Court Opinion

ID: 9707347
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 02:09:22.705096+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:41:09.554602
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion
Hunter, J.
I concur with the majority opinion only as regards the result reached in the case at bar, and I do not believe the doctrine of laches should ordinarily be applied to an action to quiet title to realty. Laches is a judicially created defense and should not be employed in derogation of a statutory scheme established by the General Assembly. I believe that the statute of limitations, Ind. Anno. Stat. § 2-602 (1967 Repl.), and the Occupying Claimant’s Statute, Ind. Anno. Stat. §3-1501 (1968 Repl.), establish such a statutory scheme.
The statute of limitations, as applied to this case, bars the appellant from filing an action after twenty years from the accrual of the cause of action. Because of the great desirability and necessity of providing certainty to real estate *683titles, this time period should be shortened only “where the laches are of such a character and under such circumstances as to work an equitable estoppel.” Scherer v. Ingerman (1887), 110 Ind. 428, 433, 11 N. E. 8, rehearing denied, 12 N. E. 304; Williams v. Ketcham (1906), 37 Ind. App. 506, 77 N. E. 285; Hegarty v. Curtis (1950), 121 Ind. App. 74, 95 N. E. 2d 706. I do not believe that the actions of the appellant or its predecessors in title was of such a fraudulent character as would justify an imposition of the doctrine of equitable estoppel under ordinary circumstances. It was for this precise situation that the legislature enacted the occupying claimant’s statute and thereby created a remedy for an occupant of land who under color of title and in good faith had made valuable improvements to the premises. Had the General Assembly intended that the record owner was to be precluded from quieting title or recovering possession to land in a time period shorter than the statute of limitations solely because the occupant had made valuable improvements to the land, the Occupying Claimant’s statute would have so provided. Since the statute only allows the occupant to retain the “value of lasting improvements” made to the premises, it must be presumed that the General Assembly did not intend that the occupant’s making of valuable improvements should constitute an equitable estoppel such as to effect a transfer of title. Rather, I believe that the doctrine of equitable estoppel should require that the conduct of the record owner must ordinarily be such as to cause the occupant to initiate some action that he would not otherwise undertake. In the case at bar, it is evident that the appellee made the improvements, not in reliance on representations or other affirmative actions of the appellant or its predecessors, but rather on a belief, albeit good faith, that he was the owner of the premises.
Were this all that is involved, I would feel compelled to dissent to the majority opinion, but there is an additional factor which in my opinion reshuffles the equities in this case. In 1951, the General Assembly shortened the applicable *684statute of limitations from twenty to ten years, but the amendment provided that as to “causes of action for the recovery of the possession of real estate accrued prior to the effective date of this amendatory act (March 7, 1951), the time in which such actions shall be commenced thereon shall be the same as if this amendatory act had not become law.” Ind. Anno. Stat. § 2-602 (1967 Repl.) Thus, to causes of action which accrued prior to 1951, a twenty year statute of limitations is still applicable. In the case at bar, the cause of action accrued when the appellees took possession of the premises in 1946; in this case, the twenty year statute is applicable. The suit was filed in 1964, eighteen years after the cause of action had accrued. Thus, Ind. Anno. Stat. § 2-602, supra, does not afford the appellees a defense against the appellant’s law suit. The result is that, even though the appellee was in continuous possession of the premises for thirteen years between the amendment of the statute and the commencement of this action, and even though the statute, as amended, only requires a possession of ten years to- bar this type of action, the defense created by the statute is not applicable to the appellee. As inequitable as the situation seems, had the appellee’s possession commenced in 1952, instead of 1946, the present action would be barred, and the appellee would be deemed the lawful owner of the realty. It is the length rather than the brevity of the appellee’s possession which allows him to be ousted from the premises.
While, under ordinary circumstances, I do not believe that the doctrine of equitable estoppel should be imposed to shorten the statute of limitations in questions involving title to real property absent affirmative conduct of a fraudulent character, I can consent to its application in the case at bar as a means to balance all the equities involved in this dispute. If the question were one of shortening the present ten year statute by imposing the doctrine of equitable estoppel, given the factual situation presented by this case, I would dissent.
Note. — Reported in 244 N. E. 2d 644.