Caruth v. Gillespie

Citations

• 109 Miss. 679
• 68 So. 927

Syllabus

<p>1. Adverse Possession. Presumption. Lost deed or grant. Persons affecteid. State.</p> <p>Where in a suit to confirm title to land, plaintiff claimed.under a patent from the state issued in 1907, after a sale as forfeited tax lands in 1872 and defendant claimed that the state had parted with any title it had, prior to such patent and showed their claim of title under deeds executed in 1884 and 1890, and that all records of conveyance before that had been destroyed by fire in 1882, and showed their peaceable possession for more than thirty years, accompanied by the usual acts of ownership, such as the payment of taxes, that taxes were paid by private owners on the land from 1875, .that the land was not included in any of the lists certified by the state auditor to the chancery clerk as lands held by the state for taxes. In such case a grant to defendant’s predecessors in title will be presumed and the fact that plaintiff claimed under a forfeited tax patent from the state, added nothing to the validity or force of his claim.</p> <p>2. Adverse Possession. Presumption. Lost deed or grant.</p> <p>A grant from the sovereign may be presumed from the long-continued, peaceable possession of real property, accompanied by the usual acts of ownership, even as against the sovereign itself, in such case defective links in the chain of title will be supplied by presumption and the title declared perfect, and such presumption exist independently of the statute of limitations.</p> <p>3. Adverse Possession. Persons affected. State.</p> <p>On questions arising between the sovereign and the citizen, courts will be disposed, if they can, to apply the same rules that the law applies as between the humblest and most unpretentious private citizens.</p>