Court Opinion

ID: 9788874
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:21:26.66144+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:16.922442
License: Public Domain

OPALA, J.,
with whom HARGRAVE, C.J., joins, dissenting.
1 The court holds today that there is an absence of proof to support the trial judge's decree in favor of the defendants. It orders that on remand a decree be entered in favor of the plaintiffs. I dissent for the reasons to be explained.
T2 Ordinarily in a quiet-title suit, a party must recover on the strength of its own title rather than on the weakness of that held by its adversary. Atlantic Richfield Co. v. State, 1983 OK 14, ¶ 12, 659 P.2d 930, 934-35 n. 11. In a case of equitable cognizance, an appellate court may re-weigh the evidence, but must not reverse the chancellor's findings unless they are clearly contrary to the weight of the evidence. In re T.H.L., 1981 OK 103, ¶ 7, 636 P.2d 330, 332-33. On so reweighing the entire proof, the appellate court may render that decree which the trial court should have rendered.
13 In this quiet-title suit there were two claims-that by the plaintiffs and that (pressed by counterclaim) of the defendants. The court's opinion finds insufficient evidence to support the defendants' nisi prius decree in defendants' favor but says nothing about the strength of the plaintiffs' own claim to title.
4 I agree with the court's opinion to the extent it finds that the plaintiffs should be deemed to have defeated the defendant's counterclaim. There is no evidentiary support for defendants' adverse possession or for a boundary by agreement that would favor their claim. Also absent is proof to support the plaintiffs' own claim to title. In short, giving victory to the plaintiffs is unwarranted. This is so because their evidence falls short of establishing their own claim.
115 Because in a post-remand retrial both parties may be able to secure proof sufficient to support their respective claims, I would remand this cause with directions to afford them a new trial Whenever an appellate court is of the view that other evidence may be produced on remand (or is unable to say that such evidence may not be secured), it will not direct that the suit be terminated by judgment but rather will order the cause (in which nisi prius decree stands reversed) to be remanded for new trial. Guinn v. Church of Christ of Collinsville, 1989 OK 8, ¶ 22, 775 P.2d 766, 775; Sherrill v. Sovereign Camp, W.O.W., 1938 OK 549, ¶¶ 12, 13, 86 P.2d 295, 296.