Cox v. Heuseman

Citations

• 124 Va. 159
• 97 S.E. 778
• 1919 Va. LEXIS 119

Syllabus

<p>1. Boundaries—Arbitration and Award—Parol Submission and Award—Semble.—It would seem that both the submission to arbitration and the award between the parties as to the location of a disputed boundary line may be by parol j and that any valid award settling the question of the location of the boundary line is, as to that question, a sufficient foundation for -the party prevailing in the arbitration to stand upon in a subsequent action between the same parties involving the title to land. The theory is that the arbitrators do not make new boundaries nor change old ones, but merely determine, as a conclusive fact, the true location of boundaries pre-existent.</p> <p>2. Arbitration and Award—Pa/rol Evidence to Vary Atoará.—In the absence of fraud or other exceptional circumstances, the terms of an award, when reduced to writing, cannot be varied by parol testimony. In the instant case the award in question as soon as made was written out and signed. It allowed defendant a small amount in damages for timber cut and tres- . passes committed and in no way referred to the boundary line in dispute. It was, therefore, error to admit parol evidence to the effect that the award fixed the line in a statutory proceeding between the parties to establish the line.</p> <p>S. Boundaries—Arbitration and Award—Case at Bar.—In the instant case the question was not whether one of the parties to a dispute as to a boundary line at the time of its submission to arbitration agreed in fact to the location of the line as the same is claimed by the other, nor, Indeed, what the arbitrators themselves believed as to the true location, but whether the establishment of the line was a matter embraced in the submission and award. The two questions are vitally different.- The authorities in relation to the effect of a valid award in a boundary dispute, and those in regard to the effect of a verbal admission or agreement by a landowner as to the location of a line, will show that while such an awar