Court Opinion

ID: 9617895
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:03:16.499882+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:19.648637
License: Public Domain

Hunt, Justice,
concurring specially.
While I concur in the judgment reached in this opinion, I write to disagree with that part of Division 2 which holds that a deed containing a description by adjoining landowners is presumptively valid and shifts the burden of going forth with the evidence to the party attacking the deed.
As I read the cases, it has long been the rule that a description by adjoining landowners provides a key which opens the door to extrinsic evidence of the location of the property which must be furnished by the propounder to prove that the deed is valid. Fulcher v. Eighth Street Land Co., 237 Ga. 239 (222 SE2d 258) (1976); Phillips v. Wilson, 212 Ga. 54, 57 (90 SE2d 553) (1955); Cross v. Nicholson, 211 Ga. 769, 770 (88 SE2d 390) (1955); Morris v. Beckum, 145 Ga. 562 (89 SE 704) (1916); Glover v. Newsome, 132 Ga. 797 (3) (65 SE 64) (1909).
Under the circumstances of this case, however, there was sufficient extrinsic evidence to show that the house and three acres was the Jack Handy homeplace and thus to support the jury’s verdict that the plaintiffs acquired some interest in Sapelo Island which entitled them to its access. For this reason, I would also affirm the judgment reached in Division 2.