Fletcher v. Fuller

Citations

• 120 U.S. 534
• 7 S. Ct. 667
• 30 L. Ed. 759
• 1887 U.S. LEXIS 1999

Syllabus

<p>Defendants in ejectment having produced a regular chain of title under a ■ deed from a graudson of the original owner of a lot in Rhode Island, including the land in controversy, which was executed in 1768 and recorded soon afterwards ifi'the land records -of the town in which it was situated; and having shown-that the ancestors in title paid the taxes on said lot •' for twenty years preceding 1805, and that afterward, up to the trial of the action in 18S2, a period of seventy-seven years, they or their ancestors in title had uninterruptedly paid the taxes on‘the lot; and having shown an' entry.in 1835 by their-ancestor upon the lot under a deed, for the purpose of quarrying a ledge of rock running through it, and the quarrying of the ledge with occasional intervals from 1846 to the commencement of this action in 1874,- a period of twenty-eight years, the said entry being made . with claim of title to the whole lot. Held, in an action brought by the heirs of the devisee of the original proprietor, under a will executed in 1749, and probated in 1756, none of whom had made any claim to the -premises for^three quarters of a century after the death of the original proprietor, under whose will they now assert’title, nor paid-taxes on the property, nor after that time ever taken possession of the premisbs or paid taxes upon them, that the jury might presume a deed to the grandson from the original proprietor, or from his devisee, to quiet the possession of the defendants claiming- under such grandson; and that in making , such presumption the jury wore not to be restricted to consideration of, what they fairly supposed actually occurred, but to what may have occurred, and seéms requisite to quiet title in the posse’ssors. It is sufficient that,.the evidence leads to the conclusion, that the deed might have beep executed, and that its execution would be a solution of difficulties arising from its non-execution.</p> <p>Though a presumption o'f '& deed- may be rebutted by