Court Opinion

ID: 9711605
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:35:13.465744+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:06.273422
License: Public Domain

Gehl, J.
{dissenting). The majority say in effect that as a matter of law any entry upon land and its occupation, no matter that the acts of entry may be infrequent and the occupation may be for short interrupted periods, constitutes such possession as to put a purchaser upon inquiry as to the rights of the person so occupying; that possession, regardless of its nature or extent, serves as notice to put the prospective buyer upon inquiry.
That is erroneous. Possession to constitute notice is that which is required by law, and is defined in Ely v. Wilcox, 20 Wis. *523, *531:
“The next question is, whether there was such possession by Ely at the date of the deed to the appellant as to be constructive notice to him of the plaintiff’s title. The burden of proof was on the plaintiff to prove such possession. He has failed to prove that either he or any one under him was in actual possession of the premises or any part of them at *168the date of the deed. The rule is, that possession, to be notice, must be open, visible, exclusive, and unambiguous; not liable to be misunderstood or misconstrued. Patten v. Moore, 32 N. H. 384, and authorities there cited. The plaintiff had no such possession.”
In Wickes v. Lake, 25 Wis. 71, the court restated the rule in the same language. Both cases have been considered and cited by this court numerous times.
Not all of the later cases have dealt with the precise question here involved; they are referred to only as indicating that it is quite likely that the court has not overlooked the rule there stated. It has never, so far as I have been able to find, been held by this court that possession to be constructive notice, may be of a nature different from that there defined. The majority cite a number of cases dealing with situations similar to that presented in the instant case. The court in those cases described the possession upon which the party relied in opposition to the contention of one claiming as bona fide purchaser in terms different from those used by the court in the two earlier cases. But a reading of those cases will disclose that the possession there found was such as to meet the requirements of the earlier definition.
The rule as it is stated in the Ely Case, supra, and the Wickes Case, supra, is in substance identical with that stated in 55 Am. Jur., Vendor and Purchaser, p. 1090, sec. 716:
“In order that possession of real estate may constitute notice to a purchaser of the rights of the party in possession or by virtue of which the possession is held, such possession must be visible, open, clear, full, notorious, unequivocal, unambiguous, inconsistent with or adverse to the title or interest of the vendor, and not likely to be misunderstood or misconstrued, but, to the 'contrary, sufficient to put the purchaser on his guard.”
The issue presented is one of fact, Brinkman v. Jones, 44 Wis. 498; Mohr v. Porter, 51 Wis. 487, 8 N. W. 364; *16955 Am. Jur., Vendor and Purchaser, p. 1135, sec. 786, and the court’s finding should not be disturbed. That a finding has force is indicated quite clearly in First Nat. Bank v. Savings L. & T. Co. 207 Wis. 272, 240 N. W. 381, a case involving similar issues where the court in discussing a finding that one claiming to be a bona fide purchaser did not have sufficient notice to put him upon inquiry said (p. 279) :
“It is not at all clear that this court could have disturbed a contrary finding, . . .”
It was the burden of the plaintiffs to establish that Hines was not a bona fide purchaser. Olmsted v. McCrory, 158 Wis. 323, 148 N. W. 871. The court found that they had not met the burden. The fact that some of the land had been plowed, that a water tank and a pile of manure were left upon the farm (neither of which circumstances is evidence of possession inconsistent with the right of possession of Mrs. Green, and neither of which is a circumstance which would necessarily suggest that Miller rather than Mrs. Green or someone else acting for or under her had left the tank and manure upon the premises and had plowed the land), considered with the fact that the buildings were unoccupied and that the crop season for which period Miller had rented the farm had ended, are not such as to permit us to hold that the court’s findings are contrary to the great weight and clear preponderance of the evidence. Certainly we should not say that under those circumstances the court erred in its finding that plaintiffs had failed to meet the burden to establish that their possession of the farm was “open, visible, exclusive, and unambiguous; not liable to be misunderstood or misconstrued.”
The trial judge made no specific finding that the possession of Miller was not that required by law to put Hines on inquiry. He did find that “there was nothing in the use to which the land was put by the plaintiff, Eugene M. Miller, *170to indicate to the defendant, W. E. Hines, that [there] had been a change in the status of said plaintiff with relation to said land,” which I construe as a finding that Miller’s occupancy of the land was not such as is required by law to put Hines on inquiry. In any event, the omission, if there were such, to make the specific finding, one which is necessary to support the judgment, is equivalent to a finding against the contention of the plaintiffs. Robinson v. Marachowsky, 184 Wis. 600, 200 N. W. 398; Desmond v. Pierce, 185 Wis. 479, 201 N. W. 742.
I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice Broadfoot and Mr. Justice Brown join in this dissent.