Winscott v. Bricken's Ex'r
Winscott v. Bricken's Ex'r
Opinion of the Court
There is much conflicting testimony as to the location of the boundary line between the lands owned by the parties to this action and particularly as to the corner claimed by appellee and known as the stone at letter J on the survey, made part of this record. All the deeds offered as evidence by each party call for stakes at the corners of the surveys made except at one or two points. The boundary of the land described in the petition and which appellees allege includes the land in controversy, calls for a stake as indicating nearly every corner. Where this corner in dispute is located, whether at the letter J on the plat or in the center of the old state road or at some other point, is a question solely for the jury to determine. We are unable to perceive, however, why stakes may not be corners as well as stones, and particularly-when the deeds call for them as such. The jury were very properly told in instruction No. 4, given at the instance of appellee’s counsel, that where the degrees or courses in a deed differ from the natural or artificial objects designating the boundary that the courses, etc., must yield, but in instruction No. 7, asked for by same counsel, the jury are told what is meant by natural or artificial objects and are expressly instructed that neither includes a stake — that is, if stakes were planted as corners and so proven they are not to be regarded as such, or, if gone, the place at which they were planted cannot be shown by proof. One of the witnesses in the present case speaks of a stake called for at a-gate post as a recognized corner now, the place where this stake stood or any other object known as a corner may be shown by testimony for the purpose of fixing the corner or determining the true line of the survey. This was doubtless .the object appellant’s counsel had in view in attempting to locate a corner at this particular point. One mode of ascertaining a lost corner is by running course and distances from a known corner. There is proof conducing to show that the old state road was located in a different place from where it was said to run by appellee’s witnesses. If this be true, the jury might say that the corners or the stakes marked as corners-had been removed. The effect of instruction No. 7 is to refuse to permit the jury in considering the questions involved to
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.