Opinion ID: 864389
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: evidence of the board’s claim

Text: 4 The Board's challenge to the admissibility of portions of the affidavits will be discussed infra, where Poe and Warner actually rely upon those portions. 4 ¶9. The Board’s evidence includes affidavits by Ottis B. Crocker, Jr., an attorney hired by the Board to research the title to the disputed tracts. Crocker found no title to 2(c) earlier than the 1919 deed from Armstrong to Shipp, and no title to 2(a-b) earlier than the 1924 conveyance from J.F. Poe to L.F. Poe. As for Tract 3, Crocker found that title to 3(a) was conveyed from Beadles to Stewart Warner on February 27, 1890, and that all of Tract 3 was conveyed by forfeited tax land patent from the State to A.V. Warner in 1938. ¶10. The Board also presented three other affidavits. Rebecca Prewitt, 16th Section Land Administrator for the Board, attested that no one other than the Poes and Warners claimed any ownership interest in any 16th Section lands in Calhoun County south of the Chickasaw-Choctaw treaty line. William R. Presson, an attorney, attested that he had carefully examined the Legislature’s session laws from 1833 to 1869 and found no indication that the Legislature had ever authorized Calhoun County or Yalobusha County (which contributed land to the new Calhoun County when it was formed in 1852) to sell any 16th Section lands in fee simple. Nor was there any general statute permitting the sale of 16th Section lands. And Dewitt Spencer, the superintendent of the Calhoun County schools and the custodian of school records, attested that his records showed no divestiture of title to the disputed lands. In his memorandum opinion, the chancellor did not consider the tracts and parcels individually, but rather premised his findings on the proposition that the documentary evidence reveals that the defendants and their predecessors have paid taxes on and have been in open, hostile and continuous possession of Tract two since the 1870’s. The Warner defendants has [sic] been associated with Tract three in a similar fashion. Under these circumstances, . . . the Court must presume there was a grant. The chancellor summarily rejected the Board’s arguments. 5 ¶11. A final judgment was entered March 6, 2000, and the Board moved to challenge that judgment, questioning the sufficiency of the evidence (M.R.C.P. 52(b)), seeking to amend the judgment (M.R.C.P. 59), and asking for a stay of proceedings to enforce the judgment (M.R.C.P. 62). On December 20, 2001, the chancellor denied the requested relief in an opinion that set forth the court’s reasoning at greater length. With regard to the issue of insufficient evidence, the chancellor ruled that the Board had waived any issue on this point when it stipulated that “the subject civil action primarily involves a question of law, and that the contested issues between the parties would be appropriate for resolution through Summary Judgment.” The chancellor further found that, alternatively, “Warner and Poe presented ample probative and unrebuked evidence for this Court to quiet title in their favor by way of summary judgment.”