Court Opinion

ID: 9808801
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:51:32.894913+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:19:08.312231
License: Public Domain

Fueciies, J.,
(concurring). I concur in the opinion of the Court, that the judgment should be affirmed for the reasons stated in this opinion. I do not think it necessary to determine whether the statements in the deed were primary •or secondary evidence, or whether they proved the issuance of an execution, or only created a presumption of the issuance of an execution. It would have been necessary to •determine these questions if it had been necessary for the plaintiff to rely upon the sheriff’s deed as title to the land, unaided by possession. But this was not the case. The plaintiff became the purchaser of this land in 1870, took the sheriff’s deed therefor, went into possession at once, and *282held possession thereunder until 1885, a period of fifteen years. This deed was, at least, color of title, and the plaintiff’s possession ripened, and it became a perfect title in seven years, although it may have been defective when it was made, for want of an execution authorizing the sale, or for any other defect in the proceedings under which it was sold. And when the plaintiff had once acquired a good legal title by reason of her colorable title and her adverse possession, it could only be destroyed by the defendants’ after-wards holding adverse possession for seven years under color of title, or twenty years without color of title. Christenbury v. King, 85 N. C., 229. And it was not necessary that-the plaintiff should have commenced her action at once, upon defendants’ talcing possession. Id. the defendants did not offer to show that they had any color of title, or that they had been in possession long enough to acquire title by possession. In fact, they offered no evidence of any kind. It was therefore the duty of the Court to charge the jury that if they found, from the evidence, that the plaintiff had been in possession of the land in controversy, holding it, under the-sheriff’s deed, for more than seven years, they should find that the plaintiff was the owner of the land. The judgment, should be affirmed.
Douglas, J., concurs in the concurring opinion.