Court Opinion

ID: 9763101
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:36:41.029045+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:39.390127
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON PETITION TO REHEAR
A petition to rehear has been filed making certain points which we shall discuss.
The first point is that under the facts of the case adverse possession never commenced. This contention is based on this proposition made in the petition. We quote from the petition:
On page 3 of this court’s Opinion, the facts indicate that Mr. Arlt, the predecessor in interest of the defendants-appel-lees, did not begin to claim title or right to all of the bam (one of the required elements of adverse possession) until 1971. However, as the Chancellor further found, this is also the time that the Howards became the residents of the adjoining property and Arlt permitted them to use the now disputed property. Therefore, even if these findings of fact are correct, the elements of hostility and exclusivity of possession, which are necessary to establish adverse possession, were never present in the beginning.
While it is a fact that Mr. Arlt’s overt claim to the entire property was contemporaneous with the Howard’s acquisition of the adjoining property, Howard recognized Arlt’s claim and used the property with Arlt’s permission. Under the authorities cited in the opinion this did not prevent the commencement of the adverse holding. To the contrary, Howard’s recognition of Arlt’s claim by using the property only with Arlt’s permission is clear evidence that Arlt commenced adverse possession at the time found by the chancellor and by the Court of Appeals.
Plaintiffs-appellants say that even if these facts are true, (and they are, having been found by the trial court and by the intermediate appeals court) still there is no adverse possession because there was not hostility or exclusivity in the holding. This contention must arise on a misunderstanding of the meaning of the term “hostility” as used in adverse possession law. “Hostility” in possession does not require the adverse possessor to walk his boundaries inveighing against all who draw near, nor does it require the possessor to forcefully eject those who may come upon his adverse holding especially when they are there with his permission. The term does not imply ill will or actual enmity, but merely means that the party claims to hold the possession as his, against the claims of any other. Ballard v. Hansen, 33 Neb. 861, 51 N.W. 295 (1892); Griffin v. Mulley, 31 A. 664, 167 Pa. 339 (1895). Exclusivity does not imply that the possessor can never allow anyone on his adverse holding without the holding being broken but that the holder claims exclusive right to say who can and who cannot come on his possession. Under the record, Arlt exercised this right and held and claimed the land exclusively. 3 Am.Jur.2d Adverse Possession § 50 (1962).
With respect to the contention that the adverse possession was not continuous because after 1974 Arlt ceased to keep horses in the barn, it is sufficient to point out that he continued to claim the property as his own and exercised dominion and control over it by allowing others to use it. In this connection it should be stated that adverse possession through a licensee is the same as adverse possession through and by the claimant. What a claimant can do himself, he can do by an agent licensee or tenant. 3 Am.Jur.2d Adverse Possession § 15 (1962).
It should also be pointed out that during this period of time there was no one other than Arlt who claimed to own the barn property. Plaintiffs-appellants’ predecessors in title continued during all of this time *938to recognize Arlt’s claim. So, as there was no one other than Arlt claiming the property during this time, there could not be and there was not any cessation of his adverse possession.
Plaintiffs-appellants ask that the opinion be clarified because the authorities first cited with respect to the nature of re-entry required to interrupt an adverse possession seem to be at odds with the citation from Norvell v. Gray’s Lessee, 31 Tenn. 96, 106-07 (1851), with the result that the decision is unclear as to the plaintiffs-appellants’ present rights with respect to the property.
The law cited on re-entry relates to re-entry attempted during the seven year period while or in which adverse possession is ripening. After this period has passed, T.C.A. § 28-2-103 protects the adverse possessor from suit at law or equity. The law puts the plaintiffs-appellants in the anomalous position of owning the cake but not being able to eat it: they own the title to the property but, because of defendants-ap-pellees’ adverse possession rights, are not able to make any use of the property. This is always the case where a statute of limitations bars the right to sue but does not extinguish the claim. The result is that unless defendants-appellees abandon their possession or agree that plaintiffs-appellants may re-enter and assert their ownership, there is nothing they can do.
FONES, C.J., and BROCK, HARBISON and DROWOTA, JJ.