Court Opinion

ID: 9691865
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 15:21:28.737893+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:27.452387
License: Public Domain

ON REHEARING
PER CURIAM.
On application for rehearing, defendant contends that the evidence, even its most favorable interpretation to plaintiffs, did not authorize the trial court’s rendition of judgment for the plaintiffs.
The offered bases of defendant’s contention are two:
(1) That the plaintiffs’ action was barred by the ten-year statute of limitations (Code of Alabama 1940, Recompiled in 1958, Title 7, Sec. 20), and
(2) That the evidence was not sufficient to warrant a finding that plaintiffs, or any of plaintiffs’ remote grantors, or plaintiffs’ immediate grantor, was ever in possession of the subject property.
Defendant’s only claim to title asserted in this court is title by adverse possession.
*447The first answer to both of defendant’s bases (1) and (2), stated above, is that defendant, in his conversations in 1963 with each of the plaintiffs, set out in our original opinion, impliedly admitted in substance that if an abstract of title on subject property was procured and showed that the plaintiffs had a better paper title than defendant, he, the defendant, would abide by the abstract.
The abstract of title was procured and showed that plaintiffs had a better paper title than defendant.
Defendant did not question the correctness of the abstract.
The defendant’s admission in the conversations between him and the plaintiffs, undenied by him, plus his failure to deny the correctness of the abstract of title, warranted a finding that defendant neither had title by adverse possession nor any right to retain possession by reason of the ten-year statute of limitations.
Defendant contends that the testimony of defendant’s above-mentioned implied admission was “patently inadmissible” because the discussion between plaintiffs and defendant about the abstract of title “was at its best, a discussion seeking a compromise of the dispute between them.”
We disagree.
Though a party’s offer of compromise is not provable against him as an implied admission of the weakness of his claim, or of the strength of his adversary’s claim, yet his express statement of a fact or even of his opinion (Strickland v. Davis, 221 Ala. 247, 128 So. 233), including a statement of claim or nonclaim, concerning the existence of a relevant fact, though made during negotiations for compromise, is admissible against him. York v. Chandler, 40 Ala.App. 58, 109 So.2d 921, cert. den. 268 Ala. 700, 109 So.2d 925 (reviewing earlier cases); McElroy, The Law of Evidence in Alabama, 2d Ed., Sec. 188.01(2) (3), Vol. Two, p. 11.
In York v. Chandler, supra, the Court of Appeals said:
“It has also been held that where, in an attempt to arrange a settlement of a controversy without resorting to litigation, statements are made which amount to a tacit admission of liability, or evince a consciousness on the part of the speaker of his liability, such admissions are admissible. See 80 A.L.R., p. 929, and cases there cited.”
We consider as especially applicable here the case of Ford v. Bradford, 212 Ala. 515, 518, 103 So. 549.
In that case, Ford sued Bradford for wrongfully cutting trees on Ford’s land. A dispute existed as to whether Ford or Bradford owned the land on which the trees were cut.
The trial court rejected evidence offered by Ford that after some of the trees on the disputed tract had been cut by Bradford, Ford and Bradford agreed that Bradford “should go ahead and haul the timber which had been cut, and saw it, and give the plaintiff (Ford) one fourth of the lumber.”
We held that the trial court erred in that ruling; in that such offered evidence, in connection with other evidence given by the plaintiff, tended to show plaintiff’s ownership of the trees.
If it be assumed (which we should not) that evidence of the discussions between plaintiffs and the defendant in 1963 about the abstract of title, was “patently inadmissible,” yet that evidence was not objected to by defendant, and having been admitted without objection should be given the same weight it would have been given had it been admissible. Hackmeyer v. Hackmeyer, 268 Ala. 329, 106 So.2d 245; Birmingham Railway & Electric Co. v. Wildman, 119 Ala. 547, 24 So. 548.
The rule that inadmissible evidence, admitted without objection, should be given the same weight as if it had been admis*448sible, applies even when such evidence is inadmissible hearsay. McElroy, Law of Evidence in Alabama, 2d Ed., Vol. 2, Sec. 242.01, pp. 200-201.
The defendant’s statements in the above-referred-to discussions about the abstract of title were not an offer of compromise.
In a civil action, a party’s extrajudicial admission is substantive evidence against him of the existence of the matter admitted; and, generally, a finding of existence of the matter admitted may be based on such admission without any other evidence of the existence of the matter admitted. Waller v. Simpson, 208 Ala. 333, 94 So. 343; Commonwealth Life Ins. Co. v. Harmon, 228 Ala. 377, 153 So. 755; Gray v. Pankey, 211 Ala. 539, 100 So. 880; Shook v. Pate, 50 Ala. 91; McElroy, The Law of Evidence in Alabama, 2d Ed., Vol. 2, Sec. 180.01(4), p. 2.
Speaking further to defendant’s contention that plaintiffs’ action (which was commenced on July 31, 1967) was barred by the ten-year statute of limitations: The record shows that Douglas Kiker testified in substance that he had been living in his present home, which was near the subject property, since 1962, and that from 1962 up until 1967, the defendant was not in possession of the subject property.
This above-mentioned testimony of Douglas Kiker, if true, renders applicable the rule that the ten-year statute of limitations (Title 7, Sec. 20, supra) does not apply unless defendant was in adverse possession during the whole of the ten-year period next preceding the commencement of the action. See Ellis v. Stickney, 353 Ala. 86, 94, 42 So.2d 779; Shorter v. Smith, 56 Ala. 208.
The above-mentioned testimony of defendant’s nonpossession from 1962 to 1967 in connection with other testimony was sufficient to warrant a finding that no one was in actual possession during that period of time; and hence that plaintiffs were in constructive possession during that period of time — in consequence of the rule that if no one is in actual possession of land, the law ascribes possession to him who has paramount legal title. Southern Railway Co. v. Hall, 145 Ala. 224, 226, 41 So. 135, 136; Brunson v. Bailey, 245 Ala. 102, 104, 16 So.2d 9.
Prior constructive possession, based on paramount legal title, is sufficient to authorize recovery in statutory ejectment under a complaint in the form set forth in Title 7, Sec. 223, Form No. 32, Code of Alabama 1940, Recompiled in 1958. Veitch v. Hard, 200 Ala. 77, 80, 75 So. 405.
We come now to defendant’s contention that there was no evidence warranting a finding that plaintiffs, or their remote grantors or plaintiffs’ immediate grantor, were ever in possession of the subject land.
We think the evidence will support the conclusion that the trial court was not plainly and palpably wrong in finding that some of the predecessors in title of plaintiffs, as shown by the abstract, were in actual possession of the land in controversy.
The foregoing opinion was prepared by J. EDGAR BOWRON, Supernumerary Circuit Judge, and was adopted by the Court as its opinion.
Opinion extended and application for rehearing overruled.
SIMPSON, COLEMAN, BLOODWORTH, MADDOX and McCALL, JJ., concur.