Court Opinion

ID: 9833948
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:10:42.924276+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:09.704683
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
On motion of appellants we make the following additional conclusions of fact:
Appellee’s original dwelling house was burned in the spring of 1922. Immediately after the fire he “cleaned out a little smokehouse on the place and lived in that” and cultivated the cleared land in 1923. The nature and extent of the crops raised on the cleared land for the year 1923 were not fully shown. In June of 1923 appellee occupied what was known in the record as “the Daniels house,” located about 2½ miles from the premises in controversy, as headquarters for his work as a tie .maker. He continued using the Daniels house as headquarters for his work until Christmas, 1923. While he was occupying this house, his plow tools and a portion of his household goods were stored in his house upon the premises in controversy. “The character and amount of the household goods and plow tools left on the premises were not disclosed by the evidence.” While he was occupying the Daniels house, appellee, according to his testimony, “returned to the premises as often as every ten or fifteen days and according to the son’s testimony, he and his father returned as often as once a week and stayed all night on the place. The fence around the patch or garden was kept up and the well kept cleaned out and in condition for use. During this time there were two small buildings on the place; the smokehouse (being used as a residence), some ten or twelve feet in size, and a chicken house, about eight by ten feet in size, made of poles * * * the record does not disclose whether these buildings were kept locked or otherwise fastened during this period of time.”
In view of all the circumstances in the case, we make the additionhl conclusion that appellee kept the doors and windows of his house securely fastened in his absence. While there is no direct evidence to this effect, yet the circumstances warrant that conclusion. After Christmas in 1923 appellee rebuilt the dwelling house on the premises in controversy, and continuously occupied the same until 1925. During 1925 he again occupied the Daniels house, as he did from June to Christmas in 1923, using it as headquarters for his work as a tie maker. Though, for the most part, the following conclusion requested by appellants is only a repetition of what we have said in the original opinion, we again restate it at their special request:
“He was a widower, having two sons and a daughter. The daughter at that time was married. The younger son stayed on the premises and trapped during the winter until March, 1925, and again when the trapping season opened in November of that year, 'he went back and stayed at the place and trapped. From March to November of 1925, the younger son stayed with his father at the Hooks place, or Daniels place, and assisted in making ties.. The older son was during that time in the State of Arkansas. The father and son returned to the premises and looked after it — the father’s testimony being that he returned to the place as often as every ten or fifteen days and stayed all night, and the son’s testimony being that he and his father went to the place once a week and sometimes twice a week and stayed all night and all day.”
The facts as to appellee’s house, upon the premises in controversy, being looked after and fastened during his absence in 1925, were about the same as in 1923, and will support the inference that they were locked and fastened. The fence around the little garden or patch was kept in repair and in condition for use.
As to whether Bumpstead’s possession was hostile and under a claim of right while he occupied the premises was a controverted issue, and the defendants offered considerable testimony to show that the plaintiff did not claim the land as his own to hold for him*826self throughout the limitation period. The facts offered by appellee on these issues are summarized in the original opinion.
Except as to the additional conclusions of fact requested by appellants, their motion for rehearing is in all things overruled.