Court Opinion

ID: 9537904
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:26:47.457024+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:57:09.510731
License: Public Domain

ELLETT, Justice
(concurring).
The law requires tenants in common to be true to their trust and honest in their dealings with each other while they occupy that relationship. The possession of one is the possession of all, and each is supposed to protect the rights of all the others. A co-tenant, therefore, is not permitted to take a contrary position unless he first acts in such a manner as to make himself liable to his co-tenants for a breach of duty to them and brings home to their attention the fact that he is repudiating his fiduciary relationship. Until this occurs, he cannot adverse his co-tenants. McCready v. Fredericksen, 41 Utah 388, 126 P. 316.
There is but one question involved herein ; Did Holbrook bring home to Ehlers the fact that he was trying to get Ehlers’ share of the land by adverse possession?
At oral argument before this court counsel for the plaintiff stated:
As I listened to Mr. Marsh and as I read his brief, I wonder if he expected Mr. Holbrook to send Mr. Ehlers a notice in the mail: “Dear Mr. Ehlers: I am ad-versing you. Maybe you had better do something about it.” Well, in our commercial world we don’t do that. The competitor, as in all these cases, follows the law. He doesn’t tip his opponent off to everything that is going on:
It seems obvious from this statement that plaintiff was trying to secure by legal stealth that which he could not obtain by purchase. This the law does not permit him to do. That which would be sufficient to adverse a stranger will not suffice to *291take the interest of a co-tenant. See 3 Am.Jur.2d, Adverse Possession, § 175 at page 263.