Court Opinion

ID: 9538635
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:38:50.643338+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:02.043106
License: Public Domain

*272Hill, J.
(concurring in the result)—The result of the majority opinion is sound, if strictly limited to what I conceive to be a modified version of the theory of adverse possession as applied to personal property, namely, a possession adverse to the possessory interest of the owner as distinguished from a possession under claim of right or title.
In adverse possession of real property, the emphasis is placed upon possession adverse to the ownership of the true owner. The emphasis on possessory interest, rather than ownership, in the case of personal property, is logical, because possession is one of the primary incidents of ownership of. such property. Abandonment of possession of personal property can result in abandonment of ownership, whereas there can be no abandonment of title to real property.
The theory of the Edison case (Edison Oyster Co. v. Pioneer Oyster Co., 22 Wn. (2d) 616, 157 P. (2d) 302 (1945)) is that the statute of limitations requires actions for the recovery of personal property to be brought within three years after the cause of action accrues, and that, although a demand is required prior to the accrual of a cause of action, the demand must be made within a reasonable time, namely, within the statutory period, the reason being that the owner should not have the power to prevent the statute from running by failing to make a demand.
It seems to me that the statute of limitations should begin to run, not from the accrual of the right to immediate possession of the property and the right to sue in case a demand for return is denied (as might be inferred from the majority opinion, p. 269), but rather from the time that it can be- said that a possession exists which is adverse to the possessory interest of'the owner. In other words, a cause of action could not be said to have accrued and the necessity of a demand dispensed with in every case where the owner is out of possession. If personal property is in the possession of another by being on his land with the consent of the landowner or his predecessors, it could not be said that á cause of action had accrued until there had been a demand for possession *273and a refusal, because the owner would not be aware that the possession of the landowner is adverse to his possessory interest, i.e., his right to immediate possession.
While the present action is for damages for conversion, the same reasoning applies as to a possessory action, and if the plaintiff in such an action could not maintain a possessory action, he has no action in conversion.