Court Opinion

ID: 9574799
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:08:27.925072+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:45:14.124515
License: Public Domain

Felton, C. J.,
dissenting. I dissent from the judgment of affirmance.
*401Joe Williams, the surveyor, testified in part as follows: “There were three processioners that met out there in this case and I was there. The line was fixed at that time, the processioners started at the same point, about the only point that was known to be on this original line between these two tracts on the road and used an old plat in running north 87% west from the road back across this tract of land. This Dally tract is 510 and a fraction acres according to this plat. On this plat this line right here was the processioners’ line and this is the road on here. The line between the places, according to this old plat, runs north 87% west degrees. The line as fixed by the processioners is the same direction, north 87% west. . . In running this line out here it run, I guess, two-thirds of the way through these woods. In running this line the best evidence that looked like an old line was before you got in the woods, it looked like there had been a pine row; it started right down beside one piece of woods and crossed a little open space and then into another piece of woods. I think that was some evidence of the old line. . . This old plat is dated in 1878 and looks like it represents the land there.”
Josiah Blasingame, a processioner, testified in part: “When the surveyor ran that line we all walked along through the woods, Mr. Moore, Mr. Collier and myself, and we could see some natural evidence of a line when we got in there and that was the line the surveyor was running.”
Eugene Moore, a processioner, testified in part: “We walked with the surveyor from the road along the line of the disputed area and there were places along that line that appeared to be an old hedge row or turn row. We run that line according to the best plat we had available. When we run the line we didn’t know who was in possession; we had never heard of this Hinton place and Hopkin place. We just run the line. Up on the road there was a point accepted by all the parties concerned was my understanding. The difference in the line was on the south side of the road and the dispute was from the road down to the creek on the south side of the road. I guess it would be about eight acres. The line was a straight line continuing the line north of the road. We had a copy of a plat and adopted that line as being the true line.”
*402Curtis li. Collier, a processioner, testified in part: “It was mutual decision to run that line a straight line according to a copy of a plat we had and the surveyor ran it the same as it was on this old plat. We did not consider the fact Mrs. Dally claimed she owned it for all these years and had been in possession of it.”
I think the evidence conclusively shows that the processioners did not proceed according to law in the marking of the line. They merely took a plat made in 1878 and, beginning at an agreed point, ran a line according to the courses and distances shown on that plat. “They [processioners] seek and find lines already existing, but can not bring into existence any which have not been before designated on the surface of the earth. Lines merely drawn on paper or in the minds of contracting joarties, are not ready for the search or services of processioners.” Amos v. Parker, 88 Ga. 754 (16 S. E. 200). Also, see Smith v. Clemons, 71 Ga. App. 589 (31 S. E. 2d 621); Anthony v. Wright, 78 Ga. App. 425 (46 S. E. 2d 194). There is some evidence that the processioners saw some evidence of an existing line, and these physical markings, if used, may have been sufficient to legally mark a line; however, such evidence was not used by the processioners in marking the line, but was incidentally observed by them while they were marking a line based on a compass course taken from the 1878 plat.
The rulings in Rattaree v. Morrow, 71 Ga. 528 and Long v. Robertson, 41 Ga. App. 712 (154 S. E. 464), cited by the majority, have no application to this case for the reason that there was nothing to show that the processioners did not have jurisdiction, either on the face of the record or from the evidence, or anything to show that the protestant waived the right to contend that the line run by the processioners was not the true line as contended in the protest.
The evidence demanded a finding against the line run by the processioners.