Court Opinion

ID: 9592204
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:11:34.289707+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:03:00.833775
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice McINTYRE,
dissenting.
The decision reached in this case is unfortunate, in my view, because it distorts the rule that adverse possession ripens into land ownership only when that possession is based on color of title or claim of right. See Bolln v. Colorado & S. Ry. Co., 23 Wyo. 395, 152 P. 486, 486-487; Bruch v. Benedict, 62 Wyo. 213, 165 P.2d 561, 566; and Amerada Petroleum Corporation v. Rio Oil Co., D.C.Wyo., 225 F.Supp. 907, 913.
*346’As stated in th'e' Bollft casé, where a hotel encroached on railroad land and owners of .the hotel held, possession for the prescriptive period but not under a.claim of right or color of title, the hotel owners acquired no title to the land.
The need for a claim of right, in the absence of color of title, in order to initiate adverse possession, is pointed up in City of Rock Springs v. Sturm, 39 Wyo. 494, 273 P. 908, 910, 97 A.L.R. 1, which is relied on to support the decision reached in this case.
The holding in the Sturm case was that it is a reasonable rule that, when a man has occupied a piece of ground, “though under a mistaken belief as to the true boundary,” for the period prescribed by law, the presumption should be, “in the absence of explanatory circumstances showing the contrary,” that he occupied the land adversely and under claim of right.
The circumstances in the case at bar are such that there could- be no “mistaken belief” as to the true boundary. Also there was a presence and not absence of “explanatory circumstances” showing the contrary, with respect to’ claim of right.
All parties are bound to know that regular tracts have boundary lines running substantially east and west or north and south. If a river cuts off a corner -and for convenience a fence, follows the river bank, it does not and cannot mean the owner is claiming the fence to be on his property line. In such a case, there would be no proof of a claim of right on the part of the owner. In fact, the circumstances themselves would prove the contrary.
The same situation prevails in this case, where a road cuts off a corner of land and the fence follows the road. Everybody knows the owner is not claiming the fence to be a marking of his property line.
In this particular case the circumstances are amplified, because a tract of land actually owned by the grandfather was cut off on the other side of the road and not used by him. He could not help knowing he actually owned the additional tract of land which was not occupied or used.
The defendants here offered evidence tending to prove the existence of a written or oral contract for the exchange of use of tracts of land. Although the trial court was entitled to find against them with respect to the actual existence of such a contract, the plaintiff by the same token failed to prove his grandfather ever claimed to own the tract of land in dispute. This burden was clearly on the plaintiff. In fact, the circumstances are such that the grandfather could not possibly have claimed the fence to be a fence enclosing his rightfully owned land.
A diagonal fence, following the general course of a river or road and obviously not following what any reasonable person would consider a boundary line, clearly constitutes, in my opinion, an explanatory circumstance showing the contrary and negativing any presumption of a claim of right. This situation is quite different from the situation where a person is mistaken as to his true boundary and inadvertently encloses or builds upon and occupies a small' strip of land adjoining his own.
In the latter case it is clear from the circumstances that the owner is claiming his boundary to be where he has established it and is claiming to own the strip in question. In our case, however, it is just as clear that the fence was intended to follow the road and not to mark a boundary line and not to be a claim of ownership.
In my opinion the judgment should have been reversed.