Briel v. Jordan

U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit March 7, 1906

Briel v. Jordan, 27 App. D.C. 202 (D.C. Cir. 1906)

1906 U.S. App. LEXIS 5155

Opinion of the Court

Mr. Chief Justice Shepard

delivered the opinion of the Court:

The court was clearly right in excluding the plaintiff’s .evidence. Whether the justice’s court had jurisdiction in the matter at all, we need not pause to inquire. The party defendant, Nelson Roan, was not ousted. He had never been the tenant *205of the plaintiff, bnt had been, and continued to be, the tenant of the defendant. At most, the proceeding was nothing more than an unwarranted scheme to obtain an attornment to the plaintiff of the defendant’s tenant without her knowledge,— an attornment that was expressly declared to be void by the statute then in force. D. C. Rev. Stat., sec. 683.

The evidence on behalf of the defendant made out a clear case of actual, exclusive, continuous, open, and adverse possession of the premises for more than twenty years, by her and those under whom she claimed, and had the effect to create in her a good and sufficient title. Holtzman v. Douglas, 168 U. S. 278, 284, 42 L. ed. 466, 468, 18 Sup. Ct. Rep. 65; Reid v. Anderson, 13 App. D. C. 30, 36.

This evidence having been undisputed, even in part, there was no error in directing the jury to find for the defendant.

The judgment must be affirmed with costs. Affirmed.

Reference

Full Case Name: BRIEL v. JORDAN
Cited By: 1 case
Status: Published
Syllabus: Ejectment: Adverse Possession; Statute of Limitations; Direction of Verdict by the Court. 1. In an ejectment suit, where the defense is adverse possession for the statutory period, testimony offered by the plaintiff is inadmissible when to the effect that during such period the plaintiff, without knowledge of the defendant, secured a judgment for possession in a justice’s court, against the defendant’s tenant, who thereupon leased the premises from the plaintiff; but it does not appear that any rent was paid under such lease. 2. Actual, exclusive, continuous, open, and adverse possession of land for the statutory period, by one claiming title, and by those under whom he claims, has the effect of creating in such claimant a good and sufficient title. (Following Reid v. Anderson, 13 App. D. C. 30.) 3. Where, in an ejectment suit, the defendant meets the plaintiff’s prima facie case with a complete defense of adverse possession, which the plaintiff in no way contradicts, the trial court properly directs a verdict for the defendant.