Court Opinion

ID: 9745555
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 23:09:37.65991+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:02.535970
License: Public Domain

YOUNG, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
I would affirm the trial court's determination that the Joneses acquired title to the disputed strip adjoining Lot No. 2 by adverse possession. Improving the disputed area by grading and planting grass and trees constitutes sufficient acts of ownership to establish adverse possession of a residential property when the owner of record title has actual notice of the possessor's claim. The majority's view that the entire neighborhood must be able to recognize the property line between two neighbors' residences would limit adverse possession to situations where the act of possession is evidenced by a visible marker such as a fence, garage, or driveway. Moreover, even erecting such improvements would be insufficient evidence of possession unless it was also clear the improvement was intended to mark a boundary line.
The sole purpose of requiring possession to be notorious is to put the record owner on notice of the adverse claim. Houston v. United States Gypsum Co., 652 F.2d 467, 475 (5th Cir.1981); see also Poole v. Corwin (1983), Ind.App., 447 N.E.2d 1150. As explained by our supreme court in Marengo Cave v. Ross (1987), 212 Ind. 624, 627, 10 N.E.2d 917, 920-21:
The possession must be open and notorious. The mere possession of the land is not enough. It is knowledge, either actual or imputed, of the possession of his lands by another, claiming to own them bona fide and openly, that affects the legal owner thereof. Where there has been no actual notice, it is necessary to show that the possession of the disseisor was so open, notorious, and visible as to warrant the inference that the owner must or should have known of it.
Indiana decisions, however, have never explicitly held that possession must be notorious when the owner has actual notice of the adverse claim. Such a rule is, however, implicit in adverse possession cases from the manner in which the term "notorious" is defined. In Philbin v. Carr (1920), 75 Ind.App. 560, 585, 129 N.E. 19, 28, quoted *780by the majority opinion, the court defines "notorious" as follows:
[where there has been no actual notice, the possession must have been so notorious as to warrant the inference that the owner ought to have known that a stranger was asserting dominion over his land.
{(emphasis added); see also 1 LLE. Adverse Possession § 18 (1957). The majority of jurisdictions has consistently held that openness and notoriety are unnecessary if the owner has actual knowledge of the adverse claim. See 2 C.J.S. Adverse Possession § 50-51 (1972) and cases cited therein.
Here, it was undisputed that the Greenes and their predecessors in title knew the Joneses claimed property to the line where the fence had once been located. The Joneses treated that property as their own for the required statutory period. I would therefore affirm the trial court's determination that the Joneses had acquired title to the strip adjoining Lot No. 2 by adverse possession.