David Clark v. Buttonwoods Beach Association

Syllabus

This appeal presented a dispute over whether the plaintiffs owned the entirety of a waterfront lot located directly across the street from their residence. The defendant neighborhood association claimed ownership of a portion of the waterfront lot after the plaintiffs installed no-trespassing signs on the waterfront lot approximately two years after purchasing the land. The plaintiffs initiated this case in Superior Court, claiming that previous owners of the waterfront lot had acquired the entirety of the property through adverse possession and that title to the entire waterfront lot was now vested in the plaintiffs. Their claim was tried before a trial justice, sitting without a jury. After the trial, the trial justice concluded that the plaintiffs had not successfully proven that all of the required elements of adverse possession were met by the previous owners of the disputed property and that the plaintiffs therefore had not established that they owned the entire waterfront lot through adverse possession. The plaintiffs appealed from the final judgment finding in favor of the defendant neighborhood association, arguing that the trial justice misconceived and misconstrued the evidence at trial and erred as a matter of law when he concluded that the plaintiffs had not satisfied the elements for claiming the disputed portion of the waterfront lot property by adverse possession. The Supreme Court held that the trial justice had not misconceived or misconstrued the evidence introduced during trial and that there was no ten-year period of time across the four predecessors in title to the plaintiffs in which all of the required elements of adverse possession had been met. Accordingly, the Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the Superior Court.