Court Opinion

ID: 9659007
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 21:26:12.883055+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:02.899416
License: Public Domain

Gordon, J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent from the decision of the court. This lawsuit represents an effort by the plaintiff to establish that through adverse possession she is the owner of certain real estate. The majority opinion deems that she is such an owner notwithstanding the strictures of sec. 330.15 (1), Stats. 1963, because she qualifies under an exception within that statute which is available only to an owner in possession. This is patently circuitous reasoning, and the majority opinion properly acknowledges that “this may seem like permitting one to pull himself up by his bootstraps.” In my view, the effort in the majority opinion to avoid that construction is not successful.
As indicated in subsection (4), sec. 330.15, Stats. 1963, was designed to impose a highly restrictive limitation on claims against real estate. The legislative purpose of the statute is that of “barring all claims to an interest in real property ... or any claim of any nature whatsoever, however denominated . . .” unless founded upon an interest arising within thirty years from the suit, all as described in the statute. This statutory language is clearly broad enough to encompass claims based on adverse possession. However, the majority concludes that the plaintiff (and presumably any person who alleges adverse possession) is relieved of the onus of the statute by *35reason of the following clause in subsection (4) of the same statute:
“This section does not apply to any action commenced by any person who is in possession of real estate involved as owner at the time the action is commenced . . . .”
The court’s opinion states that “A person who with his predecessor in title has been in possession of land for fifty years ought not to be foreclosed from establishing title to the land;” this may be a desirable doctrine, but the legislature has decreed that the period be thirty years unless there has been compliance with sec. 380.15 (4), Stats. 1963.
To accomplish the result that the plaintiff “ought not to be foreclosed from establishing title,” the majority opinion has utilized a wholly inapplicable exception. It has- allowed the plaintiff to become an owner by permitting her to offer proof which would be available by legislative decree only to one who already qualified as an owner.
The majority’s effort to justify the use of the statutory exception has provoked it into asserting that “the owner of land whether by deed or adverse possession has a legal title and is presumed to be in possession thereof. . . .” Does this statement mean that one who claims to have adverse possession has legal title and therefore that the holder of record title does not have legal title? It would seem to follow that the court is now saying that, even before judgment, the one alleging adverse possession has legal title.
Almost invariably the main issue to be decided in an adverse possession suit is the nature and extent of the alleged possession. Burkhardt v. Smith (1962), 17 Wis. (2d) 132, 115 N. W. (2d) 540; Cuskey v. McShane (1958), 2 Wis. (2d) 607, 87 N. W. (2d) 497. This issue in the case at bar was so heated that the defendant even tore down a fence on the disputed land. Nevertheless, the *36majority opinion concludes, as a matter of law, that the plaintiff was both an “owner” and “in possession” before the judgment. Cf. sec. 330.05, Stats. 1963.
In my opinion, the trial court was correct in confirming the record title of the defendant, and I would affirm that judgment.
I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice Wilkie joins in this dissent.