Court Opinion

ID: 9856868
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 07:03:35.556737+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:37:30.548008
License: Public Domain

TYSON, Judge,
dissenting.
The majority’s opinion affirms the trial court’s grant of summary judgment for defendants and holds that plaintiffs failed to possess the disputed tract in a hostile manner for a continuous twenty-year period to establish a claim for adverse possession. I disagree and vote to reverse and remand the trial court’s order. Genuine issues of material fact exist regarding whether defendants were placed on notice of plaintiffs’ hostile intent to claim ownership of the disputed tract after the parties’ discussion in 1992.1 respectfully dissent.
I. Standard of Review
Summary judgment is appropriate if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that [a] party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. On appeal of a trial court’s allowance of a motion for summary judgment, we consider whether, on the basis of materials supplied to the trial court, there was a genuine issue of material fact and whether the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Evidence presented by the parties is viewed in the light most favorable to the non-movant.
Summey v. Barker, 357 N.C. 492, 496, 586 S.E.2d 247, 249 (2003) (alteration original) (internal citation and quotation omitted).
II. Adverse Possession
In order to prevail on an adverse possession claim, a claimant must éstablish possession of the disputed property was “continuous, adverse, hostile, under known and visible lines and boundaries, and exclusive during the statutory period under a claim of title to the land occupied.” State v. Johnson, 278 N.C. 126, 152, 179 S.E.2d 371, 388 (1971) (citation omitted). The only issue briefed in defendant’s motion for summary judgment and addressed in the majority’s opin*297ion concerns whether plaintiffs’ possession of the disputed tract was hostile to the true owners.
Hostile use is generally defined as “simply a use of such nature and exercised under such circumstances as to manifest and give notice that the use is being made under a claim of right.” Dulin v. Faires, 266 N.C. 257, 261, 145 S.E.2d 873, 875 (1966). Where claim of title is founded upon a mistake our Supreme Court has held:
when a landowner, acting under a mistake as to the true boundary between his property and that of another, takes possession of the land believing it to be his own and claims title thereto, his possession and claim of title is adverse. If such adverse possession meets all other requirements and continues for the requisite statutory period, the claimant acquires title by adverse possession even though the claim of title is founded on a mistake.
Walls v. Grohman, 315 N.C. 239, 249, 337 S.E.2d 556, 562 (1985) (emphasis supplied). It is undisputed that plaintiffs mistakenly believed the disputed tract was part of their property from 1981 until 1992, when plaintiffs conducted a survey to ascertain the boundaries of their property.
Upon discovering plaintiffs’ possession and use encroached upon defendants’ property, plaintiffs asserted to defendants they “had a legal right to the disputed tract by adverse possession.” Plaintiffs offered to purchase the disputed tract from defendants in order to avoid the time and expense of litigation. In response to plaintiffs’ offer, defendants told plaintiffs they could continue to utilize the tract and advised them to “enjoy the land” but they were not willing to sell plaintiffs the property.
Plaintiffs argue defendant’s permission to use the disputed tract of land did not toll the running of the twenty-year statute of limitations required to adversely possess the property pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat. § 1-40 (2005). I agree.
“Permission given after the hostile use has begun does not destroy hostility.” 1 James A. Webster, Jr., Webster’s Real Estate Law in North Carolina § 15-18(a), at 722 (Patrick K. Hetrick & James B. McLaughlin, Jr. eds., 5th ed. (1999)) (emphasis original). The majority’s opinion states, “[w]hile the statement in the Webster’s treatise may be accurate in some cases, it is not accurate in all cases.” The majority’s opinion further states, “a true owner’s grant of permission will defeat a possessor’s hostile' use if the possessor takes no further *298action to reassert his claim over the land.” In support of this proposition the majority’s opinion cites several cases from other jurisdictions. The holdings in these cases have not been adopted and are not controlling in North Carolina. Further, adjoining jurisdictions have held contrary to the majority’s assertion in analogous cases reviewing the subsequent creation of life estates. See Kubiszyn v. Bradley, 292 Ala. 570, 298 So.2d 9 (1974) (holding that once the statutory period for adverse possession commences to run against a landowner, the running of the statutory period is not suspended by the subsequent creation of a life estate); Miller v. Leaird, 307 S.C. 56, 62-63, 413 S.E.2d 841, 844-45 (S.C. 1992) (“[O]nce the statutory period for adverse possession is activated the subsequent creation of a life estate will not suspend the running of such period.”).
North Carolina has adopted this reasoning in other contexts. Our Supreme Court has stated:
There is a well recognized rule that when the statute of limitations has begun to run no subsequent disability will interfere with it. Where the statute of limitations begins to run in favor of one in adverse possession against an owner who dies leaving heirs who are minors, their disability of infancy does not affect the operation of the statute, since the disability is subsequent to the commencement of the running of the statute.
Battle v. Battle, 235 N.C. 499, 502, 70 S.E.2d 492, 494 (1952) (internal citations and quotations omitted) (emphasis supplied); see also Nicholas v. Furniture Co., 248 N.C. 462, 471, 103 S.E.2d 837, 844 (1958) (“It is well recognized law in this jurisdiction from the earliest times that when the Statute of Limitations has begun to run, no subsequent disability will stop it.”). The reasoning in the preceding cases is applicable when a party has adversely possessed property for a substantial amount of the requisite statutory time period and the true owner attempts to thwart hostility simply by solely giving the party permission to use his property. Once adverse possession has begun and the owner is on notice, the burden shifts to the record owner to take physical or legal action to interrupt the running of the twenty year statutory period. After being notified of plaintiffs’ claim, defendants failed to take any affirmative action to toll the running of the statute.
Presuming arguendo the majority’s opinion articulates the correct legal position, genuine issues of material fact exist regarding whether defendants were placed on notice of plaintiffs’ hostile intent *299to claim the disputed tract as their own after the parties’ discussion in 1992. Following the 1992 conversation, plaintiffs continued to use the driveway and maintained the shrubbery located on the disputed tract to the exclusion of defendants. Plaintiffs allege they continually asserted a legal right to the disputed tract by adverse possession. In 2004, plaintiffs erected a fence along the boundary line plaintiffs believed they had a right to claim. Defendants took no action to defeat plaintiffs exclusive possession of the disputed property.
III. Conclusion
Defendants took no action, after notice of plaintiffs’ claims, to defeat their open, continuous, exclusive, actual and notorious possession of defendants’ property. Viewed in the light most favorable to plaintiffs, genuine issues of material fact exist regarding whether plaintiffs held possession of the disputed tract for the requisite statutory twenty-year period. Summey, 357 N.C. at 496, 586 S.E.2d at 249. The trial court’s order granting defendants’ motion for summary judgment should be reversed and remanded for trial. I respectfully dissent.