938 enactment is more probably in accord with the legislative intent. At the time the statute was enacted, its legislative effect was to eliminate any previous prescriptive possession as a basis for acquiring title against levee districts, whether of one day or of 29.99 years' duration. The enactment's repeal in 1944 (save only as to pending litigationin which, in sole effect, the levee board was opposing prescriptive title sought to be acquired against it), does not manifest any intent to resurrect past-eliminated possession for purposes of completing the prescriptive acquisition newly authorized against levee districts. Thirty Years' Acquisitive Prescription Consequently, in view of the previous holdings of this opinion, to prevail in their plea of thirty years' acquisitive prescription, La.C.C. arts. 3499-3503, the Hunter defendants must prove they possessed all or part of the tract for thirty years prior to 1938. By the testimony of six witnesses, the Hunter defendants sought to prove possession of the Disputed Powell Tract for the requisite time as including all the land between the bayouside of the traverse line (BD) (this line was adjacent to property to which they and their predecessors had record title), and up to a fence line (AC) immediately adjacent to the bayou. This fenceline is allegedly the bayou boundary of the Disputed Powell Tract which was depicted on the 1946 plat incorporated in the 1948 act of sale by which Hunter acquired the land. The present Hunter defendants are entitled to assert whatever prescriptive title their ancestors in title had acquired by thirty years' continuous and uninterrupted possession prior to 1938. [10] La.C.C. arts. 3493-95. A major issue is just when the fence [AC] was first built on this bayou line and by whom. The preponderance of the evidence undoubtedly shows that, at least as early as 1930, Powell built this fence to enclose levee district property possessed by him. The defendants rely on testimony which, if accepted, shows that the fence was built much earlier than 1930. Before adverting to it, we find it appropriate to refer to evidence indicating the probable earliest date by which this fence was built. In 1923, the levee district granted a surface lease to W. K. Henderson of 645 acres of its overflow lands lying between the bayou and the traverse line. The lease included by description and plat the Disputed Powell Tract in Section 14 (described as containing 94.3 acres). To the act of sale is attached a plat of survey of the areas leased, which was made on July 25, 1923. P-24. This 1923 plat discloses that Powell had indeed constructed a fence enclosing part of the levee district lands on the bayouside of the traverse line. See plat above. This fence enclosed the meadow land immediately adjacent to Powell's tract (and noted as containing 51.9 acres), but it did not enclose the 47.4 acres between the meadowland and bayou, which included the wooded area immediately adjacent to the bayou. The survey does not reflect any other fence. We conclude that the preponderance of the evidence shows that the additional fence along the bayou enclosing the woodlands as well (which the Hunter defendants mark the larger limits of their prescriptive title) was not built until after this 1923 survey. This is partially corroborated by the testimony of one of the defendants' witnesses (McCrady) that the bayouside fence was first started by Henderson (i. e., after Henderson received the 1923 lease from the levee district) and by the testimony of another (Carpenter) that he himself had built it for Powell some time between 1925-30. On direct examination, Will McCrady (age 66 at the 1975 trial) had seemed to testify, on the basis of boyhood memories, that the Powell fence had always been maintained at the bayou's edge. On cross-examination, however, he testified that the fence had been commenced by Henderson but then something happened. He quit it. Tr. 144. In 1923, when Henderson leased the acreage from the levee district, the witness was about 14 years of age. The only other witness with specific knowledge concerning the building of the fence is Howard Carpenter. In 1921, he had moved onto the parent Powell tract, in a house about one-half mile from the disputed strip, when he was 9 years old. He had farmed and tended cattle in the disputed area. He has lived in the vicinity since 1921. Carpenter testified that he himself had built the fence for Powell between 1925 and 1930. Carpenter further testified, he had built it along the line of a former fence. His testimony further reflects that the present bayouside fence is maintained in the same location as the fence he built. Thus, these two witnesses on cross-examination admitted that Powell or Henderson built the fence in the 1920's, despite their testimony on direct based on childhood memories that it was there earlier. The only other of defendants' witnesses who testified as to the existence of the fence before 1923 was Walker Spillman. He was born in 1893 and was 82 years of age at the time of the trial. He testified that he had seen the bayouside fence when he went by at the age of about 15, i. e., in about 1908, or in 1910 when I used to go along there after my cows down on that lake. However, in describing the fence, he spoke of the old place being fenced in and they was farming over in there. Cows was running on the outside then, everywhere in the woods. Under cross-examination, he admitted that the woods were open and unfenced. [11] We do not believe that this testimony suffices to prove by a preponderance of the evidence (i. e., more probably than not) that Powell built the bayouside fence as early as 1908. The evidence of defendants' witnesses shows, rather, that the fence was built between 1923 and 1930, except for the vague and indefinite testimony of an aged witness that he first saw it there when he was about fifteen (i. e., in about 1908) or in 1910. Likewise, with the possible exception of this witness (see footnote 11), there is no evidence whatsoever as to when Powell first took possession of the meadowland shown as enclosed by his fence in 1923. The testimony of the witness referred to (see footnote 11) did not preponderantly prove that such possession commenced as early as 1908. The Hunter defendants have not borne their burden of proving prescriptive title by thirty years' possession of all or any of the Disputed Powell Tract.