Ward v. Medley
Ward v. Medley
Opinion of the Court
, By this writ of error plaintiff seeks to reverse an order of the circuit court of Kanawha county refusing a writ of error to a judgment'for defendant, rendered in an action of ejectment by the common pleas court of said county.
J. Brisben Walker, being the owner of a tract of land, laid it off into building lots, streets and alleys, and caused a map thereof to be made and recorded in the clerk’s office of the county court of Kanawha county. He and others then formed a joint stock association, known as the Western Charleston Extension Company, for which he declared he held the title to the property in trust. The map is described as, “The Proposed Addition to the City of Charleston.” ■ Lots 6 and 7 in Block 8 of that map are the lots here involved, defendant owning lot 6 and plaintiff lot 7. Lot 7 was conveyed by said Walker, trustee, to William Thompson in 1873, the deed describing it by the number of the lot and block, as shown by said map, also, as fronting “forty feet on Virginia Avenue and running back one hundred and sixty feet to an alley.” Virginia Avenue has since been renamed Tennessee Avenue. Said Thompson and wife conveyed the lot to Charles Ward in 1874. He has since died, and the title, which descended to his heirs, is now vested in his son Harold M. Ward, the plaintiff.
Two questions of fact were presented to the jury. First, what is the true location of the dividing line between lots 6 and 7; and second, defendant’s claim of adverse possession of lot 6 to the line claimed by him. Plaintiff’s counsel insists that the evidence is conclusive to establish the dividing line between lots 6 and 7 on the location claimed by plaintiff, and that the evidence respecting adversary possession by defendant is not sufficient to support the verdict in his favor. The only evidence plaintiff offered to prove the location of the disputed line is a copy of the Walker map of the proposed addition to the City of Charleston and the testimony of engineers that the width of lot 1 in Block 8 was only thirty feet, whereas the width of the nine remaining lots in that block, fronting on Tennessee Avenue, were each forty feet, as ascertained by applying the scale to the map, and that the line along the front of all the ten lots, ascertained in the same way, was only three hundred and ninety feet. There are eleven lots in that tier of lots in Block 8, but lot 11 lies along Charleston Street and is triangular, having its apex at the intersection of Charleston Street and Tennessee Avenue, and hence adds nothing to the sum total of the width of all the lots. From these facts, thus ascertained, the theory
Plaintiff did not attempt to prove, by any other means, the location of any of the lines dividing the lots, as they were actually made on the ground at the time the land was laid off, if any such lines were then so made. Copies of other maps of the same addition to Charleston, or at least of such parts of it as included the íots in Block 8 and the streets surrounding that block, and other blocks in its vicinity, made from the records of the clerk’s office, were also filed as evidence. From them it appears that all of the lots fronting on Tennessee Avenue, in Block 8, from lot 1 to 10, both inclusive, scale about forty feet in width. No witness has undertaken to say that the street lines, as now located, are exactly where they were represented on the original Walker map to be. On the contrary, there is a good deal of testimony to prove that the property line along Charleston Street has been moved back several feet, by consent of the property owners, since that map was made, in order to make the street wider. George Ort and others acquired title to parts of lots 9, 10 and 11, by deed from Jonathan Edens and wife, in September, 1898. That deed conveyed sixty-five feet off the eastern end of those lots, and describes the closing line as running eighty-seven feet along Virginia Avenue (now Tennessee Avenue) to its junction with Charleston Street. Lot 11 being a triangular lot and having its apex at the junction of Tennessee Avenue and Charleston Street would add nothing to the length of that line, so that, it extends seven feet beyond the dividing line between lots 8 and 9, if lots 9 and 10 have a frontage of only forty feet each, and Charleston Street is located as shown on the map. Mr. Ort testifies that he and his sister erected a three story brick building on the ground conveyed to them, fronting on Charleston Street and extending it back along the property line on Tennessee Avenue a distance of eighty feet. But before1 they built, he says, the sidewalk was only six or seven feet wide on Charleston Street, and they moved their property line back either four or six feet, he does not remember which, and donated that much of their ground
The fence which the surveyor reports as standing on the line between lot 7 and lot 8 is one of the lines for which plaintiff contends, and the other- parallel line of his lot would be forty feet away from it, which would locate it over on lot 6, according to'defendant’s contention. It is proven that the fence has been there for twenty years. It is claimed as a line of lot 8 by Mr. E. A. Myers who now owns that lot. Mr. Myers testified that, some five or six years before the trial of this- action, he wanted to ascertain the exact location of the line between lots 7 and 8, that he wanted to put up a building on his lot and requested Mr. Charles Ward, father of plaintiff and then the owner of lot 7, to come and assist him in locating the line; that Mr. Ward came, bringing a young man with him, and they measured the front of lots 7 and 8 along Tennessee Avenue with a steel tape, and Mr. Ward told him not to build on the line where his fence was and said, “that is not your property. Your property runs up here about six feet,” that is, six feet over on lot 9, as claimed by Mr. Ort. He further states that, after Mr. Ward had taken the measurements, he inade a mark with a pencil on the brick wall of the Ort building, about two or three feet from the corner of it, and said that that was the point to which his (Myers) line came, and that the Ort building had
It not appearing whether the jury rested their verdict on the evidence concerning the boundary line, or on defendant’s evidence of adversary possession, it is necessary to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to justify their finding on the latter as well as the former ground. Defendant did not have his entire lot enclosed by fence for a period of ten years prior to the bringing of this suit. He testified that his tenants have occupied it since he got title in 1901; that there was a fence on the back end of the lot on a line between it and lot 7, which extended thirty or forty feet'toward Tennessee Avenue; that there was an old frame building on the back end of the lot, built close to the fence, which Mrs. Clark occupied by his permission, until he erected a new barn to take its place; that a portion of the lot was fenced and gardened for several years; that after he built the barn he rented it and the lot to his brother who kept horses and wagons on it, using it as a storage place for vehicles and as a place for buying, selling and trading horses; that when his brother left it, he rented it to a telephone company for a storage place for its poles, cross-arms, reels,, etc.; that the telephone company occupied it for two years under an oral lease
Plaintiff also complains of the admission of two certain maps as evidence, on the alleged ground that they were not sufficiently authenticated to entitle them to consideration. It is not necessary to decide this point, for it is apparent that plaintiff was not prejudiced by admitting the maps, even if it was error to admit them. Plaintiff’s counsel practically admits as much in his brief, wherein he says, concerning the maps, that “taken in connection with the deeds in evidence and the testimony of the surveyors, (they) may be
The admission of evidence concerning the location of old fence lines along Charleston Street was proper. It was a circumstance tending to prove that the location of the property line along that street had been moved back from where it was first located. It tends to corroborate witness Órt, and no witness denies that they did move their property line back in order to give more room for a sidewalk.
The order of the circuit court of Kanawha county reffis-' ing a writ of error is affirmed.
Order affirmed.
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